Nubia just announced its latest flagship in China, the Nubia Z18. It is a successor to the last year’s Z17 and just like last year, we don’t expect it to launch outside the Chinese market. If, however, Nubia decides to launch it globally, this could be a great device for its price. The phone comes with a starting price of 2,799 Yuan or $410, and for that price, you get Snapdragon 845 processor, 91.8% screen-to-body ratio, Dual Rear Cameras that are great on paper, a big battery with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 4 and more.
Talking about the design, the phone isn’t much different from the last year’s Nubia Z17 if you look at the rear. This time, the phone has a glass and metal build that looks beautiful (at least in the official renders). The phone has a notched display, but instead of copying the iPhone X’s notch, the phone has a notch similar to what we have on the Essential Phone. So, there is a tiny cutout for the front-facing camera, and that’s it. Good to see smartphone companies now moving towards a fully bezel-less display without a notch.
Just like last year, there is no headphone jack and the phone only comes with one port for all the I/O, i.e., the USB Type-C Port. There is an adapter provided in the box if you want to connect your 3.5mm headphones.
Talking about the specifications, the Nubia Z18 features a 5.99-inch Full-HD+ display that is protected with the Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The processor under the hood is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 with the Adreno 630 GPU. The phone has 6/8GB RAM and 64/128GB UFS 2.1 internal storage. There is, however, no support for external micro SD card since the phone has no slot for that.
Coming to the cameras, the Nubia Z18 has dual cameras on the back that include 16MP f/1.6 + 24MP f/1.6 sensors with AI Scene Detection, 960fps slow motion, NeoVision 8.0, PDAF, OIS and more. On the front, there is an 8MP camera with f/2.0 aperture and Portrait Mode.
Z18 comes with a 3,450mAh battery that supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 4 and Neo Power Temperature Control (Well, that’s what the translation from Chinese revealed). Android 8.0 Oreo runs out of the box with the Nubia UI 6.0 on top. Other features include Full Netcom +4X4 MIMO + dual-band WiFi, Bluetooth 5.0, Maverick Voice 2.0, DTS Sound and more.
The phone comes in three colors – Black, Red and a Special Van Gogh edition. Here is the pricing for the Chinese market –
- 6GB RAM + 64GB ROM – 2,799 Yuan ($410)
- 8GB RAM + 128GB ROM – 3,299 Yuan ($482)
- Special Edition 8GB RAM + 128GB ROM – 3,599 Yuan ($525)