ZTE grand S

The ZTE grand S is the first truly flagship phone from the Chinese manufacturer. Boasting a big 5-inch 1080p screen, it promises to be quite a handset - but does it deliver?
The first thing you notice about the Grand S is its screen. That 5-inch display is 443 ppi and matches up nearly exactly with the Huawei and Sony 1080p handsets for sharpness. To be honest, with a screen that size, there really isn't any need for anything sharper, unless you fancy using a smartphone with a magnifying glass.

Inside is a 1.7 GHz Quad-core Qualcomm S4 Pro chip, which sits at the top end of the mobile spectrum. Matched with that is a heavily skinned version of Android Jelly Bean which has a slightly unusual little widget hovering on every screen. You can move the widget around and a single tap on it brings up the Android navigation buttons.
There's also a set of hardware buttons on the bottom which, annoyingly, didn't appear to light up when we tapped them. The phone itself is One X thin at 142 x 69 x 6.9mm and in all honesty feels very similar, but a lot thinner. A large number of finishes are available, from matte black to shiny bright yellow. The top lock button and volume rockers are offset against the coloured back in unburnished metal, which is a nice touch.

On the back of the Grand S is a black shiny plastic slab with a 13-megapixel camera stuck into it. One of the added benefits of having such a high-resolution screen is that looking at photos on it from the smartphone's camera is great. The camera also has some clever effects, including those implemented in video calling. Face recognition and anti-shake are also thrown in.
Rather worryingly, there is only a 1780 mAh battery powering that big 1080p display and the 1.7 GHz S4 chip as well as the LTE modem, so expect this phone not to last hugely long off a charge.