Remember when ZTE promised that it would be bringing its Grand S and nubia Z5 phones to the U.S. in October? Well now we've got more details on ZTE's plans, as the company has officially announced the availability of both Android smartphones.
The ZTE Grand S and nubia 5 will be put up for pre-order starting this Saturday, Oct. 5, at Amazon and other unnamed channels. The Grand S will be sold for $399.99, while the nubia 5 will come in with a price tag of $449.99. Both models will be sold unlocked and are compatible with GSM carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile.
Originally introduced at CES 2013 in January, the Grand S features a 5-inch 1080p display and 2-megapixel camera on its face, as well as a 13-megapixel shooter on its backside. Buried inside the phone is a 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 16GB storage, 2GB RAM and a 1780mAh battery that provides the juice for the whole package. The Grand S will come preloaded with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.
The nubia 5 sports many of the same features as its Grand S sibling, including a 5-inch 1080p display, 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 16GB storage and 2GB RAM. There's also a 2-megapixel front-facing camera and 13-megapixel rear shooter on the nubia Z5, though the latter of the two comes with a Konica-Minolta-branded lens. Rounding out the nubia 5's spec sheet is a 2300mAh battery and Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean.
Typically when we see new ZTE hardware in the States, it hits shelves as a carrier-branded piece of kit that sometimes might not even say "ZTE" anywhere on it. It's nice to see ZTE changing that by bringing some of its higher-end smartphones to the U.S., and while some of the features of the Grand S and nubia 5 may not be as bleeding edge now as they were when the phones first debuted, both devices still seem like respectable options for their prices.
