Nubia Z80 Ultra Review: Incredible Performance, but at What Cost?

Greatest Costs In the present day: Nubia Z80 Extremely

With the Nubia Z80 Extremely, one of many smaller Chinese language smartphone manufacturers units out to refine its engaging flagship killer blueprint.

The Nubia Z70 Extremely (and its pointless revision, the Nubia Z70S Extremely) each offered as all-singing ‘Extremely’ telephones, however made some sensible concessions to hit a value of round half a Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely.

On this next-gen replace, the design is a bit softer, the efficiency marks a step up (providing an early glimpse on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in motion), and the battery is even larger. We even get wi-fi charging this time round.

Does that sound like sufficient of an improve to you? With a decrease beginning value of £579, it simply would possibly. Additional refinements are required, however the Nubia Z80 Extremely affords rather a lot to admire.

Design & Construct

• Massive and heavy
• IP68/IP69 licensed
• Extra curvaceous than earlier than
• Starry Night time version actually makes an impression

Whereas each different Android producer is attempting to make their telephones appear like an iPhone, Nubia shoots for a retro digital camera aesthetic.

Factors for originality, then. Within the palms, nevertheless, Nubia’s design work has by no means been my favorite. The identical is true of the Z80 Extremely, which broadly sticks to the look of the Z70 Extremely earlier than it.

It’s barely softer and rounder, with a touch of curvature to the aluminium body and to the sides of the rear cowl glass. The digital camera module, too, is much less of a crude slab than earlier than, with a smaller floor space and a taper to the left and proper sides.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Even so, this stays a really massive telephone. It’s 8.6mm and 227g, which is even thicker and heavier than the Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely.

The Z80 Extremely doesn’t fairly really feel fairly premium sufficient to promote the classic digital camera look, although construct high quality is clearly of an honest normal. The availability of each IP68 and IP69 certification ensures a better-than-usual degree of water resistance.

The finishes are available in Black, White, or Blue. The latter, which my check mannequin is available in, is a particular version ‘Starry Night time Version’, riffing on the well-known portray from Vincent Van Gogh.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Personally, I discovered the painterly swirls and the lacquered, shimmery impact to be ever so barely cheesy. However as somebody who can typically be discovered complaining about how boring trendy telephones look – and who loves that Apple gave us a brilliant orange possibility for the iPhone 17 Professional – I really feel it will be churlish to complain an excessive amount of right here.

Just like the earlier fashions, Nubia has gone above and past with its bodily controls. In addition to the same old quantity and energy buttons, there’s a slider swap on the left edge that – reward be – now strikes between sound modes by default quite than leaping into the digital camera app.

For the latter, there’s a two-stage digital camera shutter button that falls neatly below your proper forefinger. It’s sprung good, too, so you’ll be able to reliably half-press to lock focus, then press all the way in which to take a snap.

Display & Audio system

• 6.85-inch 1.5K AMOLED show
• 144Hz refresh charge
• So-so stereo audio system

After Nubia upgraded its show for the Nubia Z70 Extremely, it’s maybe no shock to see the Nubia Z80 Extremely holding place. It makes use of what seems to be the identical 6.85-inch BOE AMOLED panel.

This packs a pointy 1216 x 2688 (also known as 1.5K) decision, and a higher-than-usual 144Hz refresh charge. The latter is actually solely helpful in a comparatively small collection of video games which were designed to output at elevated body charges, however no less than the Z80 Extremely has the processing energy to again it up – extra on that later.

Elsewhere, a peak brightness of 2000 nits falls properly wanting true flagships, however gives ample outside brightness nonetheless.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Just like the RedMagic 11 Professional – a £600 gaming telephone additionally made by Nubia – the Z80 Extremely show stashes its selfie digital camera below its show. This has unfavorable repercussions for selfies, however in show phrases, no less than it’s a notable optimistic.

Video and gaming content material is allowed to stretch out with no bothersome notch getting in the way in which.

The audio provision isn’t fairly as convincing. Stereo audio system flank that giant show, however the output is considerably missing in low-end heft. Enhance the quantity as much as greater ranges, and the impact is sort of grating, even when the audio stays sufficiently clear.

Specs & Efficiency

• Powered by Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
• As much as 24GB RAM and 1TB storage
• Class-leading efficiency

One of many methods during which Nubia – nonetheless a comparatively minor participant on the smartphone scene – cleverly attracts consideration with its flagship telephones is by making them among the many first to characteristic Qualcomm’s newest high-end System on Chip (SoC).

That’s as true of the Nubia Z80 Extremely because it was of the Z70 Extremely and the Z60 Extremely. This time round, it’s the flip of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 – an elaborately named chip that provides an almighty, iPhone-rivalling degree of CPU and GPU efficiency.

It additionally runs as much as 24GB of LPDDR5X RAM. My check mannequin is the mid-tier 16GB variant, whereas even the entry-level 12GB mannequin ought to show ample.

