ZTE, the Chinese telecommunications company that’s widely known for their cheap Android smartphones, sent out a tweet yesterday that said: “The countdown has begun! 6 days left until you can have one of the MOST ADVANCED GAMING SMARTPHONES in your hands!” Poor use of capitalization aside, what could they possibly be talking about? Are they going to release a smartphone that’s similar to the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play? That device was famous for two reasons. One, it was the first to have dedicated gaming controls. Two, almost no one bought it because it was freaking awful. Here’s a potentially worse scenario: Similar to how NVIDIA has their own “TegraZone” where you can buy Android games optimized for their chips, will ZTE launch their own app store dedicated for whatever this new smartphone is?
The bigger question here is will ZTE ever shake their image as a budget handset vendor? They’re pretty much in the same boat as Huawei, who at Mobile World Congress showed off a quad core smartphone that’s been delayed again, and again, and again. Both of those companies have yet to show us products that can compete with the likes of Samsung, Nokia, and HTC. That’s possibly why they’re able to offer their products at such rock bottom prices, but still, we’d rather see quality.
Anyway, if you’re really serious about gaming on a smartphone then why are you even considering Android? There are more titles, better titles, on iOS. And hey, if you don’t want an iPhone, then you at least owe it to yourself to either buy an iPod touch or an iPad. With news that there’s going to be a 7.85 inch iPad hitting the market later this year, you may just want to wait for that.
What do you think, which platform is the best for mobile gaming?