ZTE Reveals New Handset Lineup, Including Quad-Core ZTE Era

By Stephen Schenck | February 27, 2012 2:47 PM

We already knew that ZTE had some big plans for the Mobile World Congress; it seemed like the manufacturer could barely contain its excitement, announcing a few models in the past week leading up to the show. We also knew that the company was planning to lift the curtain on an additional eight devices at the MWC, including both Android and Windows Phone models. Today we finally have a chance to get a look at what ZTE has to offer.

The two most interesting models from ZTE’s new lineup have got to be the quad-core Era (above) and the Windows Phone ZTE Orbit. The Era gets our attention for the hardware it’s got under the hood, while the Orbit is notable as ZTE’s second Windows Phone handset.

With a 4.3-inch qHD display and only 8GB of flash storage, it’s looking likely that the ZTE Era will be among the most affordable of this first wave of Tegra 3-powered smartphones we’re being introduced to. The Ice Cream Sandwich device will be available in Europe and China sometime after June.

ZTE hasn’t made many details on the Orbit available, but from what we do know, it sounds an awful lot like the company’s first Windows Phone device, the ZTE Tania. We know both have a five-megapixel camera and 4GB of flash, but the Orbit gets a slightly-smaller four-inch WVGA screen.

Beyond those models, ZTE had a whole range of additional Android phones to announce. On the low end, we have models like the Kis, with an aging 800MHz processor, paltry 256MB of RAM, and a tiny, low-resolution 3.5-inch HVGA display.

Moving up a little, there’s the Acqua (or Skate Acqua, below), with a slightly-better single-core 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, and a four-inch WVGA screen.

The ZTE PF112 HD could very well be a top-tier phone, but we’re still missing some important details on it. We know it will have a large 4.5-inch 1028×720 display, an eight-megapixel camera, gigabyte of RAM, and arrive with Ice Cream Sandwich. What we don’t know is anything about its processor, though a dual-core chip sounds about right.

Between all these and the other models ZTE recently announced, it looks like the manufacturer will be giving users plenty of options for 2012.