ZTE opens voting for its crowdsourced device, announces Axon 7 Mini
Voting for ZTE's Project CSX is now open, the company announced at the IFA trade show in Berlin on Thursday.
Project Crowd Source X (CSX) is an ambitious initiative from the Chinese phone manufacturer to gather feature ideas and designs from consumers for a device the company will manufacture and sell in 2017.
During the submission phase, upwards of 400 ideas were submitted in the Z-Community forums.
Voting opened Thursday and will close on September 10. Once voting closes, ZTE will review the top 20 submissions. Internal and external judges will then pick and announce the final three ideas on September 12.
Ideas range from a smartphone equipped with a fingerprint sensor that doubles as a trackpad to a smartphone that ships with Ubuntu Touch pre-installed, or if the buyer so chooses, no operating system at all.
Modular phone suggestions similar to what we've seen recently from LG and Lenovo's Motorola division are a common theme in the forums.
You can vote -- as many times as you want -- in the Z-Community forums here.
ZTE also unveiled the Axon 7 Mini at IFA, a less expensive and less equipped version of its $399 Axon 7 smartphone.
Specifications for the Axon 7 Mini include:
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor
- 5.2-inch 1080x1920 AMOLED display
- Android Marshmallow 6.0
- 32GB storage
- 3GB RAM
- Battery: 2,705 mAh battery with Quick Charge 2.0 support
- 16 megapixel rear camera, 8 megapixel front-facing camera
The Axon 7 Mini will begin shipping in Russia, Germany, Spain, Poland, Japan, Australia, India, and Saudi Arabia at the end of September, priced at €299 ($334).
Pricing and availability for the US will be announced closer to the Axon 7 Mini's launch date, currently set for the fourth quarter.