Mysterious ZTE Smartphone running Android 8.1 Oreo receives WiFi certification

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ZTE is a company that flies under the radar for many Android enthusiasts, but they’re actually one of the largest smartphone device makers in the world. Based in China, the company offers a few devices that our readers might have heard of: the Axon 7 and more recently the Axon M. The Axon 7 was a fan-favorite device thanks to its flagship-tier specifications at a competitive price, and it still has a strong development community on our forum. The Axon M, on the other hand, is an oddball: a foldable, dual-screen smartphone that actually kind of works.

While the Axon M is more an experiment that is building a foundation towards a future of smartphones with truly bendable displays, its radical design differences have been off-putting for many Axon 7 owners. Thankfully, the company has already confirmed that they are working on a proper Axon 7 successor, and while what we just discovered may not be it, we at least know that a new ZTE flagship is definitely on the way.

According to a new filing with the WiFi Alliance, a new ZTE device running Android 8.1 Oreo has just been certified. The model number is Z2321U and it is listed as a smartphone with LTE capabilities, though unfortunately no other information is available at this time. This device hasn’t shown up on my searches through TENAA, the FCC, or the Bluetooth certification pages, so we’ll have to wait for more details to emerge.

Still, the fact that this newly certified device is running Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box suggests that this is indeed a new ZTE 2018 flagship device. Whether or not it’s the promise Axon 7 successor, presumably the Axon 8, is up in the air. What’s also interesting is that this may be the first non-Google Android device running the Oreo Maintenance Release—if it releases soon, that is.