ZTE Blade V8 Pro smartphone now shipping in the U.S.

Announced at CES just a few weeks ago, the ZTE Blade V8 Pro is now shipping to customers that placed a preorder. The phone is also now available on ZTE’s website and other online retailers for $229.98 USD.

The mid-range phone seems fairly capable for the price. It’s sporting a Snapdragon 625, 3 GB of RAM, a 5.5-inch 1080p display, and 32 GB of expandable storage. Powering everything is a 3140 mAh battery with support for Quickcharge 2.0. Other specs are not extraordinary for modern smartphones:

• USB 2.0 Type-C
• Headphone jack
• Bluetooth 4.2
• 802.11ac WiFi

Perhaps the most interesting piece of the Blade V8 Pro is its dual-lens camera setup. Both rear-facing cameras are 13 MP and support 4K video recording. They also allow for a lot of control over depth of field. ZTE says that the cameras can be used to create a “Bokeh effect” in which the subject of an image is clear and the background is highly blurred, making for an artistically interesting shot.

All said, the V8 Pro looks fairly similar to ZTE’s crowdfunded “Hawkeye” phone (at least spec-wise). It’ll be interesting to see if ZTE is able to market both phones effectively or if the devices will get lost in the massive crowd that is the mid-range phone market.

The ZTE Blade V8 Pro can be purchased from ZTE’s site.

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