T-Mobile and ZTE have confirmed the existence of a budget-friendly phablet. Dubbed ZMAX, it’ll be available from September 24th and will cost just $252 (or $10.50 per month on EIP with $0 down).

Apart from having a name that takes me back to the days of DROID MAXX, EPIC 4G and Thunderbolt, the ZMAX boasts some impressive specs for the price. It has the 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor with 2GB RAM, a 720p 5.7-inch LCD display, 8MP camera with 1080p video capture and a 1.6MP front facing camera. It also has an awesome 3,400mAh battery and comes loaded with Android 4.4.2.

Now I’m yet to use one in person, but the similarly specced HTC Desire 816 is one of my favorite phones of the year, and we should never underestimate the modern midrange phones equipped with a Snapdragon 400 chip. They can be impressive. Whether ZTE has managed to get the best out of it is yet to be seen. T-Mo’s official spec page shows the device as being compatible with LTE bands 2, 4 and 7. UPDATE: PhoneScoop’s spec page includes Band 12 as supported network. And it showed up in the FCC filing.

One question I do have: Is this the “Olympia” device we heard so much about this year? A lot of the specs line up with what we heard about the phone from our sources, even if its name doesn’t. The device is identical to the early leaks too. All we need now is to see if the “Z970” model number appears somewhere on the packaging since it’s not mentioned anywhere currently. That is unless the company opted for a different name after our big reveal…

Image Credit: GSMArena