ZTE has launched its latest flagship phones, the ZTE Axon 40 Pro and ZTE Axon 40 Ultra. Surprisingly, no regular Axon 40 was announced.
The two handsets look quite similar to each other with huge curved displays, but it’s the Ultra that is most remarkable thanks to triple cameras and a fully hidden under-display selfie camera on the front for a screen with no notch.
The Ultra has ZTE’s third generation of this under-display technology, and how it works appears to be far more advanced than the awfully primitive effort on Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 3.
Here’s everything you need to know about the ZTE Axon 40 Pro and Axon 40 Ultra.
When will the ZTE Axon 40 Pro and Ultra be released?
ZTE has said the Axon 40 Pro and Axon 40 Ultra are available for pre-sale now in China and will go on general sale on 13 May 2022.
The Axon 40 Pro and Axon 40 Ultra went on sale in China on 13 May and thankfully for a lot of the rest of the world there is an official global version of the higher end Ultra that went on sale in June.
In the UK the Axon 40 Ultra costs £709 for the 8GB RAM/128GB storage model, and £809 for 12GB/256GB. You can buy direct from ZTE.
This is a very competitive price for a phone with top tier 2022 specs. ZTE’s UK site also says it ships to the following countries:
Austria, Belgium, Latvia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Croatia, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Malta, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Denmark, Estonia, Portugal, Finland, Romania, Slovakia, Germany, Slovenia, Greece, Hungary, Sweden, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Singapore, Indonesia, Macao SAR China, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Republic of Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, Ukraine, Japan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Italy, Spain, Poland, South Africa, France, and Australia.
How much will the ZTE Axon 40 Pro and Ultra cost?
ZTE unveiled full Chinese pricing for both phones at the launch event, and they are pretty similar to the previous generation.
Several versions are available with different RAM and storage configurations. We’ve listed the US Dollar and Pound Sterling direct conversions next to the price so you can get an idea of how much the phones would set you back if you fancy importing them.
- ZTE Axon 40 Pro (8GB + 256GB) – ¥2998/$445/£360
- ZTE Axon 40 Pro (12GB + 256GB) – ¥3298/$490/£400
- ZTE Axon 40 Pro (12GB + 512GB) – ¥3798/$565/£460
- ZTE Axon 40 Ultra (8GB + 256GB) – ¥4998/$745/£605
- ZTE Axon 40 Ultra (12GB + 256GB) – ¥5298/$790/£640
- ZTE Axon 40 Ultra (12GB + 512GB) – ¥5798/$860/£700
- ZTE Axon 40 Ultra (16GB + 1TB) – ¥7298/$1085/£880
Check out that crazy 16GB RAM version with 1TB storage! At £880 that’s a lot less than the £1,449 Apple is asking for a 1TB iPhone 13 Pro for you specs watchers out there.
Here’s how the previous Axon generation was priced at launch:
- ZTE Axon 30 5G (8GB+128GB) – £429/$499
- ZTE Axon 30 5G (12GB+256GB) – £519/$599
- ZTE Axon 30 Ultra (8GB+128GB) – £649/$749
- ZTE Axon 30 Ultra (12GB+256GB) – £739/$849
What about the ZTE Axon 40 Pro and Ultra specs and features?
With no regular model, the Axon 40 series goes straight in at ‘Pro’. The Axon 40 Pro is no slouch, with a quad-camera array featuring a 108Mp main sensor. Its punch hole selfie camera is positioned in the centre.
It’s powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 chipset, with a 6.7in AMOLED 1080p screen, up to 144Hz refresh rate and a zippy 360Hz touch sampling rate.
But ZTE has reserved the best specs for the Axon 40 Ultra, which has that nifty under-display selfie camera.
The phone is rocking the top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, a 6.8in AMOLED with 1116p resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. It’s kept going with a large 5,000mAh battery and 65W wired fast charging.
On the back it’s got triple 64Mp cameras, the main and ultrawide both using the Sony IMX787 lenses, while the third is a periscope telephoto with optical image stabilisation (OIS).
Both phones run MyOS 12, ZTE’s flavour of Android 12.
The Axon 40 range will also support the new Snapdragon Sound technology that we’ve seen on Redmi K50, Xiaomi 12, and Vivo iQOO 9 Pro Legend. Joining this will be dtsX Ultra audio, so the speakers should produce some very decent audio.
We won’t have to long to wait to see if the phones live up to the hype, and Tech Advisor an Ultra in its labs right now for a full review. Until then, you can check out our guides to the best phones coming in 2022 and best Chinese phones.