Smartphone specs are gradually creeping upwards year-by-year, but ZTE’s next flagship seems to have skipped a few iterations.
A leaked spec sheet for the upcoming ZTE Nubia Z9 reveals curious component choices. And by curious, we mean utterly bewildering.
For starters, the Nubia NX508J model listed on TENAA – as first spotted by GizmoChina – shows a device using 8GB of RAM.
Most current flagship handsets use 3GB of RAM, and we’ve seen a spattering of 4GB units; 8GB of memory on a smartphone is frankly unheard of.
It’s an odd choice, because that degree of memory is something you’d expect to see on a notebook or a low-end computer, rather than a handset.
RAM is the memory your phone uses for temporal and immediate tasks i.e. running Crossy Road. That’s in contrast to a phone’s main storage module, which is used for long-term holding of files – photos of your cat, for instance.
We’d find it hard to argue the case for 8GB of RAM on a phone; you’ll never be multi-tasking to the point where that amount of spare memory is necessary.
Related: Best Android Smartphones 2015
Moving on, then.
Most smartphones tend to top out at around 2.5GHz clock speeds, so we’re unsure why ZTE feels the need to make use of such a high rate.
What’s more, it uses eight cores. That’s not unusual, but most apps can’t even make use of four processor cores. So a 3.5GHz octa-core chip is pretty absurd for a smartphone that generally requires minimal computing heft.
Fortunately, the rest of the spec sheet is par for the flagship course. We’re looking at a 5.15-inch display, 32GB of storage, a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera, and an 8-megapixel front-facing shooter.
It looks set to run on Android 5.0 Lollipop OS, comes packing a 3,000mAh battery, and will offer 4G/LTE network support.
The device is expected to be unveiled on May 6, so it’ll be interesting to see what ZTE has in store for us.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
