With a number of budget smartphones being introduced into the country, it gets pretty difficult for consumers to choose perfect valued smartphone. Let alone consumers, smartphone manufacturers also face an equal amount of pressure to keep the hardware performance at a higher level while making sure of a consumer-friendly price tag. In the midst of the Xiaomi, Meizu and Honor outburst of budget to mid-range Android smartphones in India, Nubia, yet another Chinese smartphone manufacturer has introduced a mid-range handset to the Indian consumers. This has made it a task for a new smartphone hunter to choose the right one for his pocket.
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Earlier, Nubia had launched two smartphones in China—the Z9 and Z9 Mini. While the Z9 was not brought down to India, the Z9 Mini was chosen to compete with the rival smartphones in the Indian segment. The Nubia Z9 Mini is a compact version of the high-end Z9, with similar features, but a mid-range chipset.
The Nubia Z9 Mini is build on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 chipset, which runs on a 64-bit octa-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz, coupled with an Adreno 405 GPU and 2GB of RAM. The display is a 5-incher full HD IPS panel supporting a resolution of 1080x1920 pixels. The rear camera sports a 16MP sensor, while the front-facing camera is equipped with a 5MP sensor. The Mini features an onboard storage capacity of 16GB, which can be further expanded with a micro SD card up to 128GB. On the connectivity front, the Nubia Z9 Mini supports dual SIM 4G LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, USB OTG, and Bluetooth. Lastly, the mid-range Android is fuelled by a 2900mAh battery and powered by Android Lollipop v5.0.2 with Nubia UI 2.0 as the user interface.
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The Nubia Z9 Mini features an elegantly designed rugged body with a dual-tone exterior separated by a chrome trim. The front panel is an all-black glass display with three capacitive buttons on the bottom and the earpiece and necessary sensors on the top. The home button is beautifully designed with a circular red backlit capacitive switch. The home button light doubles up as a notification and charging light.
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The rear panel looks and feels like glass with a mild holographic design imprinted on it. However, the rear panel is made of ABS plastic and is removable, under which lays just the micro SD card slot. The battery is a non-removable type, hence making the smartphone more-or-less similar to a unibody design, but the removable rear panel accommodates different panel designs and colours for the consumers. The rear panel features the primary camera and a single LED flash positioned towards the top-left. Around the chrome trim you will find the power and volume buttons on the right, the earphone jack on the top and the micro USB and speaker grille on the bottom. The SIM card slot is features as an eject tray on the left side, housing the two SIM cards. The Nubia Z9 Mini measures 8.2mm in thickness and weighs in at 147g.
As mentioned earlier, the display features a full HD IPS OGS panel with a 1080x1920 pixel resolution and Gorilla Glass 3 protection. The picture quality of the display is crisp, sharp, sports a wide viewing angle and gives out vibrant colours. The touch is responsive and the user interface is pretty fluid to use.
Speaking on the user interface, Nubia has loaded the Z9 Mini with its own skin called Nubia UI. The user interface is highly customized with various apps and skins along with added icons, menus and various transitions. Though the UI design is completely different from that on a Xiaomi, there are a few areas that closely resemble the MIUI. For example, an app drawer is done away with leaving all icons on the home screen (similar to the iOS or MIUI), the recent apps in the background show up like tiles (again similar to the iOS and MIUI), and a few others can be seen in the settings section.
The Nubia UI also features split screen options where you can multitask with two apps at the same time by splitting the screen into two parts, one each for an app. Though sporting a slim profile, if you still find the handset wide large for your hands, you can switch to the one-hand use option to comfortably use the smartphone. Apart from these features, the Nubia Z9 Mini also sports functions such as gestures, and double tap.
As far as the performance is concerned, the Nubia Z9 Mini compares at par to similar handsets in the market. We did not find any lags or stutters when playing games, watching movies or streaming online videos, whatsoever. The smartphone has a single audio speaker on the bottom, which is loud and clear enough for casual videos, but we advise using an earphone for superior quality. Nubia does not ship earphones along with the Z9 Mini, which means you have to invest a little more on the accessory, but is a better option as you can opt for your personal choice of superior headsets.
The Nubia Z9 Mini has a very feature-rich camera in the segment. It features a number of options from pre-designed modes to complete manual control. Using the Pro mode, one can tweak minute settings such as the ISO, white balance, focus and EV. On the selfie front, the standard beauty mode and smile to capture are available. The rear camera is incorporated with Sony’s IMX234 sensor sporting an f/20 aperture. Images captured are above average and low-light images too are good enough as compared to a few budget cameras with a similar camera out there. However, we did find that images were receiving a tinge of yellow when shot with the flash in low-light areas. Another issue we found with the camera was that the colours, though vibrant, reds were getting a slightly higher boost. The smartphone also tends to get a little warm when shooting a little too many images continuously. Apart from the little issues we noticed, there were no complaints in the image quality. Photos captured are sharp, and highly satisfactory. We leave you with a few photos to judge for yourself.
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(Above) Pictures with red subjects have a vibrant colour (Click on picture for original image)
Shown above: Photos shot without (left) and with flash (Right). (Click on picture for original image)
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(above) Pictures with red subjects have a vibrant colour. (Click on picture for original image)
(Click on picture for original image)
To sum up the experience with the Z9 Mini, we would say that the smartphone is aesthetically appealing, speedy enough for daily usage and holds a good camera for above average photography—especially the manual control. However, for a price of Rs 16,999, we feel the smartphone seems a little overpriced. Though the Nubia Z9 Mini holds good looks and a premium build quality, the rival handsets still have an upper hand over the new entrant, especially in the price segment. The main area where this phone stands tall is the expandable memory, a slightly better camera and a decent battery life.
