Bought this phone for a relative visiting from overseas. All other stores were selling for $79. Bought it for $39 from Aus Post. Came home bought a unlock code from ebay for $2.99 and bingo. A Unlocked phone is ready to be used with any sim for $41.99
Might be useful for some
Thanks
Mod: Please review if not valid
No seller can unlock my Telstra ZTE Blade A475. :(
Here's two sellers that say they can:
I've tried them.
New message from: kevinlow82
Hi there,
We are not able to provide any unlock code for your imei as it is not found in the database.
Understand your frustration as have had same problem with an Alcatel Pop 4 5" Optus prepaid phone that I tried many times with no luck ( without turning to Optus of course ).
Think Reveen is trying to help you though, so a little appreciation towards him/her would be nice :-)
@ozhunter68: Here's a hint - Telcos usually say you have to wait a year before you can unlock the phone for free, but if you tell them you're going overseas and need to use it as an emergency phone, they'll usually unlock it for you anyway. Pick a country where they don't provide global roaming, otherwise they might just try to sell you a global roaming package.
Probably helps if you actually have an account with that company. I've never tried it without already having an active SIM card with that service provider, so maybe I was just lucky, but it's worth a try.
@ozhunter68: I requested unlock code politely twice with Alcatel Support providing IMEI and got lucky the second time. Received unlock code within two business day. YMMV.
@MingMerciless: Thanks for both your replies. Did read that ages ago when they were on special half price last year but heard it had mixed results and Optus stopped unlocking for O/S trips ( unless you have one or more decent current accounts with them ), as well as Alcatel support stopped unlocking them possibly told by Optus.
Worth another try now well over eight months old or more.
@ozhunter68: After eight months I reckon you'll be fine as long as you're nice to them. The one year thing is mostly to stop people from buying $25 burner phones and signing them up with prepaid SIM cards from other telcos.
Hope you have a good result soon!
BTW I've been using the Alcatel 4.5 Pixi 3 4.5" for more than a year, bought it for $29.95 and unlocking cost $1.50. I wanted to get the 5" Pop when it was on special, but nobody could unlock it back then so I didn't bother. Unfortunately Alcatel have a lot of crapware pre-loaded on their mobiles, so even though I was able to root the phone fairly easily, the stupid thing over-writes some of the Android applications and settings every time you restart it. Turns out there's a hidden "custpack" partition (I assume it means customer package) which copies itself to your system partition every time you restart, over-writing any changes you made. To turn off the pre-installed apps and stop them re-installing themselves, you either need to connect your mobile to a computer then use ADB to delete the offending apps manually, or install a custom recovery such as TWRP, which has basic file management built in allowing you to delete them.
It's an odd beast, I have a lot of control in some areas but none in others. I couldn't get any custom ROMs working because for some weird reason Australia gets completely different firmware and hardware to the rest of the world, so while the ROMs worked beautifully in almost every way (faster, more responsive, none of the lag the built-in system suffered from) I couldn't make a phone call because the speakers didn't work! So frustrating. I've read somebody found a way to fix it a few months ago by copying a few files from the hidden custpack to the new ROM's System partition, but haven't had time to experiment. I assume the 5" Pop would be similar. Great hardware crippled by deliberately broken software. The phone was almost unusable out of the box, but after I deleted all the crapware, my phone was nearly as fast as my wife's Galaxy S3. Made an enormous difference.
@greenie4242: I tried this today but got nowhere as it was a foreigner reading a script. I assume it was a local who waived the unlock fee for you?
@Reveen: That's a shame :( Best I can suggest is keep trying? Try calling in non-peak periods also, as there's more chance of your call being picked up locally rather than sent to a call centre overseas. It really is luck of the draw who you get and what they can do for you.
Pretty sure that telstra releases unlock codes for free after one year
It hasn't been a year yet.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ZTE-UNLOCK-CODE-SERVICE-ZTE-Blade…
heres the link if anyone need one. I have bought around 4 unlock codes from this seller. Very reliable
how good is the phone? does it lag?
If your just want a smartphone with an up-to-date OS then it's good as an "I need a phone now" option. But I honestly wouldn't get it at this price because I've had this phone since early November last year for around the same price. $49 was the regular price (never saw it at $79 up until recently!) and it was actually less than $30 at Coles last year.
I broke my older, larger ZTE Fit Smart bought for the same price and this phone was a step down in most features (except the OS and stability). The screen is smaller but the battery is proportionally too small (at 1600 mAh). It drains very quickly but the benefit is that it charges quicker than my old ZTE Fit Smart (so good if you carry a huge battery back it's an advantage).
