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ZTE's ZMax has a mini prepaid price (pictures)

T-Mobile's ZTE ZMax may have a big 5.7-inch touchscreen, but its off-contract price is affordably small.

Lynn La
Lynn La covers mobile reviews and news. She previously wrote for The Sacramento Bee, Macworld and The Global Post.
Lynn La
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1 of 8 Josh Miller/CNET

The ZTE ZMax for T-Mobile

Available on T-Mobile for $252 (or $10.50 per month for 24 months), the ZTE ZMax is a 5.7-inch phablet that's equipped with a Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor, 8-megapixel camera, and Android 4.4.2.

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2 of 8 Josh Miller/CNET

Heavy in your hand

Measuring 6.4 inches tall, 3.3 inches wide and 0.35 inches thick, the ZMax is a large device that can be unwieldy to use. And because its back side is completely flat, it doesn't fit the contours of your palm and is uncomfortable to hold.

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3 of 8 Josh Miller/CNET

The view from up top

On the left edge are a volume rocker and a microSD card slot that's expandable up to 32GB. Up top is a 3.5mm headphone jack and the right edge houses the SIM card and sleep/power button.

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A 5.7-inch, 720p touchscreen

The 5.7-inch display has a 1,280x720-pixel resolution with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Though 1080p displays look great on handsets this size, a 720p resolution is pretty standard for mid-range phablet.

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Solid mid-range hardware specs

The phone is powered by a quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor and a 3,400mAh battery, which has a reported talk time of up to 14 hours.

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No NFC inside

Additional features include 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal memory, and the option to add up to 32GB of expandable storage. Surprisingly, the ZMax does not have NFC.

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7 of 8 Josh Miller/CNET

Running Android 4.4.2 KitKat

The ZMax runs a lightly skinned version of Android 4.4.2 KitKat. In addition to the search and voice assistant Google Now (which you can access by long pressing the center home softkey), expect your usual package of useful Google apps like the Chrome browser, Drive and Gmail.

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An 8-megapixel camera on the back

Photo features and tools for both the device's cameras include grid lines, a timer, geo-tagging, a 4x digital zoom, time-lapse videos and being able to take pictures while recording. The 8-megapixel rear-facing camera also has 18 different shooting modes, nine Instagram-esque filters and nine picture sizes.

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