Home » Mobiles » Nubia Z11 review

Mobiles

Nubia Z11 review

Saheli

October 15, 2016

2 Views

SaveSavedRemoved 0

Introduction

Living in the shadow of a bigger brother is never easy. However, with the right effort you can turn the odds in your favor and also have a lot of fun in the process. Nubia is definitely a prime example of a proper departure from its ZTE roots. In a little over a year, the Chinese brand has not only managed to make a name for itself, but they’ve also come up a surprisingly distinct signature look and feel.

It’s actually the the “fun” part that seems to allow Nubia to stand out. With ZTE fighting battles on the mid-range front (where it’s busy stirring things up with offers such as the Axon 7 and 7 Mini), Nubia is more prone to experimenting and pushing new things. Of course, this kind of thinking assumes some ZTE dependence is still in place, but regardless of Nubia’s current corporate state, we will definitely argue that theirs is the more fun position to be in.

Taking all this into consideration, we can safely view the new Z11 flagship as a major stepping stone in Nubia’s short and still very dynamic life cycle. With its curved front panel, bold and aggressive design, the Nubia Z9 made a loud statement last year. It was out there in aesthetics and functionality alike – a strong calling card, but also an acquired taste by nature. Enter the Z11.

Nubia Z11 key features

• 151.8 x 72.3 x 7.5 mm, 162g body
• 5.5″ 1080 x 1920px IPS LCD of 403 ppi; 2.5D scratch-resistant glass
• nubia UI 4.0. based on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chipset, quad-core 2×2.15 GHz Kryo and 2×1.6 GHz Kryo; Adreno 530 GPU; 4GB/6GB RAM
• 16MP, f/2.0 camera; 4Kp@30fps video recording, PDAF, OIS, Dual-LED (dual-tone) flash
• 64GB of built-in storage and a hybrid microSD card slot
• Dual-SIM connectivity
• LTE; Dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac; GPS/GLONASS receiver, Bluetooth v4.1, NFC, Type-C 1.0 reversible USB connector
• Fingerprint reader on the back
• Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic; 24-bit/192kHz audio; Dolby Atmos;
• 3,000mAh non-removable battery; Quick Charge 3.0 support

Main shortcomings

• No FM radio
• Non-removable battery
• Hybrid DualSIM/microSD card slot limits options on the dual-SIM model

With the word already out and at least a few heads turned, this year Nubia naturally tuned things down a notch. Second in its line, the Z11 is a much more mature offer. Its lines are cleaned and finishes more flush an unintrusive. Yet, the signature design is still there, understated, but alive and well in the accents. And the refinement doesn’t stop there either. The once unwieldy and quirky Nubia UI has been stripped down and redesign for a cleaner look. Sadly, the software “Spring Cleaning” has taken its toll on some intriguing past features, but the curvy front panel still has some impressive tricks.

Nubia Z11 in official photos

With a solid flagship specs sheet, stylish exterior and numerous refinements all around, the Nubia Z11 might just mark a new chapter in the budding Chine company’s history. However, the truth is always in the details, so follow along in the next chapter, as we take a closer look at Nubia’s new flagship.

Unboxing the Nubia Z11

Nubia has never been one to skip on a fancy entrance. Just like the Z9 before it, the Z11 arrives in style. Surprisingly enough, even though the handset itself has definitely shed most of the company’s traditional bold black and red styling, the box hasn’t. The phone comes in a spacious and lavish two piece cardboard box, in the signature black and red colors. It is not as premium as the Z9’s with its hard cover, but clearly not your average phone package either.

Nubia Z11 bundle

The contents are set on two levels. The phone itself is on top and underneath are the accessories. Just like the Nubia Z9, the Z11 comes with a premium pair of headphones. These have volume controls and a they come in a practical rubber circle that neatly holds the headset itself. The headset has flashy red cables and definitely looks more premium than the regular in-box headsets we’re used to.

Besides the headset, the box also has a surprisingly compact Quick Charge 3.0 charger and a USB Type-C cable. Both come in white, which serves as even more proof that Nubia is trying to find the right balance between its former flashy design and the new cleaner and toned-down approach for the Z11. Another cool little addition is a tiny micro USB to Type-C adapter. Last, but not least, there is a nifty SIM ejector pin as well.

Nubia Z11 360-degree spin

It is hard to pinpoint exactly where Nubia gets its influences for the Z11 design. The Z9 influences are definitely present, but not prevalent. Sure, you get the curved front glass, complete with Nubia’s clever optical tricks to simulate an edge-to-edge panel. You also get the small red accents on both the front and back.

