And I'm surprised they sent him a review unit after he wore socks and sandals to the press event.

Am I the only person who doesn't care about wireless charging?

FINALLY the phone WITH the skin AND WITHOUT the skin

I'm Pawn shop, and this is my rick harrison. I old man here with my work and my hoss, Big son. One thing I've learned after door years - you never know what is gonna come through that 21.

SD-Card expansion is a killer feature for me nowadays. And since I owned a Moto X, I also cannot live without front facing speakers anymore. For me, it's an easy choice.

Just wanted to say that the Axon was recently updated with some teaks on issues people have found; *The notification bell is now optional, just go to All Settings> Notifications > Show on the lock screen > and change it from wallpaper mode to notification mode. *The focus on moving objects for the VIDEO camera has been improved. *While not an update, they announced that the Axon 7 will be receiving Nougat in January (2017) *While not an update, I found a workaround to the camera shortcut. There's an app called QuickCamera (all one word) that was apparently originally designed for the Moto X, but works with the Axon 7. It adds a gesture function to quickly access the camera. Just flip the phone twice and the camera app opens up, ready to take a photo.

Editing/production value going up and up! :D

the front facing speakers win it for me over op3.🙂

I used to be a banker but I lost INTEREST

When are you going to review MKBHD

*insert cringy "coming early" joke*

I’m Rick Harrison, and this is my pawn shop. I work here with my old man and my son, Big Hoss. Everything in here has a story and a price. One thing I’ve learned after 21 years - you never know WHAT is gonna come through that door.

Can the camera record 1080p 60fps video? Also, could you do a Oneplus 3 vs Axon 7 comparison video?

"Hey I totally hated the OnePlus 3 but look, let's like a less good phone because the company sponsored me a trip!" Linus in a nutshell

One of the best reviews to date. Short and to the point. You are not swayed by specs and gave a realistic view on the speakers and camera. Thanks!

I got mine for AUD$355 or about USD$275. I'm really glad you pointed out the capacitive buttons placement being set inward. Something I also noticed that definitely helps ergonomics. It also helps when holding it one handed as you don't have to reach as far either.

did u do the headphone comparison with .flac files or normal mp3 ones

THIS COMMENT IS FOR BRANDON. Brandon, was the shot at 1:49 filmed with an anamorphic lens? It's simply beautiful (coming from another filmmaker) :D

This review just absolutely WOW'd me, not sure if more than usual but its very rare for me to sit through the video just because of how well done the video itself. Not gonna lie, I'm not exactly very interested in the product itself, but MAN everything was SO SO SO well done here. The writing, the b-rolls, JUST EVERYTHING was amazing from start to finish! Love you guys, keep it up!

I'm glad that you said something positive about the capacitive buttons. Most reviews I've seen complain about how close they are and hard to press. Great review!

I have personally just purchased a oneplus 3 and I love it

Linus, can we get a video actually explaining the current state of server storage? Yes you've covered RAID 0,1,5 and 6 very well, but what about the new (Or so I understand it's new) ZFS/BTRFS storage arrays? Can we have a beginning to end server build log with the actual striping of the hard drives and software ZFS, or whatever configuration you recommend. This is something that me and I know other fans of the channel are interested in, since you've showcased several server videos which are very useful and fun to watch, but never actually done a full, beginning to end build log or "tutorial" style of video (Or at least not since these new standards arose). Thanks, and I hope you will take this into consideration, if at the very least in a statement as to your opinion on these new standards.

Quick camera launch you can do it from an fingerprint, you can asign it in fingerprint settings menu, for every finger from 1 to 5(the maximum fingerprint that you can save)

I can understand the pressing a bell to see your notifications thing. I usually take hours just deciding what lockscreen picture to use and after all that just to have it blocked by notifications 100% of the time (bbm users.. anyone?) is really annoying. So I like the bell

Until OnePlus offers expandable storage, they'll never enter my consideration.

Phone reviewers: People aren't watching our reviews. Let's make the title a question

Got mine in June of 2018 and just did battery replacement yesterday and what an improvement over the old 2016 battery. I think my Axon will be usable for another 2 years :D

For better audio hold the Dolby button down from the quick toggle and open Atmos. Click on one of the customs and then click custom again the Eq opens. You can tweak the Eq and turn off the voice enhancers and the other stuff. You can get much louder better sound.

