ZTE Grand X View 4 Review
Made for Everyday basic use
How does one go about using an everyday basic use tablet to get things accomplished around the house? Let's grab the ZTE Grand X View 4 and see how we can achieve day-to-day tasks. ZTE gives us three scenarios as to how we can accomplish this. While exploring what ZTE suggests, I'll also include my use, my perspective, what works, and what doesn't work in my review.
Three Ingenious Ways
ZTE proposes three ingenious ways to use the ZTE Grand X View 4. It allows you to move from the backyard, be on the road, or be at any location. At home, the tablet can be used as a second screen to keep an eye on your calendar, notifications, emails or use as a dedicated video call device.
If you've jumped into the home automation game, you can make the tablet a dedicated device that controls your surroundings. If you have a smart-home security system, you can access the video feed to keep an eye out for things. You can control your lights, media station, TV and a whole slew of other smart-home objects.
The Grand X View 4 can use a SIM card, which allows you to take it on the road, mount it and use it as an infotainment system.
But what if I took this further?
Coming in with an 8″ HD display, it also has a big 4,630mAh battery, Qualcomm QM215 processor, and an almost stock Android operating system that optimizes both the experience and power usage. You get 7-hours of battery on average, up to 7-hours of video viewing using the dual speakers, and up to 7-hours using headphones.
Part of the charm the Grand X View 4 has is a 3.5mm headphone jack and includes Bluetooth 4.2 connectivity, 32GB of onboard storage, and 2GB of memory. Up to 2TB via optional microSD memory cards.
I took the challenge proposed by ZTE; I've installed Zoom, Discord, Twitch, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Keep, YouTube Music and the pre-installed YouTube. I nearly forgot I also have Teams and Netflix installed.
I took it upon me to see if I could use it for my daily meetings, events and entertainment routine. Jumping in and out of Zoom to Teams has allowed me to get work done with colleagues. I've used Discord to keep up with my friends while gaming on the desktop. I've used the tablet to watch YouTube, listen to music and enjoy Netflix.
Google Docs is the equivalent of Microsoft Word, and the same goes for Sheets and Excel. The use case is pretty easy to understand.
Final note Uh-Oh!
There's one BIG CAVEAT; Using ANY Bluetooth devices reduces the ability of the tablet to process information, and everything lags. Streams will stutter, reload, and sound will cut out. Your best bet is to use a corded headset. I believe that having a better processor and more RAM would improve the quality of the product.
Nailing stuff isn't always easy, and ZTE did nail a lot of it. Overall, the ZTE Grand X View 4 works as it's advertised. I hope that in the next iteration of the device ZTE aligns itself to bring this tablet to a complete must-have.
I feel that with a $200 tablet, it should work much better. I've had the pleasure of working with other similarly priced devices that performed better, and for that, I have to give the ZTE Grand X View 4 a 6 out of 10 in this review.
The ZTE Grand X View 4 is available at these retailers: Telus, Rogers, Freedom Mobile.
Find other related tablets here.