Beyond that, however, the Z11 doesn’t make a point of following in its predecessor’s footsteps. Although the back and front have a familiar elevated profile, the strong chamfering and edges have given way to smoother and rounder lines.

The back is now all metal, instead of glass, giving the Z11 a whole different feel. Overall, the Z11 brings some elegance and mature sophistication to the Nubia lineup, which we definitely appreciate.

Hardware overview

A curvy front panel is an attention-grabber in 2016. Unlike Samsung or Vivo, Nubia hasn’t gone the extra mile to actually curve a panel. Instead, the Chinese OEM has a simpler and far less expensive approach. Just like the Z9 before it, the Z11 uses some clever optics to sort of stretch out the edges of the picture onto the curved part of the glass. It is a cool solution but certainly has its drawbacks, like image distortion along the edges. But we will talk more about that in the Display section.

Material-wise, you get Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on the front, which can potentially go a long way in protecting the screen. Also, to further ease the minds of potential buyers, Nubia claims its aRC 2.0 design not only looks good but also provides some additional shatter protection, thanks to a buffering layer between the screen’s glass and the metal frame.

Curvy panel on the front

Aside from the obvious center of attention, the front of the Z11 is surprisingly clean. Nubia has kept its signature red circular home button design, though. It looks particularly good when lit-up, but admittedly the backlight red is an acquired taste. Still, if it’s up your alley, you can also enable the “breathing” function.

There are two more capacitive controls beneath the display as well. These are only marked by small red backlights and can be reassigned the menu and back function to your liking – neat!

On top of the panel, we have a usual affair – a front-facing camera, speakerphone and proximity sensor.

As already mentioned, Nubia has ditched the glass and opted for an all-aluminum body instead. The material is a Series 6000 aluminum alloy, to be exact, which Nubia claims to be drop-tested and quite sturdy. We can’t attest for any of the drop-resistance, but we can confirm the brushed finish looks and feels premium.

Nubia Z11 in the hand

The back of the Z11 offers an almost uninterrupted metal surface. You do get plastic segments at the top and bottom, but they look and feel pretty close regarding finish. Plus, the subtle silver accents work well in unifying the different surfaces. Other notable features on the back include the red color accent camera ring and the relatively small flash. However, the latter is still dual-tone and does a pretty good job.

The fingerprint reader is also conveniently mounted here. It is accurate and quite snappy, although we have seen better.

Clean back side

Hardware keys are only present on the right side of the phone. Starting from top to bottom there’s the volume rocker and then the power key. The dedicated camera shutter button from the Z9 is sadly no longer present.

A few buttons on the right

On the opposite side is the card tray, which takes an eject tool to open. It holds two nanoSIM cards, or you could substitute one of them for a microSD. We would have loved a dedicated memory slot, but this seems to be a common problem these days.

The other side is where you put up to two nanoSIM cards

At the bottom are two grilles, either side of the microUSB port. Only the right grille hides a speaker, while the left one covers the mouthpiece.

The top side holds the secondary microphone and a 3.5mm audio jack. The latter should deliver great quality thanks to the AKM4376 audio chipset. The top also houses what appears to be an IR blaster, however, unlike the Z9, this time around there is no remote control app bundled on the phone and none of the third-party apps we tried managed to utilizie it.

Display

The display is the most important differentiating feature of the ZTE Nubia Z9. “Bezeless” might not be quite the buzzword it was last year, but Nubia’s optical tricks still look quite impressive. As already mentioned, however, there is a downside to bending light to extend out an otherwise flat LCD panel. You can spot distortions along the edges quite easily, especially when viewing the phone at an angle.

Still, if you don’t focus too much on the image quality in that particular border area, the overall style benefits still outweigh the inherent deficiencies. In other words, we quite like what we see.

The panel is an IPS LCD with impressive wide viewing angles. Its diagonal measures 5.5″, which is an improvement over the 5.2-inch Z9. The resolution, however, is still set at 1080p. We won’t get into the whole pixel race. What we will say, however, is that there are still advantages to sticking to FullHD and these numbers crank out to a density of 403ppi – perfectly sharp for our taste.

Another interesting thing to note about Nubia’s light-bending front panel is that it is quite thick. This posed a serious problem for the Z9, as it likely hurt the maximum brightness and sunlight legibility of its display. The Z9 only managed 258nits at full blast – definitely not a pleasant experience on a bright day.