I don't like that the buttons look EXACTLY the same

weird to hear a North American call it Zed T E

I'm so glad they came out with this, I have been wanting a good media consumption device for a long time and every phone I have looked at had some compromise I wasn't willing to make. I can definitely make a little compromise on the camera for great battery life, nice speakers, great screen quality, and fast charging.

Watching your videos from many months....Now I subscribed your channel. Coz this review is awesome...Thank you for clearing my confusion....

review the elephone p9000! fot 200$ it is a flagship killer!

My great grandmother think Linus is a pretty handsome man.

i don't know whether linus or anyone is seeing this but this is a shoutout. Linus reviews phones better than some other dedicated android channels; so these phone reviews need to come out more. We never seen videos about some other polarizing flagships like nexus 6p. Keep 'em comin'

Finally, an unbiased person who presents ZTE as he should have. I own a ZTE and all points raised are accurate and real. Very good review.

Flagship wannabe? more like flagship Harambe.

do video in which you water cool a raspberry pi! Like if you agree

just as an FYI: ZTE has basically fixed the design issue with the "bell" on lock screen in the latest update. you can now have notifications automatically show on the lock screen. go to settings >notifications>show on lock screen and choose notification preferred.

I bought the Oneplus 3 a few days ago since the Axon 7 isn't yet available where I am. I knew for a fact that if I got the Axon, I would be jealous of the Oneplus 3 a little for its speed and software; If I got the Oneplus 3 I would be a little jealous of the larger battery and amazing audio. Can't go wrong either way, both are amazing. I don't regret getting the OP3 at all.

Has Linus ever reply to our comments?

if you care that much about pictures then you might aswell carry a damn dslr or something with you

the new lighting in the main set is amazing, good job brandon

Fantastic review Linus. I went with the OP3 and I'm very happy. I've owned QHD smartphones for the past few years and unless I bring the OP3 pretty close to my face it's difficult to tell the difference in such a small form factor. The single bottom firing speaker is actually pretty good on the OP3 but of course it's no match for front facing stereo speakers. I can live without these things though. I prefer the design of the OP3, better camera and of course the main reason I bought it is developer friendliness. OP3 already has fantastic support from the dev community and OP doesn't void warranty for rooting.

Staying on my OnePlus 3. That Gold Axon7 looks ugly.

great phone on paper but lets be honest, the phone is super ugly.

You can actually fast launch the camera using the fingerprint sensor but obviously you had to use another finger ( i am using my middle finger etc).. you have to go to Settings - Fingerprint - Quick open app.

"Great question... You must be new!" Almost made me spit out my coffee

FIRST!

Linus you should really consider on having an only cell phone reviews channel, there is a lot of people who are really into phones but they don't care on videos about building computers or reviews of graphic cards. And I know your entertained and honest content easily excels guys like MKBHD, people from phone arena, pocketnow or even android authority. I hope you keep this in mind if you read this comment, (but you don't read our comment right?).

Hey Linus, been watching your channel for quite some time now.. I didn't know your also good reviewing mobiles. nice move to increase subs.. Thanks! Keep it up!

yeah, video comes out after I got a one plus 3, but the simple points you touched on at the end helped to keep my mind made up.

Quality from 3.5mm jack is outstanding with hi-end level headphones. DT990 are hard to drive with low voltage sources. I can't find DAC playing similar to this phone.

No one ever mentions how the buttons placement is useful and only complained about it being placed very near to home button... Thanks, Linus.

I would really love to see you review the LG V10, not only because I own one, but because it's easier to compare it to other devices if reviewed by the same person. I know it's not a "latest" model anymore, just wondering why it got looked over?

Just ordered this on amazon, hard choice over op3 but the back placed fingerprint and QHD is what sold it for me, plus a nicer grey colour.

When it comes to the physical design of the phone, I find it amazing how ZTE can do capacity buttons and fron facing speakers but, Samsung, Apple, Motorola can't do it and HTC aren't doing it anymore. Front facing speakers are so good but no one realises it. That's why I'm still using my One M7, because the speakers are better than just about anything out there.

THANK YOU! Thank you for showing the phone without the dbrand skin!

Kind of curious about this phone's audio capabilities during video. My Note 4 did about as good as any of my camcorders would have in a loud environment (any distortion that happened was easily dealt with in freeware--audacity). Hoping this one is comparable because I am long overdue for an upgrade.

