Nubia Z11 Mini Review: Good camera and Atheistic design but Average Performance

Chinese smartphone manufacturer ZTE stated their market in India with new name Nubia Z9 and now they came with Nubia Z11 mini. Right now, Nubia is not aiming for high-end smartphones, they are looking for affordable Android handset. Nubia Z9 was popular for its camera quality and we hope,  we will get the same camera quality in Nubia Z11 mini. Let’s see the efficiency of Z11 mini in terms of design, camera and performance.

Compact and Aesthetic design

When first time we saw the device, we got the impression of iPhone, though it looks similar but has various design tweaks. The 2.5D metallic frame and black antennas look awesome. It has glass frame on both sides which gives it a premium and stylish look. At the front, it is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and at the bottom of the display, there are three capacitive buttons colored in red.

FHD Display: Small but impressive

The color produces on 5.0 inches IPS LCD Full HD display of Nubia Z11 mini looks very natural and vibrant. Also, it has an inbuilt display color option that can customize the screen color from cooler to warmer. The viewing angles are acceptable wide good wide angles.

Nubia hasn’t compromised in the Camera department

It hosts 16-megapixel camera at the rear with f/2.0 and comes with phase detection autofocus capability. The camera lens is protected by the six-element sapphire glass, meaning it won't get scratches. The camera captures amazing images in both daylight and night. Images come out with great details, rich colors, and sharpness. The camera UI offers you several functions including Time-lapse, Slow motion, Camera family and more. The front camera is also great in taking self-groupies. Overall the Nubia’s Z11 mini camera is one of the best cameras in this price range.

Highly Customized Nubia OS

Z11 mini UI based on Android 5.1 Lollipop, most of the phone are now coming with attest marshmallow and Nubia still using the Lollipop which bothers us a little bit.  The interesting feature of Nubia Z11 Mini is the Edge, enabling the user to switch between various apps. You just need to swipe up and down from edges at the both left and right sides. You can customize your experience, for instance, you can decide which app should open when you slide through the edges.  Also, when you repeatedly slide on edges, it will clear all background apps. Also, one can adjust brightness and volume by sliding fingers on the both the edges simultaneously.

Average Performance

The stylish Z11 mini did pretty well in terms of performance. We didn’t find any major performance issue but it did give us little lag while playing games like asphalt 8. The customization of UI works well but sometimes it stops responding may be a few fixings is required. We expect Nubia will soon come with some patch updates. Coming to the call quality, we didn’t find any call drop or network issue with this phone.  For listening to your favorite music, the comes with DTS feature to enhance the audio quality in headphones as well as in Loudspeaker. Overall the clarity of sound is good but the loudness is average. It comes with a matte finish on the fingerprint sensor, it works fine but a bit less accurate and responsive as compared to another mobile in the similar price category.

As it back panel works as magnet to smudges, the battery love to drain fast. The phone is packed with 2800 mAh battery which is comparatively lower. During the heavy usage, it was able to last only for 5-6 hours however with moderate usage the battery can run for a day.