This Phone Feels Like It’s From The Future – Nubia Z70 Ultra

Thanks to Nubia for sponsoring this video. This is the Nubia Z70 Ultra, and it arguably has the best hardware package you can get on a phone at this price point, with it featuring the highest resolution all-screen display on the market right now, where there are zero cutouts and insanely thin bezels. It's powered by the all-new Snapdragon 8 Elite chip with either 12, 16, or 24 gigabytes of RAM. It has UFS 4.0 storage, a massive 6,150 milliamp hour battery, plus an advanced triple camera system, with the main lens on here having a nine-stop variable aperture. Now, taking a look at the design, it's got that modern squared-off look to it. Nubia actually sent it out in this starry night edition, and it's pretty cool. It kinda makes the phone look like a piece of art. Now, obviously, this isn't gonna be for everyone, so Nubia also offers it in black and gold if you don't wanna be so adventurous, but regardless of the variant, you get a slider on the left side, which can be used for ring and vibrate, or you can actually set it to other actions, like toggling the flashlight. On the right side, you have a dedicated camera button, which kinda seems to be the trend nowadays, where you can jump straight into the camera by holding it, and then it has a two-stage press, where you can both focus with a half press and then push it in all the way to snap photos. We'll talk more about the camera system in a sec, but first, we've gotta talk about this display, because this is one of the things that makes this phone special. Not a lot of phones nowadays go with an under-display selfie camera, which just makes the content feel more immersive on screen, especially combined with these bezels, which just makes the phone feel like it's from the future, or at the very least, it makes the iPhone 16 Plus feel a little dated by comparison. But the panel on here is really good, too. It's sharp with a 2688 by 1216 resolution, giving you a 431 PPI, which, when you consider that it has a selfie camera underneath all those pixels, is pretty impressive. The screen on here is also really bright, with Nubia claiming a peak brightness of 2,000 nits, with us measuring a global brightness, where we put everything to white on the screen, of over 1,200 nits, which is nearly 300 nits higher than the result we got on the iPhone. And then, unlike the iPhone, you don't have to pay hundreds of extra dollars for that high refresh rate. With the 144 hertz refresh rate on here, just looking buttery smooth, compared to the 60 hertz that you get on the iPhone. It's kind of crazy that Apple is still sticking with 60 hertz in 2024, but then again, not everyone is gonna be able to notice the difference. I certainly do from 60 to 120, but not so much from 120 to 144. So I guess it just depends on the person. But for gamers, the 144 hertz, plus the 2,500 hertz peak sampling rate, is probably gonna be a major selling point. Speaking of gaming, under the hood, you have that all new Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, where Qualcomm is making some huge claims when it comes to performance. It's something like a 45% boost in CPU performance, and a 40% improvement in the GPU. So as you'd expect, playing games like Call of Duty on here, with everything set to high, or even playing games like Genshin Impact, it ran everything super smoothly. Hitting that max 60 FPS that those games allow for, without dropping any frames. We also ran the 3DMark Wildlife Extreme Benchmark, which really pushes the chip to the maximum, rendering graphics that are way more intense than what you would get with real games, where it did really well, as you can see, compared to some of the other phones that we tested. However, I will say that the phone did get really hot while I was running the benchmark, which isn't something I noticed while it was gaming. So I think Nubia is just letting the phone run full throttle during the benchmark, in order to get the highest score possible. And then for lightweight tasks, like opening apps or multitasking, it's just blazing fast, as you'd expect, with UFS 4.0 and 16 gigs of RAM. But in addition to performance, the new Snapdragon chip also comes with better power efficiency. Qualcomm is claiming a 44% improvement over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which combined with the 6,150 milliamp hour battery on this thing, means this phone is gonna last you all day easily, and maybe even two days. Now, while Nubia's phones aren't as geared for gaming as their sub-brand Red Magic's phones are, the Nubia phones do cater to a wider audience, since in exchange for the cooling fan and the shoulder triggers that the Red Magic phones get, on the Z70 Ultra, you get better water and dust resistance, with it having both an IP68 