ZTE Announces Axon 30 Ultra with Top Tier Features at a Palatable Price

Most smartphones feature one high-megapixel main camera and a handful of less-powerful accessory lenses. But the new ZTE Axon 30 Ultra, available for pre-order on May 27th, packs three 64-megapixel cameras into its hump to provide high quality photos in Portrait, wide-angle, and ultra-wide formats. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Starting at $750, the ZTE Axon 30 Ultra looks like an amazing value. It runs on a SnapDragon 888 5G chip (same as the Galaxy S21), ships with Android 11, supports 65-watt fast charging, works with Wi-Fi 6, and sports a large, 6.67-inch AMOLED curved display with a 144Hz refresh rate. Similarly-spec’d phones, like the OnePlus 9 Pro, cost hundreds of dollars more than the ZTE Axon 30 Ultra.

You can’t have a flagship phone without crazy cameras, and ZTE went big with the Axon 30 Ultra. Its Samsung-styled camera hump features a “Trinity” of 64-megapixel lenses, which can all shoot simultaneously, allowing you to choose between Portrait, wide-angle, or ultra-wide shots after capturing your subject. An 8-megapixel “periscope” lens also gives you the option to capture faraway subjects using 5x optical zoom or 60x digital zoom.

Interestingly, the ZTE Axon 30 Ultra’s ultra-wide and periscope lenses use optical image stabilization to reduce shake and blur in photos or videos. That image stabilization will come in handy if you use the Axon 30 Ultra to shoot crisp 8K 30FPS HDR10 video, an impressive setting that’s supported by ZTE’s built-in filming templates.

While the ZTE Axon 30 Ultra’s specs are very impressive, the phone does not support wireless charging. It also lacks a proper IP water-resistance rating, a major oversight for a device at this price. Still, it looks like a great phone. We’ll just have to see how well it’s cameras work—will a “Trinity” of 64-megapixel lenses lead to good photos?