ZTE Corp., a multi-national organization based in China, has announced a new smartphone called Grand X Plus.
What makes this new smartphone special is that it was designed in Canada at the company (Zhongxing Telecommunication Equipment Corporation) Ottawa-based R&D Centre.
With the Grand X Plus, ZTE is going against the curve by not designing it its home base of China. The company is based in Shenzhen, China.
Denson Xu, CEO of ZTE Canada, said the Grand X Plus represents a big achievement for ZTE, it’s the first smartphone designed by Canadians for Canadians.
ZTE Canada’s Denson Wu with Toronto Maple Leafs alternate Captain Joffrey Lupul at launch Grand X Plus event
Opened in June, the ZTE Canadian R&D Centre is the company’s 19th worldwide and their first in Canada. The ZTE Ottawa R&D centre focuses on innovation, certification, mobile security, and hardware and IC design.
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This announcement is not the first time ZTE has worked in Canada. One of ZTE’s first partnerships outside of its home base of China was Telus. And, just last year ZTE inked a distribution partnership with Ingram Micro Canada of Mississauga, Ont.
The ZTE Grand X Plus features include:
- 5.0-inch HD display and Dolby sound;
- 8 mega-pixel main camera that can record videos in 1080p HD with the 8MP rear camera and LED flash;
- Android 4.4 KitKat;
- 4G LTE and 1.2 GHz quad-core processor from Qualcomm;
- 2300mAh battery that provides up to eight hours of talk time and 300 hours of standby time; and
- 2 GB of RAM, 8 GB of internal storage and microSDHC support for up to 32 GB.
ZTE made some headway in the marketplace in Canada by offering unlocked smartphones. Unlocked smartphone are not that easy to obtain for customers in Canada or the U.S. ZTE’s Nubia 5S began to get noticed by people searching for quality unlocked smartphones. The Nubia 5S comes with 2GB of RAM, 16 GB of expandable memory, a 13-mega pixel camera and runs a quad-core Snapdragon processor. ZTE priced the Nubia 5S at $280.
The ZTE Grand X Plus is available for $200 with no contract.
Generally no one notices where a product is made. Everyone assumes in China, Taiwan or somewhere else in Asia. No one will notice this phone either unless they put a big stick on the box, in ads, and on display saying “Designed in Canada”.