Operating by our common suite of benchmark exams, the Nubia Z80 Extremely impresses. It’s considerably sooner than the Redmagic 10S Professional and the OnePlus 13, with single-core CPU efficiency that matches the iPhone 17 Professional, and multi-core efficiency that blasts previous it.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

On the subject of the GPU, our GFXBench exams don’t reveal an excessive amount of. The telephone is topping out at 60fps, similar to the Nubia Z70 Extremely, however is sort of clearly able to extra. It appears to be a quirk of the way in which Nubia’s telephones work together with the app, and the model isn’t distinctive in displaying such behaviour.

Extra revealingly, I ran the telephone by 3DMark’s sustained efficiency exams, which contain 20 consecutive minute-long intensive GPU exercises. The Nubia Z80 Extremely carried out properly, with a Photo voltaic Bar Excessive Stress Take a look at stability rating (representing the gap between one of the best and lowest loop scores) of 70.9%. That’s round 10% wanting the Redmagic 11 Professional with its monstrous cooling system, however is fairly good for a ‘regular’ telephone.

It falls behind the iPhone 17 Professional by way of particular person loop outcomes, however beats it by 10% by way of stability. And sure, the telephone was uncomfortably sizzling after operating the aforementioned heavy workload – far hotter than Apple’s newest flagship telephone with its personal improved thermals.

What this actually means is that the telephone can run at an honest lick over prolonged intervals. In gaming phrases, the Z80 Extremely runs Future: Rising fluidly on Max body charge (90fps) and Extremely rendering high quality, which is nearly as good as any telephone proper now (together with the iPhone 17 Professional).

Nubia Z80 Extremely benchmarks

Cameras

• 50Mp foremost digital camera
• 64Mp 3.3x telephoto
• 50Mp ultra-wide
• Poor 16Mp in-display entrance digital camera

Relatively curiously, Nubia made its main adjustments to the Z70 Extremely digital camera with the Nubia Z70S Extremely – a nominally half-generational replace. That leaves the Nubia Z80 Extremely with little, if something, to supply by way of recent options.

Which means it runs a 50Mp 1/1.3-inch Mild & Shadow Grasp 990 foremost sensor, which is bigger than the 1/1.56-inch sensor of the Z70 Extremely. Once more, we’ve seen this earlier than.

What you don’t get is the Z70 Extremely’s splashy variable aperture. It’s not an enormous loss, to be honest, because the Nubia Z80 Extremely can take pictures with superior depth and element. It could possibly battle with overexposure, although.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Nubia adopts the photographic fanatic language of focal lengths over the extra generally acknowledged zoom ranges – so it’s 35mm and 18mm quite than 1x and ultra-wide – however the digital camera system itself stays a bit hit or miss.

There’s a reasonably constant tone between the three cameras (a 64Mp telephoto and a 50Mp ultra-wide fill out the providing) this time round, no less than. You’ll discover a clear uptick in graininess with the ultra-wide digital camera, however it appears as if Nubia has finished some work matching its temperature as much as the principle sensor.

The drop off in high quality in zoomed pictures past 85mm, in the meantime, is sort of pronounced. Nubia doesn’t make it significantly intuitive to zoom in additional, which might be an excellent factor.

Night time mode kicks in routinely and captures clear and balanced low-light snaps. There’s a slight degree of artificiality to the extent of brightening, however I used to be usually happy with the outcomes.

The largest weak spot right here is the 16Mp selfie digital camera. In inserting it under the show, Nubia has principally condemned its telephone to being a write-off for anybody who takes numerous selfies. It truly is that unhealthy, with smudgey, low-detail pictures which have had a lot processing thrown at them, they seem to have had a nasty retro filter utilized to them.

I’m nonetheless not a fan of Nubia’s digital camera UI. Apart from the considerably pretentious use of focal lengths – with the odd confusion use of 10x thrown into the combination – we’ve a largely pointless Road images mode along with the common Photograph and Professional ones.

Then there’s the irritating utility of a watermark out of the field, in addition to beautifying results that give facial options an eerily pretend glow.

It’s one other digital camera set-up that, whereas fairly efficient in sure situations, isn’t constant or spectacular sufficient to warrant the professional photographer posturing.

Battery Life & Charging

• 7200mAh battery
• 80W wired charging
• Wi-fi charging lastly added
• No charger within the field

Maybe probably the most improved component of the entire Nubia Z80 Extremely bundle is its battery and charging provision. It feels churlish to level out that its predecessors have been hardly missing in these departments.

It’s undeniably spectacular to see an excellent larger 7200mAh battery put in within the telephone, although. This isn’t merely a telephone that may limp to 2 days in case your utilization is mild – it’ll make bedtime on the second day with relative ease.

