While many phone main focuses on performance or the camera, or the combination of both, ZTE surprisingly came out with a phone that focuses an area that deserves a review as part of the article. Yes, what am I talking about, or rather experience, is one of ZTE latest affordable audio focused phone, the nubia Music.
Design
Its so youth looking and it’s kinda funky too, the ZTE nubia Music takes the outlook of a classic speaker design at the back and combine the bright color design artstyle together that resulted in a modern retro looking slate of a smartphone that is rare to see, and in fact it is been quite some time I have not touch such overly bright striking color design phone. The body is primarily made out of polycarbonate plastic including the side frames, while the front display is nicely laminated with glass, which ZTE did not specify what type of glass that it uses, anyway that is fine since a screen protector and a phone case is included in every nubia Music purchased.
Weight wise, the ZTE nubia Music is weighted at around 175 grams, which is not terribly heavy by smartphone standards and by the looks of it, it is deem durable with proper button placements all over the right side while the left side is the SIM card slot, followed by two 3.5mm headphone jack and a single USB C port for data and charging.
Thats pretty much there, simply designed and crafted for the youth and the young ones.
Display and Audio
The nubia Music puts in the basics that is considered as is needed in 2024, a 720P screen that is running at 90Hz refresh rate, on a 6.6 inch IPS LCD display. It may lined up as an all low end side, while that could be true, however for the most part, considering ZTE’s objective on the phone, I find it all reasonable sounding and it does met all basic navigation, viewing, streaming and very lightweight task needs, not to mention it is Netflix and Widevine capable, albeit you are pretty much limited to L3 certification only, and that is totally fine, better than some phone or tablets that I encountered without any DRM certifications at all.
As the name implies, the ZTE nubia Music is among the cheapest music/audio centric phone, whether it is overall tiers or categories, of course it’s objective is not to kill off or defeat the standalone amplified high end smartphone or dedicated portable Android player, but it’s to have at least a higher quality audio in an affordable smartphone. It does have DTS X Ultra also, for all your audio environment mode and what not, and this can be used with the dual headphone jacks, USB C Audio and Bluetooth audio mode. Since it does have the dual headphone jacks, meaning you can plug to analogue headphones seamlessly and I see this is the ZTE nubia Music major selling point. If you are solely relying on the phone’s speaker, that is located at the back and it can be fairly loud, but lack of bass in general with and additional volume upwards to 600%.
Camera
Now onwards to the camera, and this will be a fairly quick one, a 50MP main lens with a rear auxiliary lens, while the front lens is 5MP only, suffice to say the results is the best you can get circa early 2020 in comparison, but it is still fairly serviceable with it’s simplistic camera app menu that is pretty much for a short zoom, focus and snap, just try not to take pictures where the surrounding is fairly dim, though the software is trying to brighten the results. Day time wise, all fairly good and that’s somewhat business as usual. Video recording is limited to 1080P at 30FPS, which in turn the good news is, you still can quickly upload a video or two towards your social media platform. With that said, one should be aware that’s as much as this phone can do.
Performance & Software
This part is a rarity, the ZTE nubia Music is powered by an octa core Unisoc L3R SOC with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage, and yes, it is MicroSD card expandable to store all your music and data. To put it in a performance perspective, in gaming that is, Mobile Legends can get you a few comfortable gaming session with all low graphical settings and back to the real world application use, just try not to open too many apps or multi tasking too much, it tend to delay abit however still usable. It has a 5000Mah battery which can last you over a day on most basic phone tasks while NFC is also included so you still be able to make some mobile payment and transfers.
The inclusion of the fairly dated Android 13 and MyOS 13 UI brings in almost bare vanilla UI flavor to it close to the stock interface is one thing that I liked about, with very minor bloatware, the phone still can navigate thru settings and the home screen, transitioning between apps quite OK despite the very budget SOC, and fair to say, there is not much of overly bloated customization, just themes and Live Island, you will not see anything extra more from what you can get, like the nubia Neo series for example, and keeping it near AOSP is one of their moves to keep it memory usage friendly.
Verdict and Conclusion
The ZTE nubia Music sets in probably as one of the most affordable phone, music centric phone and a absolute basic level Android smartphone that is suitable for those who wanted to have the most affordable music phone and an android music player that still shines up with it’s very compelling price tag of RM399, which is a complete no brainer if that’s all you wanted, so even it is a good take and buy it if you are seeking for a budget secondary phone, and can serve as a mobile hotspot that even some of the mid tier level 4G standalone modem can’t compete when it comes to the pricing alone.