ZTE To Build Phone Based Largely On Customer Input, Opinions Welcome

Customer feedback has always been a part of how companies conduct their business as it helps them build better products. However, ZTE is takings things to the next level with its plan to build a smartphone by taking the input of customers substantially into consideration. Will this lead to the ultimate smart device or will it just be a smorgasbord of random features roughly clumped together?

Codenamed “Project CSX,” ZTE aims to create a new kind of smartphone using suggestions from customers through the company’s online forum. Of course, the internet can get incredibly rowdy and unreasonable, which is why the company imposed some conditions to stop things from getting too out of hand, TechRadar reports.

For example, the suggestions need to be doable with technology that can be applied by 2017. The suggestions should also add to the brand that ZTE has made, which is affordable smartphones. So inputs that are too expensive and too impractical to apply will be ignored.

ZTE is also offering cash incentives to those who made suggestions that end up in the smartphone, which should only add to the frenzy of two-cents that will inevitably flood the forum. Some ideas are already being considered for the “CSX,” but they are pretty standard, including removable batteries and even support for dual Sim cards.

Aside from the few tidbits that have been released so far, much of the project is unknown, which only adds to its appeal, The Verge notes. Although it’s been suggested by ZTE that the “CSX” is going to be an entirely new smartphone “from start to finish,” there’s no telling how much will come from user input and how much is already pre-built.

The whole campaign could even be one giant marketing scheme, which could turn out to be nothing. There’s simply not enough information right now.