On one specific day of lighter-than-ordinary utilization, on a steady Wi-Fi community and with round two hours and half-hour of display screen time, I used to be nonetheless left with 90% within the tank. That’s extraordinary, and signifies that you might in all probability begin to contemplate a 3rd day of utilization in the event you’re not a heavy person.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Whenever you do hit the telephone with extra intensive media utilization, nevertheless, the Z80 Extremely continues to underperform. Whereas a PCMark Work 3.0 battery check rating of 10 hours and 11 minutes is a full hour longer than the Nubia Z70S Extremely managed, it nonetheless falls 4 hours and 40 minutes wanting the Asus ROG Telephone 9 Professional, and greater than 9 hours shy of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely.

Software program & AI

• Android 16 with Nebula AIOS 2.0
• Google Uncover feed is gone once more
• Restricted AI instruments
• Solely 3 years of assist promised

Nubia’s Nebula AIOS is again in its second full iteration, the place it sits on high of Android 16.

It hasn’t developed a lot from the primary model, which is a disgrace. That is arguably the realm to which I’d have appreciated to have seen probably the most consideration paid.

Or ought to that be the least consideration? That is the type of overly fussy, congested customized Android UI that simply makes me want the producer had provided the power to choose out of any gildings and simply give us a pure Android expertise. If Asus can do it, why can’t everybody else?

Jon Mundy / Foundry

On the optimistic facet, navigation is quick and easy, and the settings menus haven’t been messed round with an excessive amount of. It’s moderately intuitive to dwell with, and bloatware is conspicuous by its (relative) absence.

Sadly, Nubia seems to have rolled again from Nebula AIOS 1.5, and has reinstated its horrible Z-board display screen to the left of the Residence Display. As a substitute of the same old Google Uncover feed, you as soon as once more get a horrible collection of beneficial apps and video games on high of a trashy information widget.

As soon as once more, Nubia goes mild on AI instruments. It might be glib to attempt to paint this as a optimistic – regardless of the state of at the moment’s cell AI provisions, we now come to count on them in key departments, and the Z80 Extremely falls brief.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Nubia AI provides you a dwell translation device, AI-powered name transcriptions and translations, and the same old fundamental Google Gemini-driven instruments. It’s fairly sparse.

By way of software program assist, the scenario isn’t nice in any respect. Nubia guarantees a mere three years of safety updates and only a single main Android improve, whereas “push optimisations will likely be made based mostly on market demand.” That’s one of many weakest assurances that I’ve seen, particularly for a telephone that prices north of £500.

Value & Availability

It’s troublesome to pin Nubia down with its pricing at instances, however the figures it gave to us forward of the Z80 Extremely’s launch level to a stunning value minimize.

The claimed “Official Retail Value” for the mannequin with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of inside storage is £579. That’s £70 cheaper than the beginning value for the Nubia Z70 Extremely.

My very own check mannequin, which comes with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, in addition to that snazzy Starry Night time end, prices £729. Lastly, the range-topping mannequin with 24GB/1TB prices £799.

All fashions can be found from the Nubia UK web site, although there’s no phrase on US availability at this stage, regardless of the Z70 Extremely being obtainable there.

That’s an especially low UK value for a telephone with this degree of efficiency, and certainly this complete a set of specs. This can be a telephone with a (comparatively) premium construct, a devoted telephoto digital camera, a flagship processor, and even wi-fi charging – all obtainable for lower than half the worth of a Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely.

Equally-priced options embrace the Xiaomi 15T (from £549) and Motorola Edge 60 Professional (from £599.99) – see extra in our information to one of the best mid-range telephones.

Must you purchase the Nubia Z80 Extremely?

Nubia has cranked up every thing that made the Z70 Extremely so spectacular, with class-leading efficiency and an ostensibly flagship-level spec record at an excellent cheaper mid-range value.

For anybody on the lookout for one of the best efficiency potential within the sub-£600 class, there isn’t a telephone to the touch it on the time of writing. An infinite battery and spectacular charging – now additionally in wi-fi kind – assist the Z80 Extremely to punch properly above its weight.

Don’t suppose that you simply’re truly getting a real ‘Extremely’ expertise, nevertheless. The design wants additional refinement, whereas the digital camera system isn’t fairly as pro-level because it initially appears to be, with variable high quality and a clunky UI. The selfie digital camera is downright horrible, too.

In the meantime, Nubia’s customized UI continues to require consideration – or higher but, scrapping – in favour of a purer model of Android.

However if in case you have your sights set on uncooked energy at a cut price value, this might be your subsequent telephone.

Specs

• Android 16 with Nebula AIOS 2.0
• 6.85in, 1.5K, OLED, 144Hz, flat show
• In-display fingerprint sensor
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
• 12GB LPDDR5X RAM
• 256GB storage
• 50Mp, f/1.7 foremost digital camera
• 50Mp, f/1.8 ultra-wide digital camera
• 64Mp, f/2.48 telephoto macro digital camera
• As much as 8K @ 30fps rear video
• 16Mp front-facing digital camera
• Stereo audio system
• Twin-SIM
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be
• Bluetooth 6.0
• 7200mAh battery
• 80W charging
• 164.5 x 77.2 x 8.6mm
• 227g
• Launch colors: Black, White, Blue