The Axon 30 with Under Display Camera: Hands-on Mini-Review
by Andrei Frumusanu on September 3, 2021 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- ZTE
- Axon 30
Battery Life - A Horrible Downgrade
With a 4200mAh battery, the Axon 30 has around 8% less capacity than the Axon 30 Ultra. The Snapdragon 870 is more power efficient than the newer Snapdragon 888 in our testing, so what that leaves out in terms of unknowns is the display panel from Visionox.
Unfortunately, in our web test at 120Hz, the Axon 30 falls face flat with one of the worst results of any device we’ve tested recently. The reason for this is I suspect the display panel. At 120Hz, the phone has a baseline black screen power consumption of around 800mW, and at 60Hz it’s still an abysmal 695mW, far above the norm of any other phone.
I don’t have confirmation on which DDIC vendor ZTE and Visionox are using here, but the behaviour here reminds me of the horrible power consumption characteristics of LG and BOE screens of the past.
The more SoC and CPU bound PCMark tests allows the Axon 30 to narrow the gap a little more as the display plays a smaller percentage of power used, and while adequate, it’s still quite behind the Axon 30 Ultra and other competing devices.
Generally, the battery life here is very likely tied to the choice of display panel provider as we’ve seen this story repeated quite a lot over the years as third-party OLED vendors besides Samsung Display struggle to achieve power efficient panels and DDIC solutions.
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Sharken03 - Tuesday, September 7, 2021 - link
I am certainly going to have UDC on my list for the next phone, so i think you underestimate the interest for this feature.It is the end goal for displays to not show anything but the display and it's getting better each day.
Spunjji - Tuesday, September 7, 2021 - link
They can do that just find by having the camera above the display... then you don't have to have a crap camera.nicmonson - Friday, September 3, 2021 - link
Andrei,Deiter at the Verge hated the under display camera more because of the shimmering it caused on the screen than anything else (see his Fold 3 review). He would have wished just to have a black hole as it tends not to distract.
Do you Andrei find it annoying too? Would you rather just have a black hole if they both magically had the same image quality? Is it any better or worse than the Samsung implementation? Never seen one my self so I am curious about your experience.
Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, September 3, 2021 - link
He's talking about the very low pixel density Fold3 UDC, which has a very different design than the one here. There's no shimmering or anything annoying here beyond noticing that the area is a little brighter.sabot00 - Friday, September 3, 2021 - link
Andrei,Your quite positive Axon 30 Ultra review came out a bit after the July Android Phone recommendation article. Would the Axon 30 Ultra place on that list? I'm thinking specifically about the US and I'm on t-mobile (I heard Verizon is not supported).
Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, September 3, 2021 - link
While that phone was generally positive, I wouldn't recommend it in the guide over an S21/S21+ or even S20+.** A - R ** - Saturday, September 4, 2021 - link
Andrei,I reside in Qatar, & here We have Exynos2100 S21s.
As of now Samsung UAE has officially recalled all the S20 FE Exynos 990 (SM-G780F). Now We Officially have S20 FE 5G & 4G both are SD865, models are SM-G781B & SM-G780G respectively. Our CSC/Product Code is XSG.
My colleague is asking Me to suggest one as an Overall great package in sustained performance of the phone. Which one will be a better choice S21 (E2100) or S21 (E2100) or S20 FE 5G or 4G ? And is there any difference in samsung's ufs 3.1 paired with lpddr5 (uMCP) in 128GB ROM vs 256GB ROM ? as I read itbon their semiconductor site for 128 850MB/s writes & 256/512 1200MB/s.
And personally I'd like to know Andrei, that, what is the Actaul difference between the SM-G781B & SM-G780G ?
What has Samsung done in reality, as I remember Qualcomm mandated 5G Modem with SD865. Now did samsung added it in the g780g with giving no Command via Software or did they entirely removed Qualcomm 5G modem & put their's (Exynos Modem) ?
1az2sx - Sunday, September 5, 2021 - link
Hello Andrey! I'm impressed with the work you've done! And you couldn't pass the Pixel 5 vs. Pixel 4a camera test. Does this image processing chip, which is in the Pixel5, and which is not in the Pixel 4a, do anything.eastcoast_pete - Sunday, September 5, 2021 - link
I am probably the odd one out here, but why not make the selfie cam a (small, maybe 1.5-2 mm) hump that extrudes from the screen, instead of a notch. Having the front camera in a notch also limits what kind of lens setup one can have over that sensor (one does need at least a little distance for those lens elements to work), so, if selfies are really that important, why not owning up to it. Plus, no more notch!Calin - Monday, September 6, 2021 - link
The macro camera is my most used.The camera in the current phone is leaps and bounds above the camera in the previous phone, and yet I prefer to use (and prepare) a 10+ years old DSLR.
However, the macro camera sees a lot of use as a magnifying glass for all that otherwise impossible to read smallprint on basically anything in brick-and-mortar shops.