ZTE Axon 30S presented with a notch-free display and Android 12 at an affordable price

ZTE has unveiled the Axon 30S in China, a few months after the global releases of the Axon 40 Pro and the Axon 40 Ultra. While the Axon 30S sits within an older generation of ZTE smartphones, it shares a few features with the Axon 40 Pro and the Axon 40 Ultra. However, the Axon 30S also appears to be a re-branded Axon 30 5G.

Specifically, the Axon 30S has a 6.92-inch AMOLED display that operates at 120 Hz and 1080p. Like the Axon 30 5G, the Axon 30S measures 170.2 x 77.8 x 7.8 mm and weighs 189 g. Similarly, the Axon 30S retains its predecessor's 4,200 mAh battery, albeit with 55 W fast charging support rather than 65 W. Moreover, the Axon 30 5G and Axon 30S have identical cameras, with a 64 MP primary sensor complemented by 8 MP ultra-wide, 5 MP macro, 2 MP depth of field and 16 MP front-facing cameras. As ZTE's marketing images highlight, the latter is an under-display camera (UDC) too.

Besides dropping the charging wattage by 10 W, ZTE has pre-loaded MyOS 12 based on Android 12 instead of MyOS 11, as well as axing the 6 GB of RAM/128 GB of storage and 8 GB of RAM/256 GB of storage options in which it offered the Axon 30 5G. As a result, the Axon 30S starts at CNY 1,698 (~US$238) with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage and rises to CNY 2,198 (~US$308) with 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. Although ZTE sells the Axon 30S in three colours, all configurations ship with the older Snapdragon 870 chipset. ZTE has not confirmed whether it intends to launch the Axon 30S globally yet.

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