ZTE’s budget phone collection has started to grow in Pakistan, and in a recent batch of smartphone releases, the Blade A35e has been introduced to the local market. This newcomer is even more affordable than the Nubia A36, though it comes with some caveats that you should know about, to get the full picture. This brief overview should help.
The Nubia A36 tried to mimic the iPhone 17 Pro with its horizontal camera bar on the back, and it came really close, from what we could tell. The Blade 35e doesn’t have an original design either, and what you are looking at is probably a base iPhone 17 imitation. But it’s hardly something to complain about for its price.
The screen is a notched IPS panel. It is diagonally measured at 6.52 inches, which is a decent enough size for what you are paying. It’s not the sharpest display in the world with its 580p HD resolution, but you do get a corner-to-corner visor at a 215 PPI pixel density.
The battery on this ZTE budget new mobile is a typical 5000mAh cell that refills at 10W. It’s probably using the same material as the Nubia A36, which the company guarantees to have 800 cycles with maximum health retention. This usually keeps the battery up to snuff for at least 3 years.
This phone may struggle with some tasks, and a sub-entry-class SoC might be the culprit. The chipset A35e uses is a Unisoc SC9863A with a 1.6GHz clock speed and PowerVR GE8322 GPU. It provides eMMC storage speeds to the device, which puts this phone way below today’s norm.
At least ZTE thought of its modest hardware setup and gave the device a light Android 14 Go OS. The built-in 64GB storage is expandable through a microSD card. That should make extra room for pictures and videos taken on the phone’s 8MP back camera and 5MP selfie shooter.
You get a single loudspeaker on the Nubia A35e with a 3.5mm audio port at the bottom. The essentials included on this device are a standard 2.4GHz WiFi card and Bluetooth 5.2. There’s only a single variant in Pakistan, the ZTE Blade A35e (2GB + 64GB), and its official price is Rs 15,999.