Therefore, we are glad to report that Nubia appears to have made major strides in the brightness department. Its aRC 2.0 tech, in combination with the new panel, combine to produce a significantly more powerful maximum brightness of 513 nits. It might not be chart-topping, but it sure is better than average. Even with slightly brighter blacks than we would have liked at 0.43 nits, the Z11 managed a contrast ratio of 1196:1.

Naturally, sunlight legibility shows major improvement as well. The Nubia Z11 dwarfs its predecessor with a formidable 3.466 score. Thus, it remains perfectly usable even under direct sunlight.

Sunlight contrast ratio

Color accuracy is impressive as well. Even the default factory color mode seems to be tuned pretty well. Most colors we tested have a deviation of 4 (deltaE 2000) at average with 5.8 being the highest occurrence. The latter seems to be mostly due to the overall blue-ish white balance. Leaving the screen set to Natural Soft and dragging the white balance slider about halfway to Warm improves the average to an overall average of 3.6 deltaE.

Connectivity

The Nubia Z11 is equipped with a total of two nano SIM slots. It’s a hybrid slot so one of the card positions is to be used with either a SIM card or a Micro SD card, so you do have to choose.

As far as network connectivity, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 typically shines in this department with its powerful X12 LTE modem. However, Nubia hasn’t disclosed exactly what speed it has utilized on said modem. What we do know, however, is that the Z11 has 4G LTE on both SIM slots and VoLTE support.

Other Internet connectivity options include Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac with dual-band support. Interestingly enough, the Nubia Z11 is one of the few devices we have seen that can enable or disable the second antenna. By doing this you would supposedly gain some battery life at the expense of the maximum connection speed.

GPS and GLONASS is also present, of course.

Local connectivity includes Bluetooth 4.1, with LE support. NFC is also on board. The old microUSB connector has been replaced with a Type-C 1.0 reversible one with OTG support. Overall, Nubia has made sure the Z11 is pretty up to date in this department. The only thing we didn’t find, which will probably be missed is an FM radio.

Nubia Z11 battery life test

The Nubia Z11 packs a 3000 mAh sealed-in battery. This might not be all that big of an improvement over the Z9 and its 2900 mAh, however, the Snapdragon 820 is undoubtedly more efficient than its Snapdragon 810 predecessor.

The Z11 did quite alright in our battery life test, scoring a respectable 76 hours endurance rating. Throw in the second SIM and that number drops down to 70 hours. This is actually pretty close to what the Z9 managed on a similarly-sized battery a year ago, plus a 10% or so improvement.

Another great benefit from using Qualcomm’s high-end SoC is access to Quick Charge 3.0. Nubia claims this allows the Z11 to charge four times faster than on a conventional charger, but that, of course, is a vague statistic at best.

But there is something even more troubling we found while testing our unit. Nubia’s marketing material speak boldly of NeoPower 2.0. This smart battery saving solution is said to feature 10 usage scenarios and a lot of optimization to make your battery last longer. However, our review unit lacks these capabilities and there is no UI similar to what NeoPower 2.0 is supposed to look like. All we did find was a few basic power saving toggles. We guess the feature is either regional or it will be added via a software update further down the road.

Basic power saving options

Come to think of it, there is also no Nubia store, no IR blaster app and no Game app, so something is definitely amiss but we’re not quite sure what might be to blame as this review unit was provided by Nubia themselves. Follow along in the next section for a more in-depth look at the software.

Nubia UI 4.0 – beautiful and clean

Like many other manufacturers, primarily aimed at the Chinese market, Nubia was no stranger to flashy, bloated and over the top custom version of Android. We definitely can’t blame the OEM for going that route with the Z9 last year, but we definitely applaud its newfound philosophy with Nubia UI 4.0.

The strive towards a more mature and refined persona has luckily stretched beyond the Z11’s exterior. There are still notable hints and traces of Nubia’s signature bold aesthetic here and there, but overall, the OS is now among the cleanest and most subtle we have seen out of China.

It also helps that unlike the Z9 unit which we reviewed a year ago, this time around we appear to have a more international version. That means a full set of Google services and apps pre-installed. Sadly, like we already mentioned, for some inexplicable reason, we seem to be missing the Nubia store, new NeoPower 2.0 battery manager, Game app and IR blaster app, to name a few. And Nubia advertises all of then on its product page. Our best guess is that these are either ging to be added via a future software update or their availability will be regional.

Still, despite these minor setbacks, the Android 6.01-based Nubia UI 4.0 still managed to impress. It has an almost Vanilla feel to it that is surely a lot more universally appealing than a heavy skin job. However, this slimming down has let to some notable functionality omissions as well.

