You’re probably looking at it and wondering why ZTE chose to go for such an iPhoneish design, but that’s really not that surprising since many big and small Chinese brands have similar designs (including Lenovo, with its S90 mid-range phone).

Solid specs and impressive cameras

Looks aside, the phone sports a fairly good spec. It is powered by a Qualcomm 615 processor, which has eight Cortex-A53 cores clocked at up to 1.7GHz, with Adreno 405 graphics. In addition, you also get 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, expandable via a microSD slot.

The 5-inch IPS display is a 720p affair, which is to be expected on this sort of device. At the back you’ll find a 13-megapixel f/2.0 camera with a Sony sensor, and at the front there’s a 5-megapixel selfie cam with an 80-degree wide angle lens. This is not bad for a mid-range phone.

In terms of connectivity, the ZTE Blade S6 supports LTE networks in Europe and Asia, but not in the US. The phone also has 802.11ac wireless and Bluetooth 4.0. There's even an FM radio on board.

Lollipop on board

What makes the ZTE Blade S6 really stand out from the rest of the field is the OS, as it ships with Android 5.0 Lollipop. ZTE did implement a few minor UI tweaks and dispensed with the app drawer in the process, but you can always use a third-party launcher in case you need it.

Don’t let looks fool you. The silver body is plastic, not metal, but it’s a unibody-style design, with an integrated 2400mAh battery and two nano SIM slots on the side (one of which doubles as a microSD slot). A pink colour option should be available as well, but sadly there’s no black of white versions. The device measures 144x70.7x7.7mm and weighs 134g.

Although the phone is not meant to be directly marketed in Europe, a few merchants are shipping it. The official MSRP is $249, so depending on the exchange rate, European consumers are looking at about €220-€225. In case you are worried about customs and shipping, you can get the phone from Chinese resellers like Gearbest, from their EU warehouses.