and an IP69 rating, with that IP69 meaning it could resist super hot and super high pressure water, in addition to being submerged, plus you get a much more advanced camera system. So you get a 50 megapixel ultra-wide for those super wide shots or your macros, a 64 megapixel telephoto that lets you punch in at around 3.3x with full optical quality, and then a 50 megapixel main lens, which features one of the best variable apertures I've ever seen on a phone, with nine different stages you could adjust it from, going from F159 all the way down to F4, which gives you more physical control over how your photos look than any other smartphone. For example, in this shot of these Android figures, I really like how it looks at F4 compared to F159, since not only are both of the Android figures more in focus, but if you look at the cherry on top of the cupcake Android, you can see the nice starburst effect on the cherry, in addition to what you get on the backlight. Comparing a similar shot to the iPhone 16 Plus, it's kind of the same difference, with the Z70 Ultra just pulling off a more aesthetically pleasing shot in my opinion, with more in focus and of course that starburst. And then in low light scenes, you can always open up the aperture all the way up to F159, where at least compared to the iPhone, I was surprised at how much better the Z70 Ultra retained the details and the sharpness in the photos. There's also something to say about the 35 millimeter focal length, which isn't as wide as the 24 millimeters you typically get on a phone, which in my opinion just leads to more flattering shots. But obviously that's gonna come down to personal preference. However, one thing that is objectively better though, is the zoom on here. Since the iPhone doesn't have a telephoto lens, where when you zoom in at around 3.3X, it's no contest. With that dedicated camera on the Z70 Ultra, just having way more detail. And then in terms of video, you have the option of recording in 4K 120 on both the main and telephoto cameras, or 8K with that main sensor. However, you don't get access to the variable aperture in any of the video modes, with it being locked to F159, which makes sense since you want as much light as possible for video, but still it's something that would have been nice to have. But there is one camera that we haven't talked about at all yet. And it's that under display selfie camera, which as you'd expect, doesn't quite compete with regular cameras just yet. But what I will say about this under display camera, despite the fact that there's more pixels in front of it due to the higher resolution, is it's gotten a lot better. While you can still tell it's an under display camera when you're recording selfie videos, for selfie photos, sometimes it's not so obvious, which I think is a testament to how far this tech has come. Because before, there was like no instance where you could even compare photos with a regular selfie camera. Now I'm not saying that this is gonna go toe to toe with regular selfie cameras, but if you're somebody who values having that full immersive display, then I think at this point, the quality trade-off might be worth it if you rarely take selfies like me. Now in terms of other features, you get 80 watts of fast charging with the included power brick in the box. Although you don't get wireless charging, so that's something to take note of. There's an IR blaster at the top of the phone. The speakers on here are actually pretty nice. They get really loud with good strong mids and highs, although maybe not as much bass as I'd want. And then in terms of software, it's pretty much stock Android 15. There's no bloatware on here. There's only a few add-ons from Nubia like their game space mode or private space, and then some AI stuff like translation and captions. You get bokeh and starburst modes in the camera, along with all the AI you get in Google Photos. Nubia hasn't officially stated how many years of software updates they're gonna provide. They told me they were gonna be announcing that soon, but historically, it's been up to three years, which isn't the longest out there since some other brands do up to seven years. But I think that's the trade-off that Nubia has to make in order to be able to deliver this cutting-edge hardware at this price point. Now, whether or not that's worth it to you really comes down to personal preference and how long you plan on keeping your phone versus how much you value high-end hardware. But if you do value high-end hardware and you don't plan on keeping your phone for like five, six, seven years, I think this is a pretty solid option. But anyways, that is it for me in this video. Big thanks to Nubia for sponsoring this showcase. Thank you guys for watching. And as always, I'll see you in the very next episode.