ZTE has revealed its latest flagship smartphone, the Axon 50 Ultra. Running on the brand’s MyOS 13 based on Android 13, it surprisingly runs on last year’s flagship Qualcomm chipset instead of the latest one, but it makes up for it with a unique feature that has so far only been implemented by Apple and Huawei.
The phone sports a 6.67-inch 1080p AMOLED curved display with a high refresh rate of 144Hz. Unlike its predecessor, it does not have a next-gen under-display camera this time, opting for a more typical punch-hole cutout, but it still has an under-display fingerprint scanner.
While it is technically an upgrade from the Axon 40 Ultra, the new device runs on last year’s Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 SoC instead of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 like other recent flagship smartphones. It is paired with LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 3.1 storage — the configurations for the phone were not announced — along with an in-house security chip for hardware-level encryption.
For connectivity, it supports 5G, NFC, and most excitingly, two-way satellite SMS messaging using the BeiDou satellite for when users are out of network coverage areas. It can also function as a remote control as it has an infrared blaster and for audio, it comes with stereo speakers that support DTS: X Ultra.
On the back, the Axon 50 Ultra features a 64MP main camera, a 50MP ultra-wide, and a 50MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom, as well as an undisclosed selfie snapper. It is powered by a large 5,000mAh battery and supports 80W fast charging, but no mention of wireless charging.
Unconventionally, ZTE unveiled the Axon 50 Ultra without revealing its pricing or availability. For reference, the Axon 40 Ultra was sold for CNY4,998 (~RM3,200) for the base model and was made available globally a few weeks after it was launched in China.