For one, themes are no longer a thing. This might be, at least in part, tied to some Android Marshmallow development overhead, but the end result is that the excessive customizability of the Z9 is a thing of the past. Now you only get the basics – wallpapers, some icon grid and rearrangement control and that’s about it.

UI customization is basic at best

But, let’s take a step back. The lock screen is a pretty standard affair. You swipe to unlock by default and only get a single camera quick shortcut (the Z9 had some customizability here as well).

Standard lockscreen

One thing that Nubia has kept from its Android pedigree is the lack on an app drawer. Everything is laid out on home panels instead. However, as yet another testament to the dialed-back approach, the custom neoShare (a feature of the Weibo social network) panel is gone as well.

That’s the launcher style popular in China, no app drawer, instead drop everything into the homescreen (think iOS, but with widgets here and there). Folders help organize the madness if you have too many apps and you can dock the 4 most used apps at the bottom row.

Standard launcher and folders to keep everything organized

The notification area combines notifications and quick toggles, plus a brightness slider. Only the top four quick toggles are visible at first, the rest are revealed with a second swipe. You can rearrange them so you can make the toggles you use most visible by default.

Pretty standard notification shade

One thing that Nubia luckily kept intact is the powerful Notification Center. It gives you granular control over which apps are allowed to show notifications. You can even define the types of notifications each application can generate – pretty thorough indeed. Bear in mind that most apps tend to install without access to any notification privileges by default. So, if you need something in particular, you have to go in and enable it specifically rather than the other way round.

Powerful notification center

The app switcher is launched by holding the right capacitive button by default. The interface itself has also undergone some simplification and now consists solely of preview windows, which you can swipe away. There’s also an X that will “Accelerate” your phone by closing running apps and freeing some ram. This, however, wont typically touch any background services.

Task switcher

Another truly great feature Nubia has carried over to the Z11 and the new Android is the SplitScreen mode. It is actually one of the better implementations out there, minus a few slightly irritating issues. For one, you can view the homescreen twice, dock and all, which just looks weird. Also, not all apps resize to fit their allotted portion of the screen, most remain a downscaled 16:9 version of themselves, which is often too tiny to use properly. The good news is that even third-party apps seem to work in this mode and some of them are smarter about resizing than the Nubia’s native apps.

Split screen works pretty well

Speaking of powerful multitasking, we cant fail to mention another great little trick the Nubia Z9 can pull off. It is called Dual instance and just like the name suggests, it allows you to have two separate versions of an app installed. Combined with the App lock feature, this comes pretty close in terms of usability to Samsung’s coveted KNOW private folder. Although the latter is undeniably better in terms of security.

Dual instance and App lock for multitasking

Super screenshot deserves a mention as well. You don’t really realize how much easier and more powerful screencapping can be before trying such a tool. Not only can you capture things taller than your viewport, but recording a quick video is just as easy and only a click away.

Super screenshot is neat

The ability to swap your back and menu buttons is definitely a nice little touch and can ease your transition to the Nubia from most other Android devices. For the moment these are the only two options available for customizing the capacitive navigation buttons, but the interface suggests that perhaps more will be added later. Further customization would be cool.

Navigation key swapping

Edge gestures

While Nubia’s approach to a curvy front panel might not be the most cutting-edge or technologically advanced one, the OEM has managed to make great use of its bezel-less design with a plethora of custom gestures.

Swipe up or down on one side of the screen – that can switch back and forth between apps or launch a couple of apps (one for up, one for down). Oddly, the left and right edges can no longer be individually set to either mode, which was a thing on the Z9.

Edge gestures

Swiping on both edges simultaneously can be set to adjust the screen brightness. Again, the Z9 used to have the option to replace that with a volume control. An up-down-up-down gesture on one edge can only be set to accelerate the phone, i.e. close running apps, complete with a cool animation.

Holding an edge and swiping inward allows you to quickly get to any of your home panels. And that is about it in terms of custom gestures. If we get back to the Z9 comparison again, the reduction in advanced functionality is noticeable. The Z11 doesn’t appear to recognize squeezes at all, there are no gestures tied to horizontal orientation and overall, options seem to be fewer. Not that we complain.

Edge gestures

Beyond the edge-specific things, the Nubia Z11 has a few other interesting accessibility features as well. For instance, you can you can quickly turn on the flashlight by holding the home button on the lock screen. Then there is scheduled power on and off and a scheduled volume and alert mute.

Additional accessibility options

[Source:-Gsm Arena]