There are plenty of smartphones out there and a lot of them are great. Some of those phones are true flagships and others are even called flagship killers. Meet the Nubia Z11, the phone that has all the flagship grade specs and killer looks. Learn more in our full review.
Nubia Z11 Review: VIDEO REVIEW
Nubia Z11 Review: UNBOXING
The phone ships in quite a premium box as most of the Nubia phones. Inside of it, you can find a fast charger, USB C cable, SIM ejector pin, micro USB to USB C adapter and a pair of earphones that actually have a decent sound quality.
Nubia Z11 Review: SPECS
Display |
5.5″ 1080 x 1920 pixels, LCD (~403 ppi pixel density) |
Processor and GPU |
Qualcomm MSM8996 Snapdragon 820, Dual-core 2.15 GHz Kryo & dual-core 1.6 GHz Kryo, Adreno 530 GPU |
RAM |
4GB |
Camera |
8MP Front/16MP Back, OIS |
Connectivity |
Bluetooth, 3G, 4G, GPS, WIFI, GSM,EDGE, GPRS, UMTS, HSPA, HSPA+, dual-SIM. |
Battery |
3.000 mAh (non-removable) |
Dimensions |
151.8 x 72.3 x 7.5 mm / 162g |
OS |
Nubia UI 4.0 (Android 6.0) |
Storage |
64GB (expandable via the microSD up to 256GB) |
Nubia Z11 Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY
One of the key selling points of the Nubia Z11 is its 5.5” true bezel-less display. In fact, the phone has 81% screen-to-body ratio, which is one of the best in the business.
Speaking of that display, we have a sharp, vibrant and bright 1080p panel that also has a decent sunlight legibility and it is covered with the Gorilla Glass 3.
The Z11 comes with interactive edge gestures. For example, you can quickly swipe through the recent apps or quickly access a different desktop.
An 8MP shooter is here for selfies and just below it there are nicely backlit capacitive buttons that can be customized, and you can adjust the brightness of them.
Also, the home button serves as a pulsing notification light, which is pretty cool.
As far as the main camera, we have a pretty powerful setup that includes a 16MP Sony sensor, f/2.0 aperture, OIS and dual tone dual-LED flash. The fingerprint sensor works fine and you can unlock your phone straight from the standby mode.
The loudspeaker quality is great. The sound is balanced, there is a decent amount of depth and even a little bit of bass. You can also tweak the audio settings with the Dolby Atmos Surround Sound system.
The sound quality via the headset jack is great too and that is thanks to the built-in Hi-Fi audio chip.
The buttons are made of metal and they have a great tactile feedback.
It’s great that we have the IR blaster to control devices like TVs.
Nubia Z11 Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE
When it comes to hardware, the Nubia Z11 is a true flagship smartphone. It sports a Snapdragon 820 chip, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, which is also expandable via the microSD card slot.
If you are willing to pay extra $100, you can get a super sexy-looking black and gold version that comes with 6GB of RAM.
As expected, I didn’t have any issues when I played 3D games on the highest graphics settings. Also, the phone did not overheat at all.
Nubia Z11 Review: BENCHMARKS
Nubia Z11 Review: USER INTERFACE
The phone ships with the Nubia UI 4.0, which is built on top of Android 6.0. It is quite a heavy skin and there are so many built-in features and customization options to talk about.
Just to name a few, the split-screen mode allows you to run two apps side by side. Also, you can adjust the display settings, customize the breathing light and capacitive buttons and use a few screen gestures that work great.
Even though there is no app tray and there are some features that you may not use, I love the simplistic look of the UI. Also, the phone has been fast and I didn’t have any hiccups or lag.
Nubia Z11 Review: CAMERA
The camera app can take pictures very fast and there are quite a few shooting modes to choose from. For example, you can adjust the camera settings in the pro mode or play with the “camera-family” apps. One of my favorites is the clone mode that works pretty well.
Nubia Z11 Review: IMAGE QUALITY
The daylight images taken with the 16MP camera look great. The pictures are sharp, there is a ton of detail, the colors look natural. Also, the dynamic range adjustment is good most of the time.
The indoor shots look good too but we can see a little bit more noise and less detail.
The low-light camera performance is kind of a mixed bag but we need to consider the fact that the phone runs on a very early international software build. You can definitely get some good-looking night photos but you may also get some pictures with quite a bit of noise and low amount of detail. I’m pretty sure we will see a software update to fix that.
The 4k video quality is pretty good and the footage looks quite sharp. The continuous auto-focus adjustment is graceful but it could be a little bit faster. The slow-motion video quality is not very impressive as there could be more detail. See the video review for video samples.
A selfie camera can take some great looking pictures in daylight and even in lower-lit situations. Also, 1080p video quality is not the best but it will be definitely good enough for social media.
Download full resolution camera samples
Nubia Z11 Review: CONNECTIVITY
The phone comes with a hybrid dual-SIM card tray, which can take either 2 SIMs or 1 SIM and the microSD card.
The call quality, signal reception, GPS, Wifi and all other connectivity options work just fine.
In fact, you can use the dual-antenna system to boost the signal reception quality if you need to.
Nubia Z11 Review: BATTERY LIFE
Nubia Z11 sports a 3000mAh battery and with my usage, I could get 1.5 days out of it. If I used the phone very intensively with the max. brightness display setting, I needed to charge the phone in the late evening.
When it comes to charging, the phone supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 tech that allows you to fully charge the phone in just 1 hour.
Nubia Z11 Review: CONCLUSIONS
Nubia Z11 is a great all-around flagship smartphone that looks just gorgeous.
Its bezel-less display is sharp and vibrant and the edge features allow you to increase productivity if you get used to using them.
The phone can handle anything you throw at it whether it would be heavy gaming or just scrolling through the user interface, which has a ton of features.
Also, the Nubia Z11 has great audio quality, good battery life and the device is very well-built.
Both cameras are very good too if you tend to take pictures in broad daylight since the low-light camera performance is kind of a mixed bag. You can definitely get some good looking night photos but sometimes you may feel disappointed with grainy pictures. Hopefully, Nubia will improve that with the future software updates.
All in all, Nubia Z11 is a very solid phone and the inconsistent low-light camera performance may be the only shortcoming at the moment. The price of 499 EUR (International model) may sound a little steep for some but the phone brings a lot to the table and it is still a lot cheaper than the mainstream flagships. On the other hand, you can get the Chinese version of Nubia Z11 for just over $400 via the third-party resellers and that makes the Nubia Z11 one of the best phones in its price range.
