If you’ve seen the front of the Red Magic 8 Pro, you’ll be impressed with that screen. But not everyone is into gaming phones, so maybe you’re still looking for a normal phone with a Red Magic 8 Pro screen. Nubia certainly knows what we think, and this phone is designed for those people.
Design
Because it’s Nubia’s top flagship phone, Z50 Ultra has to put a larger sensor on the back, so it’s not as clean as the Red Magic 8 Pro’s back panel. It’s more of an upgrade of the Z40S than the Z50, with a more similar design. The flat frame and screen, 6.8 inches plus 228g of weight predestine the Z50 Ultra to not feel great in your hand. But the advantage is that such a design is unique and you can recognize the phone even from five meters away.
The Z50 Ultra also has an alert slider, which can be customized. The default function is to turn on the camera, which shows that it is very confident in its camera system. The Z50 Ultra has IR, NFC, and dual Nano SIM slots, but no IP68. I personally like the square design, which is unique and beautiful. It makes sense that the first sale in China broke 100 million RMB.
Display
This big and complete screen is the same as the Red Magic 8 Pro’s, both from BOE’s OLED panel. The resolution is 1116P with 120Hz refresh rate. 1440Hz high-frequency PWM dimming at low brightness, which you can also change to DC-like dimming in the developer options. There is no serious color shift in the oblique view, and the ∆E is less than 1. The bezel is very narrow and the screen does not have any holes, making it a very good screen overall.
Let’s focus on this area of the front camera. Like the Axon 40 Ultra, it really hides the front camera almost perfectly. Although the Z50 Ultra can’t hide the front camera perfectly in any state yet, you can still find it when you look closely at low brightness. But trust me, you won’t notice it in 99% of the scenarios.
The screen specifications have made some compromises for the Under Display Camera. For example, the maximum brightness of the full screen is low, and it is not easy to see the content in strong sunlight. Resolution can not reach 2k, which is still a difficult point that ZTE and BOE need to overcome in the future.
Under Display Camera
This Under Display Camera has always been very unfriendly to people who like to take selfies. Once the conditions are harsh, such as the backlight is not good or even a dark environment, the photos taken by this front camera really don’t look good. Furthermore, if you take a picture in the right environment, it’s still not as good as an ordinary phone, but it’s still relatively clear with the AI algorithm.
The really bad thing is the video, although it supports 1080P resolution, it looks more like 720P or even 480P. Anyway, the image quality improvement of the front camera is relatively small. People with high requirements for selfies should not buy this phone. You can click on the video above to view the sample video.
Benchmark & Gaming
Not surprisingly the Z50 Ultra’s processor is Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, plus UFS 4.0 and LPDDR5X, the results in both 3DMark and the latest Geekbench 6 show its flagship phone level. There are issues with downclocking in the CPU Throttling Test, but trust me, it has no impact on your gaming experience.
Just like its brother Red Magic 8 Pro, the Z50 Ultra’s gaming performance is stunning. Even in Genshin Impact’s Sumeru, it doesn’t seem to be stressed. An average frame rate of 57fps makes it one of the best gaming performers of any non-gaming phone. Although the loading of the mapping caused some lag when you first entered the game, it immediately became very smooth and stable. But the consequence is that it brings higher temperatures and higher power consumption, which is the reason why the Red Magic 8 Pro has a built-in fan.
You can also adjust to balance mode in Game space, the temperature will be much lower, but the maximum fps will be locked at 50. You can also use Bypass Charging if you run out of power while playing games. So Nubia gives you the choice here, whether you choose a high frame rate and high temperature, or a lower frame rate and low temperature.
Camera
The first thing that impressed us about the Z50 Ultra’s camera was its stability. It gives you a very good photo no matter what the environment is or the time of day. It’s hard for me to analyze its pros or cons as I do with other phones. Because its image quality is really nothing that I can complain about. Vibrant colors, great clarity, and good dynamic range. And it’s not just the main camera that performs so well, all three lenses are that good. This is rare because most phones perform well with only the main camera. Next, I’ll show you some sample shots I took with the Z50 Ultra.
Camera experience
If I must say one drawback of Z50 Ultra, some camera experience is not good. For example, the buttons for switching lenses in night mode are below the viewfinder, which is very difficult to press with one hand. There is also the sliding switch, which can only be used to open the camera’s Street mode. If you don’t like taking pictures with filters, the only solution is to turn off the filters in Street mode. So later it’s the normal mode when opening the camera with the sliding switch.
Battery & Charging
Z50 Ultra chose a whole 5000mAh cell as the battery. The downside of a single cell is that it can’t accept too high charging power, and 80w is not much high power today. It takes 40 minutes to be fully charged.
But the advantage of a single cell is that it makes the battery more durable. Although the power consumption of the game session is similar for everyone, compared to the dual-cell battery has a clear advantage over other sessions. After a year or two, the difference in battery life will be more obvious. But as a flagship phone, the absence of wireless charging is a great pity for Z50 Ultra.
MyOS
We have made a video about our experience with the system, and MyOS was not mentioned in it, so I would like to talk about it here. The system has no obvious disadvantages, it feels like MIUI Lite to me, and many places are very similar to MIUI.
For example, on the desktop, slide down at the left side is the message center and the right side is the control center. The custom color wheel in Display Setting. Swipe to open the floating window after receiving a message. Even this Super wallpaper is so similar. I think this is a good thing, after all, MIUI is a better system. So you don’t have to worry that MyOS being too much behind other systems, at least I am comfortable using it.
Overall, the Nubia Z50 is not only very versatile but also very unique. Whether it’s gaming, photography, or battery life, it’s all top-notch. And the 35mm main camera and this full straight screen are something that no other phone can satisfy you with. Plus the Z50 Ultra isn’t expensive when you compare it to other flagship phones.
If you want to try a phone without a notch or a hole punch, there’s no one better than the Z50 Ultra.