I have the Axon 7 Mini. I'm still blown away on how good the speakers sound on the phone.

One of the few Axon 7 review that is not biased. Well done Linus.

yay, almost 3 Million subs! Keep up the great work!

I little less camera quality and no water resistence for HALF the price? Seems to me this phone is far superior to everything else if you consider how cheap it is.

The killer feature for me is this: it supports the LTE Band 20, which most China phones don't. In Europe, a phone without LTE Band 20 is pretty much restricted to 3G outside of big cities, so that's a great thing.

that notification button on the lock screen is what i need, notifications on my lock screen annoy me to no end for some reason :)

After your review of the Oneplus 3 I went and bought one, not regretting it in the slightest.

The battery life is FREAKING AMAZING. Just saying... my LG Watch Urbane lasts over two days with always on screen, and IT DRAINS FASTER THAN MY AXON 7. Dead serious. It is currently 4:12pm, been unplugged since I went to work at 7am. Axon 7 still has 85% left, while my bluetooth linked watch urbane is at 79%. It's unbelievable. I had to drain it all the way to zero the other day and pinch myself just to make sure it wasn't lying. Did I mention I live 30 minutes from work and have a trip tracker using GPS data while driving there and back? Phenomenal battery optimization. Blew my Nexus 6p out of the water.

I would like some more camera reviews please. Last one was amazing

Beautiful device. I'm getting myself one. Just waiting for UK release

The 1440p screen and SD card slot swayed me. I held off on the OnePlus 3 when it launched because of the screen, but now with the ZTE on sale I just bought the ZTE.

Concluding at the end with the op3 comparison was smart

Hoping to see it in Italy as soon as possible . Thanks for your opinion .

Awesome review Linus, added to my already extensive list of informative reviews that brought something new to the table. Came a bit too late for me though, as I already made my decision... xD But still, new info is always a good thing. I was following reviews, launch and overall information on both OnePlus 3 and ZTE Axon 7 for around a month now, pretty lazily at start I must admit. But then, my Xperia Z3 suffered a drop face down with it's touchscreen cracking... and then it became an urgent matter. Not willing to pay the ridiculous albeit justified prices to replace my touchscreen, I decided to order parts and try to repair it at a later date. But as I cannot manage to stay without a smartphone for anything between a month and half a year (the unfortunate span of time that brazilians are supposed to wait for eBay purchases to reach them due to customs and tax delays), I splurged for a OnePlus 3. I was pretty inclined to get a ZTE Axon 7, as microSD expantion is a bit high on my list of needs, plus the front facing speakers is something I really really loved about my Xperia Z3. Some stuff like the horrible audio filtering on OnePlus 3 video capture also seems to be a huge bummer. But I ended up going for OnePlue 3 for a couple of reasons that might not matter much for others: availability (really hard time finding a ZTE Axon 7 to buy in a way it would reach me quickly), and community (OnePlus 3 seems to already be in the works for rooting and custom roms by XDA Developers, and the company has a longer tradition on this). Which is to say, for regular folks not living in Brazil and not wanting to go deep into rooting and mods, it's still a very well balanced choice. I don't particularly care about screens over fullHD for smartphones, I trust OnePlus better to keep software updated, aside from the horrible audio capture the OnePlus camera experience really looks more polished, and that Dash charger might fit better my recharging needs. 6Gb of RAM doesn't seems to add that much to the table, but you know... as I expect this phone to be useable for some years, it might become some minor factor on futureproofing, though I doubt it a bit. Both companies gets a tip of the hat for managing to put such great specs in a 400 bucks device. It really seems to be the year of mid-range prices/phones. If I'm going to be completely honest about it, both Samsung Galaxy 7 Note and the future Nexus phone were also in consideration due to different reasons... despite the difference in price and the unbelievable quality advance of the mid ranges, the Note 7 along with others of the line really have a reason to take the crown. Those low light photos are unbelievably smooth, and the extra stuff with the stylus seems to be really useful this time. Expecting the new Nexus has the same meaning it always had: stock Android, faster updates, and the ability to root and install some really interesting stuff like Copperhead OS. But I can't pay that much for a phone, and I can't wait for Nexus anymore... Anyways, keep making smartphone reviews Linus! Our opinnions will usually align pretty well on the subject, but I always like hearing your input. Thanks!

ive had this phone since early august and i love this phone so much. I highly recommend it. i get 4gLTE with t-mobil in minnesota

I love my Axon! I don't know if your phone is a different size from mine or not, but this phone looks way too big in your hands.. I'm not a big guy by any means.. but this phone looks really large in your hands. Great video! The software isn't too intrusive, or at least as not as much as people think. I just came from a Nexus 6. Unless you absolutely want the one plus, get this phone. It's super impressive!

