The ZTE Axon 9 will eventually succeed the successful ZTE Axon 7/7s this year. With the company CEO basically confirming there won’t be a number 8 in their flagship lineup, it means that ZTE Axon 9 will be the next ZTE torchbearer.

A new set of images has now surfaced that give us a pretty good look at the upcoming premium handset. The images sourced from Weibo show what is an expected design in 2018. The Axon 9 maintains some physical traits of its predecessor including the circular capacitive home button flanked by two other keys. Notably, the front speaker grill has gone missing to be replaced by a back placed speaker. This might disappoint some as the sound quality of the ZTE Axon 7 was top notch.

Dual cameras retain their position and are accompanied by dual lenses at the front this time around. More importantly, the handset might employ the new Synaptics fingerprint reader like the Vivo X20 Plus UD.

Also, the ZTE Axon 9 won’t compromise on firepower if this leak is to believed. It will be armed with the latest Snapdragon 845 SoC and a AMOLED QHD+ display with 2880 x 1440p resolution. Also, the rear camera is rumoured to be a 20MP snapper. The handset is tipped to house 4GB/6GB RAM. Further, in terms of storage 64GB/128GB/256GB options will supposedly be introduced.

The ZTE Axon 7 was announced in 2016 and it launched in mid-year. If ZTE continues that history, then we might see a device around June 2018. Finally, the handset might be priced between $550 and $629.