ZTE Blade S6 packs 4G LTE and Android Lollipop into an iPhone 6 lookalike package for £169.99 (updated)

We like to keep half an eye on China phones - no, not phones that shatter when dropped, but smartphones made in China (aren't all phones) and not readily available from UK retailers.

We like to....because there are some excellent value-for-money devices if you don't mind a bit of a hassle with possible returns or warranty repairs.

The latest that's caught our attention is the ZTE Blade S6. It's an Android device and perhaps you should try to get it soon....before Apple starts complaining.

The S6 looks remarkably...really remarkably... like the iPhone 6. Except there's no aluminium casing...it's all plastic.

ZTE has even etched "Designed by ZTE in California, Assembled in China" on the back.

But let me throw out some specs and you'll see that you're getting a lot for the £169.99 asking price.

It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 Octa-core processor and 2GB RAM. That means it will zip along with even the most processor-hungry games.

The screen is a five-inch IPS LCD, with a not-shabby-at-all 720x1280 resolution. Add to that a Sony 13MP back camera and 5MP front camera.

It comes loaded with the latest Android Lollipop operating system and it has 4G LTE that will work on all UK networks.

It's also good to see a proper notification LCD...the circle around the Home button glows different colours for different notifications. And memory is pretty good at 16GB internal with a slot for a microSD card.

Oh, and it's dual-SIM - both slots for nanoSIMs.

That adds up to quite a lot of bang for bucks.

The only possible letdown we can see is the battery. It's 2400 mAh, which is slightly on the low side for such a powerful device. And the battery is non-removable. Reviews say it just about last a day, but it's hard to find even an expensive flagship smartphone that does more.

ZTE has been around for some time: remember the Orange San Francisco phone from a few years ago? It was pretty groundbreaking in the budget Android division.

The San Francisco was made by ZTE, which has been the manufacturer behind several notable rebadged smartphones over the years.

An increasing number of people are now taking notice of China smartphones, which is good to see.

Perhaps it will make more "mainstream" manufacturers - Apple, we're looking at you - cut the huge profits they're making on their devices and give consumers more value for money.

The ZTE Blade S6 - SIMfree and unlocked - is being sold direct from China and on Amazon UK and eBay UK.

Update: we've now had the chance to use a ZTE Blade S6 for a few days. The battery life is not as bad as we expected. In fact, it's surprisingly good. 

We have been getting at least 24-hours use on one charge with medium use. The stand-by battery drain is minimal but it does jump up with processor or graphics intensive use.

We're not fans of the bundled ZTE launcher but the phone works very well with the Google Now launcher, which is free in the Play Store, and gives a much more uncluttered Android Lollipop experience.  

The Air Gestures - wave the phone in a V shape to turn on music etc - are pretty useless but they can be disabled in settings. In fact, they're disabled by default. 

All in all, this is a very good phone and we would put it up there with more mainstream middle-end devices and some top-end phones. 

Oh yes, and it really does get mistaken for an iPhone 6.

And for £169.99 it's a bargain.