Nubia Flip 5G Review

Verdict

The Nubia Flip 5G is an eye-catching clamshell foldable with a unique circular cover screen and a large 50-megapixel camera. The specs don’t quite match up to some of the phone’s competitors and the round cover screen doesn’t feel as practical as a square one but, at a more affordable price, you have to expect some compromises.

Introduction

If you’ve caught yourself admiring foldables from afar but are put off by the premium prices, the Nubia Flip 5G is sure to pique your interest. 

This palm-sized flip phone has an eye-catching, modern design, a 50-megapixel dual camera, and a foldable screen to seal the deal. 

However, with its price starting at just £499, there are bound to be some compromises compared to its more premium competitors. The question is, is the cheaper initial cost worth the trade-off? Let’s dive in.

Design

• Shimmering finish in two colours
• The Nubia Flip 5G weighs just over 200g
• No IP rating

The Nubia Flip 5G is a clamshell-style foldable that comes in two colours, Cosmic Black and Sunshine Golden.

I found the Sunshine Golden model I received to be stunning with a smooth finish that shimmers beautifully in the light. The hinge and sides are a matte silver shade, with the hinge revealing the Nubia logo when the phone is folded in half. 

At 209g, the phone has a bit more weight to it than my usual iPhone 14, which I appreciated in this instance as it made the hinge design feel reassuringly sturdy.

That said, the Flip 5G has no stated IP rating, meaning you shouldn’t expose it to water. In their beginning years, this was the standard for foldables but nowadays the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 and the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra both carry some level of water protection. 

Screens

• Unique circular cover screen shape
• The cropped view of the cover screen isn’t ideal
• Sharp and bright internal display

Like other flip phones, the Nubia Flip 5G has two screens – an internal folding display and an external cover screen. 

The internal screen is a 6.9-inch AMOLED display with a sharp and bright FHD+ (2790 x 1188) resolution and a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. According to Nubia, the display is “wrinkleless”, with a high-strength hinge that should be good for more than 200,000 folds.

Of course, this isn’t something I was able to test ahead of this review as it’s more of a long-term consideration, but I did find that the hinge felt smooth and there is only a shallow dip where the two sides of the internal display meet. You can definitely see the fold up close, but it isn’t something that bothered me during everyday use. 

The 1.43-inch cover screen might be a more divisive design choice for some. I personally like the look of the circular screen, but I also found it to be less practical for taking photos compared to a square or rectangular cover screen. The gesture controls were useful for pressing the shutter, but the circular display can only offer a cropped view instead of showing the whole frame. 

I also found the cover screen’s other abilities to be very limited compared to other foldables I’ve tried. Aside from the 3D pet screensaver, notifications, and a select eight features including a calendar, pedometer and timer, there isn’t all that much to do on the smaller display. 

Camera 

• The dual camera consists of a 50-megapixel sensor and a 2-megapixel depth sensor
• The camera captures sharp and vibrant images but images easily become over-sharpened with zoom
• There is a 16-megapixel front camera for video calls

The Nubia Flip 5G features a dual camera led by a 50-megapixel sensor and accompanied by a much smaller 2-megapixel depth sensor.

I found the main camera to be generally capable, capturing vibrant colours like the blue sky and green foliage. There’s a good amount of detail to be found in images like the pillars above, though the images do get softer in low light. 

If you’re looking for a phone with good camera zoom, I would avoid the Nubia Flip 5G. I found that images became visibly noisy and oversharpened from 3x and were pretty much unusable from 5x despite the camera’s 10x limit. 

There are a range of real-time filters that allow you to view the filtered image as you shoot. I can’t say any of the filters are ones that I would choose over the standard camera but they can create some fun results if you feel like getting creative and switching up the mood of your image.

There’s also a Super Night mode, along with 12 different algorithms for capturing stars and the night sky which might be particularly appealing if you’re into astrophotography. 

At the top of the internal display, you’ll find a 16-megapixel front camera. I mostly found this camera to be useful for video calls as you can use the cover screen to capture selfies with the higher-quality 50-megapixel camera. However, the front camera still captures some nice selfies with a built-in beauty mode for softening skin and a portrait mode available for blurring the background. 

When it comes to video, the rear camera is capable of recording up to 4K video with a stabilisation feature designed to keep your footage steady. I found the stabilisation to be particularly impressive, offering smooth results when walking down a busy street and dodging other pedestrians in central London.

Performance 

• The Nubia Flip 5G is powered by a slightly older chipset
• The chipset is paired with up to 12GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage.
• There is a fingerprint sensor, face recognition, and NFC door unlock support

The Nubia Flip 5G is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chipset paired with up to 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. I was sent the lower-priced 8GB/256GB model for this review. 

While the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 is a capable chipset, it isn’t the latest one having launched back in 2022. This means the performance falls behind some more recent flip phones like the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra and may make the Nubia Flip 5G less suitable for running more intensive apps and games, though both of these rival foldables are more expensive. 

I found the performance to be decent, with apps loading quickly and games like Among Us running mostly smoothly. 

The Nubia Flip 5G includes both a fingerprint sensor and face recognition, allowing you to choose your preferred method to unlock the phone. 

On the off chance you’ve swapped your lock and key for a smart lock, the Nubia Flip 5G also offers NFC door unlocking. This isn’t something I had the means to test personally, but it’s a nifty feature if you do have a compatible door. 

Software

• The phone runs Nubia’s MyOS 13 (based on Android 13)
• MyOS 13 runs smoothly and is easy to navigate
• There’s Adaptive 5G to auto-switch between 5G and 4G to save battery

When it comes to software, you can run Nubia’s own MyOS 13 or opt for a more standard Android experience. Both are based on Android 13, so both options support the same extensive app library courtesy of the Google Play Store.

I found MyOS 13 to be simple and intuitive enough to navigate easily, though the phone does come with a bit of bloatware in the form of preinstalled apps and games that you may wish to go through and delete. 

There are a good amount of personalisation options in the settings, including wallpapers and always-on display clocks for the cover screen. There’s also a section for removing and reordering the eight outer display functions, though disappointingly no way to add new ones, such as those from any of the third-party apps I had installed.

There’s also Adaptive 5G for when you’re low on battery. This is Nubia’s version of the Pixel‘s Adaptive Connectivity and allows your phone to auto-switch between 5G and 4G based on your current activity to extend the battery life of your phone.

Other battery optimisation settings include a reduced 60Hz refresh rate, and the option to auto-clean background apps that haven’t been touched for a long time.

One thing worth noting is that Nubia doesn’t offer a guarantee for the number of major software updates you’ll receive with this handset.

In a Q+A, the company stated that security updates will be available “for years to come from the date of purchase” which doesn’t tell us much, though we do know that the Nubia Z60 Ultra is only promised up to three years of updates. To put that into perspective, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is guaranteed 4 years of software updates and five years of security updates.

Battery life 

• The Nubia Flip 5G has an all-day battery life
• The fast charging takes longer than Nubia claims
• No wireless charging

The Nubia Flip 5G is fitted with a large 4310 mAh battery, which I found lasted just over a full day of casual use with some mobile photography and video recording thrown in. 

The 33W fast charging didn’t quite live up to Nubia’s claims in my experience. According to the company, the Flip 5G should be able to reach 50% in 18 minutes of charging, but I found it took my review sample 28 minutes to get there. That said, I still found the charging speed to be plenty fast enough for me, reaching 30% in just over 15 minutes.  

Sadly, there’s no wireless charging available here. However, this is an affordable phone, so there are bound to be some compromises.

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