I tried one of the strangest Android phones ever a | Tech News

It’s truthful to say that no one will mistake the Nubia Z70 Ultra for an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy gadget.

Even with out Vincent Van Gogh’s well-known portray ‘Starry Night’ adorning the whole back of the particular version model I’ve been testing for the previous few weeks, this massive, stark smartphone stands out with a daring and unashamedly monolithic design.

But with the addition of the art work on the back the Z70 Ultra, which is on sale in the UK for £769, is one of the strangest however most compellingly completely different phones I’ve ever tried out in nearly a decade of reviewing phones, and for that I am grateful to it.

In 2025, the iPhone 16, Samsung Galaxy S25 and Google Pixel 9 all look very comparable with flat edges, flat screens, rounded corners and double or triple cameras on the back. In the case of Samsung, three tiny digicam lenses strive desperately to cover any signal of character as we hurtle in the direction of a future of actually homogenous smartphone design.

Not so with the Z70 Ultra. Its cameras are the reverse of refined, with three lenses of completely different styles and sizes on an huge raised rectangular part. At first look, the cellphone feels haphazardly slapped collectively, and with Van Gogh’s swirls on the back I was nearly a little embarrassed to drag it out in public.

But as soon as I began utilizing the cellphone I got here to understand each its daring “I don’t care” design and its very achieved digicam setup. Not solely that, its selfie digicam is of the lesser-spotted hidden selection, however it does a higher job than the pitiful one on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6. The tech works by utilizing pixels in the show to cover the lens that sits beneath the show, with the pixels fading away when the digicam is needed.

The high quality just isn’t great however it’s high-quality for video calls, and it means while you aren’t utilizing it, the show is one of these uncommon issues on phones: fully uninterrupted.

The most important digicam lens is a 50MP sensor, however what units it aside from the majority of phones is its focal size. As Basil Kronfli expertly breaks down intimately over on Digital Camera World, phones usually have a most important lens focal size of 23mm, however the Z70 Ultra opts for 35mm. This ends in a more cropped image and a narrower discipline of view.

We’ve all acquired used to 23mm, however how many occasions have you ever snapped a picture of your mates and thought they give the impression of being a bit misplaced in the body so you need to take some steps ahead to get nearer? With the Z70 Ultra’s 35mm lens, you’re already cropped in that bit nearer such as you can be with many conventional cameras.

Not solely that, the lens has a variable aperture which means it has bodily transferring components, identical to a actual digicam, that change the quantity of mild let into the lens. You can regulate it between f/1.4 and f/4.0 for more granular control over the look of your photographs.

The former offers you a shallower depth of discipline whereas the latter does the reverse. In apply, with a sensor dimension much less than an inch, you gained’t discover an excessive amount of distinction, however it’s wonderful to have a lot versatility on a cellphone. An identical lens could be discovered on the Xiaomi 14 Ultra.

Alongside the most important digicam is a 50MP ultra-wide with 13mm focal size. This can then punch in to 24mm to present you a focal size roughly what your present cellphone makes use of as normal. All these millimetre measurements are a little summary, however in apply it makes the Z70 Ultra extremely enjoyable to shoot with, particularly because it has a correct two-stage shutter button on the edge that’s much better and less complicated than the Camera Control button on the iPhone 16 sequence.

Add to that a 64MP telephoto with 70mm focal size and a pair of.7x optical zoom with optical image stabilisation – not a given for telephoto lenses on phones – and that is a very full cellular pictures bundle.

Given the Xiaomi 15 Ultra prices £1,299, it’s outstanding that Nubia is just charging £769 for the Starry Night Z70 Ultra. For £30 much less than the iPhone 16 you might be getting far superior cameras and 16GB RAM with 512GB storage. It even runs the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset discovered on the Xiaomi, Galaxy S25 Ultra and OnePlus 13.

Corners have been cut although. Along with the unhealthy high quality selfie digicam, there’s no wi-fi charging. Then again, there’s a charger in the box and the 6,150mAh battery is completely huge. Nubia additionally doesn’t state how long it’ll ship software program updates to the Z70 Ultra, which is worrying as the company’s observe document is poor on this entrance, so don’t anticipate updates past two or three years.

The software program, which is named Nebula AIOS, runs on Android 15 however it’s fairly unpolished, with a plain look and little aptitude. Then again, its simplicity is considerably welcome after utilizing the good however very cluttered Samsung One UI lately, and when the Z70 Ultra is principally a pocket digicam it’s good that the software program retains out the manner.

You can also’t add the Google Discover feed a swipe away from the home screen, which you would possibly see as a bug however I see as a function. I’ve misplaced too many hours to mindlessly scrolling that feed, so its absence right here is appreciated.

The Z70 Ultra just isn’t a cellphone for the plenty. It’s a loudly designed, daring slab of digicam tech with a cellphone connected, and with the Starry Night model, it’s one of the strangest trying phones I’ve ever examined. It’s tough round the edges.

But the high quality of the cameras paired with the top-end specs and affordable price make for a compelling smartphone option in order for you a cellphone you’ll by no means see anybody else with – and one everybody will ask you about.

You can buy the Nubia Z70 Ultra from Nubia’s UK web site.