When you need sleep but Linus posts a video at 2:57 am

Man I miss this style of LTT videos along with their phone reviews

Still rocking an Axon 7 in 2018 and I could probably go another year with this phone, but I just got a Oneplus 5T. Not gonna sell it though, I still like this phone!

Getting used to the button spacing. If I remember where the buttons are, it's actually easier to reach the back button on the left than my ZenFone 2 was. Not as much reaching with short digits. But in the dark, it is a pain to remember where the buttons are since there is zero tactile feedback. But that's about all I have to complain about with this phone. Works great. Camera is good, sans low light.

Check the Display menu, it should have a double press on power button to launch camera shortcut setting

Did anyone else think this was a brilliant, fully comprehensive phone review that covered all bases you'd want to know? LTT got the review game on lock-down. This would make MKBHD quake!

They need to come out with the axon 8. This was my favorite phone ever! Went through two of them because of the faulty shaky camera. Sad really. How is it that this device and the mini have better displays than the pixels?

try doing an after the buzz on this phone linus you will see it has vastly improved

"Kind of derp sometimes" almost spit out coffee. Nice to know someone else uses derp so casually.

Great video Linus! Outstanding! Keep up the good work! From your friend from Burnaby, Tiger! Cheers!

I love your reviews. Great information delivered by an enthusiastic, amicable expert. For me this choice is easy, I've experienced every OnePlus, and the things I kept hoping for never came, until ZTE made this phone. dual front speakers. Everything else is comparable except their speakers, and for the same price, similar battery experiece, and QHD, it is very easy for me. I'm believe the UI will be less satisfactory compared to Oxygen, but frankly, Cyanogen is the best, and Oneplus hasn't been the same since they started using Oxygen. I'm planning on using NOVA launcher anyway. ALSO, you didn't mention their Passport 2.0, 2 years of included warranty, damaged screens, etc. Linus, what is your daily driver?

Finally moving on from the Axon 7! It served me very well.

You said there is no shortcut to the camera but your mistaken, you can use the fingerprint and assign to any app or the camera.

Enjoying my Axon 7. It is nearly-perfect $400 phone. Sure, it is not perfect but it does not have a sky-high price tag either.

I've heard very many complain about very poor reception... That's about the only thing preventing me from buying one

One extra note about the Axon 7 vs the One +3: Axon 7 has full American communications band support (Eg; version, sprint, ATnT, and T-moble) One + 3 Is missing bands for Spring and Verison. (a killer for me as those are the only two I use.)

ur video never suck for me i just skip ad coz i will never get any thing i am far far away ..ur r the best

I've been torn between ordering a OnePlus 3 or an Axon 7 for 2 weeks now. Hopefully the new Nexuses will be awesome and make my decision much much easier.

Great video Linus, which phone is better in your opinion: Op3 or the Axon 7?

Haha your bottom line comparison to the OnePlus 3 is EXACTLY my dilemma right now. Although at the end of the day I think I would prioritize camera performance of the OP3, the better screen and audio of the Axon is tough to miss out on. Not having an SD card slot on the OP3 is kind of unfortunate, but with 64GB internal it should be fine for my use, and if anything the only compromise would be having to dump photos. Whereas if the camera on the Axon is not as good as the OP3 in the first place, there's no way around that.

Every flagship phone seems to have an 820 and 4GB of RAM these days. Is there ever any difference in performance that can't just be chalked up to OS flavor changes?

Thank God I watched other reviews apart from yours. You made a big deal about not being able to assign an app to a particular button to launch it quicker. Yes you can. The fingerprint scanner can be assigned to quick launch a selected app and it can also be used to snap a pic too. Pretty glaring omission from your review.

I'm actually impressed that the phone can drive the 250 ohm cans straight off.

I wish cameras would just have a flat setting for post editing. Please save my shadows and highlights.

I'm getting my Axon 7 next month. I hear mixed reviews about the camera and the MiFavor OS. Can future software updates improve the performance of the camera and its low light capabilities?