ZTE Blade V review

Its cheap, but is it cheerful?

ZTE Blade V review
Cheap - but at what cost?

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It seems that 5 is a magic number, as the ZTE Blade V matches its nearest rivals with a 5MP sensor. This would seems that there might be some hope, as we have seen some really decent sensors packed into 5MP offerings.

Unfortunately this isn't one of them. Not even close.

There is, however, a front facing camera as well that performs about as well as you might expect, but we'll look at that more closely later. The rear camera does come with a flash, albeit one that we don't feel is all that powerful.

As we said, the 5MP sensor really is a massive let down, and we mean massive. For our test, we were lucky enough to take the ZTE Blade V along to Comic Con. We didn't dress up, but we had fun. Until we got home that is.

ZTE Blade V review

Going through our snaps we noticed something rather obvious, and we were a little shocked given that it's something we think shouldn't occur when you take into account the quad-core chip that is sat inside.

The exhibition room was relatively well lit, yet the sensor struggled speed wise meaning that there were a lot of unusable snaps.

Taking a photo meant that you had to stop and give the sensor time to adjust, which was often a second or two. This problem was also noticeable on the forward facing sensor.

These problems can be disguised to a certain extent by using the Sepia, Negative or Black and White filters.

There are also other features such as being able to fiddle with ISO levels, brightness and exposure, but we feel these are things that are the preserve of more professional photographers who won't be picking up the ZTE Blade V.

ZTE Blade V Review: Camera

The Blade V camera takes an age to focus, leaving many shots unusable

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ZTE Blade V Review: Camera

Photos taken outside are okay, camera is noticeably faster

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ZTE Blade V Review: Camera

Colour reproduction is okay, although there is a definite loss in vibrancy

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ZTE Blade V Review: Camera

Digital zoom performed better than expected, although there is a very obvious blurring of image

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ZTE Blade V Review: Camera

Front facing camera performs well for portraits, when given time to focus

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