The worst feature by far is that once the screen has the tiniest amount of moisture (i.e. all the time) it's impossible to type. You press a letter and another letter 3 spaces away gets triggered. I have to use Swype mode or it's literally impossible for my fat fingers to use this phone. The speakers are also a step down from larger super-budget phones I've had.
The memory gets full very, very quickly so you'll have to empty Google Chrome's cache every week if you use your phone a lot. I never bothered rooting this phone.
Wi-fi and 4g speed on Optus network are both fine.
And yes, the phone definitely lags.
once the screen has the tiniest amount of moisture (i.e. all the time) it's impossible to type
Yes this was annoying on the Fit Smart!
For me, the phone wasn't my main device, and yet it was handy to have access to my email or Twitter when I needed it. WiFi hotspot also worked perfectly, so I could use my laptop or tablet on the go.
A decent tempered glass screen protector makes all the difference with these small cheap screens.
Have improved an older Optus ZTE Fit's screen and many others with good success.
I need a cheap (but reliable) phone for my daughter and am considering this one. Reviews are mixed with some saying poor battery, lags, small keypad difficult to use with texting and limited storage. It's obviously a cheap phone, but just need it to be reliable enough to make phone calls and some texts.
If you don't mind Telstra network you can ask on OzBargain for reviews on Telstra (ZTE) 4GX Plus (e.g. $69 at Officeworks): https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/telstra-4g….
From the reviews I read it sounds like it has similar issues (as ebenezer pointed out, it could be a budget ZTE thing!) but the extra inch probably improves the keyboard usability. Those $20 dumb-phones with hard-keyboards are probably the safest bet.
Would this phone handle basic torrent duties (serious question)?
you thinking raspberry pi?
Yeah, I've not had an adroid unit since gingerbread but figured a handset may be powerful enough to torrent via wifi and use less power than a pi, built in screen etc..
so you mean just to control and display the pi? you'd still need the pi though wouldn't you? (sorry for noob question, I've only just started thinking about all this pi business)
@CVonC: You may be correct, but the hope was there'd be a torrent client on android market and I could just do some light torrenting on the handset itself.
Use utorrent
I've never had a torrenting issue with any budget phone (back to Gingerbread) but torrenting was usually a one-off. Although I've had this phone since last year I don't recall torrenting on it. My older ZTE Fit Smart (larger but from the same target market) worked fine the few times I tried it. But that phone used to get constant heat warning messages from sitting next to me in the car so I suppose they're not the best workhorses.
You reckon it may handle light torrenting duties? Does it have AC wifi?
I haven't tried but I reckon. I'm sorry I don't have the space for a meaningful test! You'll have to root your phone to use ext SD considering today's average file sizes.
It's not ac wifi and it won't even see 5 GHz hot-spots.
@peterpeterpumpkin: 'It's not ac wifi and it won't even see 5 GHz hot-spots.' Aha, that kills it, thanks.
http://www.ztemobiles.com.au/ZIP.htm
My brother had a similar phone I got on Sale from Officeworks. 4.4 android though. Its ok gets the job done.
Almost as shit as the Alco-tel pixi 4.5 4G. Got mine for $29 incl a $20 GP voucher.
Not bad for a $9 phone. BandWagon28 capable also.
Great deal there for $29 including a $20 GP voucher ( whatever that is ?? ).
I bought a few of these for $39 and $29 too on 1/2 price sale and clearance from Post Office as I knew after buying and using the first one it was a cheap and easy ebay unlock and although entry level specs it runs slow but stable with full band support.
The 4.5" screen would be more usable than this ZTE Zip 4" screen I imagine, especially after applying a tempered screen protector.
I use it as a 4g hotspot mainly. The screen is so shit, you press a 4 on the keypad and it registers a 7. Best I can do is enable/disable the hotspot feature.
GP = Google Play
It's cheap for a reason :)
Ah, thanks. Google Play credit, $20 is worth at least as good as $16 cash then. Got to be happy with that as a hotspot backup.
As I had other better phones, that was my main use too. After initial bad touch input, was much improved with a decent glass protector ( what you need to do to most under $200 android phones to make them usable efficiently without driving you nuts ). The best model was the one from Optus with QC/1GB ram/8GB rom/running Android 5.0
Good gifts for friends in other countries.
Straightforward process to root these units?
In cyanogen mod style ROMs still around?
ZTE is one of most easiest phone to unlock with a code from eBay.