Nubia N1 first impressions

Nubia has launched two new smartphones for the Indian market, the Z11 and the N1. Nubia Z11 is the flagship model which comes with bezel-less display coupled with some interesting internals, on the other hand, N1 falls in the budget segment and is priced at Rs 11,999. The device has some interesting features like a 5000mAh battery, 13-megapixel front-facing camera and more. We got the chance to spend some with the device and here is what we think.

Design and display
The Nubia N1 comes with a metal unibody design, a trend which has now become a necessity at this price point. The smartphone is made out of aluminium alloy but looks very familiar to the other established brands available in the market. It looks similar to the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 from the rear view. This, as a matter of fact, comes as a disappointment because in the past Nubia has come up with some gorgeous looking smartphones. The device is 8.9mm thick and is a bit bulky with 190 grammes.

The front panel is dominated by a 5.5-inch screen, with company's trademark red-coloured backlit keys at the base and the selfie camera, earpiece and usual array of sensors are placed above the display. On the right, there are volume rocker and power on/off buttons, while the sports the dual-SIM slot. At the top, you will find the 3.5mm audio jack, while at the base is a USB-C port flanked between two speaker grilles. The back houses the primary camera and a LED flash at the top left corner and there is also a fingerprint scanner.

On the display front, the nubia N1 sports a 5.5-inch full HD display with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels with 2.5D arc glass. During my brief testing, the display looked good but we will be able to talk more about it in our detailed review.

Hardware and Software
On the hardware front, the N1 is powered by an octa-core MediaTek Helio P10 processor clocked at 1.8GHz coupled with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage which can be further expanded up to 128GB via microSD card. Connectivity options includes 4G LTE, VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, and USB Type-C support. Looking at the sheer specs sheet, it is evident that the nubia N1 will face a tuff competition the likes of Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, LeEco Le 2, which are established in the market.

On the software front, the device comes with runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system with Nubia UI 4.0 on top of it. The UI looks simple and easy to use, but there is no app drawer, meaning if you install too many apps then you might find it difficult to slide. However, it will interesting how it performs in our detailed review.

Camera and Battery
One of the major highlights of is the 13-megapixel front-facing camera which comes with real-time beautification filter. The rear camera also comes with a 13-megapixel sensor with Neo vision 5.9 technology and is equipped with PDAF phase focus. The camera comes with different modes like multi exposure, light painting electronic aperture, slow shutter and star trail. Nubia has a good reputation in terms of camera performance, and it would be interesting to see that whether the N1 will carry forward company's legacy.

Another highlight of the phone is its 5000mAh battery, which the company claims that can last up to 3.1 days for normal usage and 1.9 days for heavy users. There are not many phones in this price bracket that comes with 500mAh battery backup and battery performance of the device would be one thing to watch in our upcoming review.

nubia N1 specifications

* 5.5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Full HD display
* 1.8 GHz Octa-core MediaTek Helio P10 processor with up to 550MHz Mali T860 GPU
* 3GB RAM, 64GB storage, expandable memory with microSD
* Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) with nubia UI 4.0
* Hybrid Dual SIM (nano + nano/microSD)
* 13MP rear camera with LED Flash, PDAF, f/2.2 aperture, 5P lens
* 13MP front-facing camera
* Fingerprint sensor
* 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS + GLONASS, USB Type-C
* 5000mAh battery

the nubia N1 is priced at Rs. 11999. Both the phones will be available exclusively on Amazon.in and will be available for pre-order starting from this Friday, December 16th.