Chip Chick Staff
ZTE is expanding their budget smartphone roster today with the Tempo X. Coming exclusively to Boost Mobile, the $80 5″ smartphone is lean on specs (even for the price), but if you’re looking for more Android goodies than usual at this price, the Tempo X might be worth a look.
The Tempo X is built just for the basics with a 5″ 854 x 480 resolution display and a modest 1.1 GHz quad-core processor paired with just 1 GB of RAM — the latter bit virtually guarantees that this phone will only be good for web browsing, email, messaging, and the like. We’re also looking at a 5 MP rear camera, a 2 MP front camera, and a 2,200 mAh battery (removable!) that should last an awfully long time running this hardware. The phone only has 8 GB of internal storage, but there’s a microSD card slot that supports up to 32 GB more.
Up and down, those specs don’t compare all that favorably to the rest of the budget lineup at Boost Mobile right now. The one advantage the ZTE Tempo X definitely has is in software — while most sub-$100 phones on that roster still run on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, the Tempo X gets Android 7.1.1 Nougat. An update to the latest version, the upcoming 8.0 Oreo, probably shouldn’t be expected, but at least you’re getting year-old software instead of two-year-old software.
If you’re happy with Boost Mobile or thinking of switching, you can get the ZTE Tempo X starting today for $80. ZTE also recently brought the ZTE Blade Z Max to MetroPCS, a much more powerful phone sitting at $130.
