Line of smartphones ZTE Nubia Z17 (Nubia Z17) - Nubia Z17S, Nubia Z17 Lite, Nubia Z17 Mini, Nubia Z17 Mini S - large review, comparison, reviews

ZTE Nubia Z17S results in AnTutu Benchmark

In the popular AnTuTu benchmark, the ZTE Nubia Z17S smartphone scores an average of about 204,041 points. This figure, like all those given below, was taken from the official website of the developer of this software.

Comparison with other smartphones from the ratings of different years

The rating of devices on the official AnTuTu website is updated once a month. Old data is available via Web Archive.

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A couple of days with the Nubia Z17S smartphone

This year, Nubia parted ways and, instead of two smartphones in the Z17 line, showed a third model in mid-October, which was presented as a top-end frameless phone for a reasonable price. Well, I made a little fuss and in this short review I’ll tell you about my first impressions.

Equipment.

It’s standard here - a small box in the company’s black and red colors, which immediately reveals the smartphone itself, a clip for the SIM tray, a cheap plastic case for the first time, a red USB-USB C charging cable, a 3.5 mm adapter for headphones of the same color and a large power supply. Its characteristics are impressive - 5V-5.2A and this is a record among smartphones, correct me if I'm wrong.

Appearance and screen.

You take the Z17S in your hands and say “WOW, you’re handsome” - that was exactly my first impression of contact with it. This sandwich is made of metal and slightly curved tempered glass from Corning 4th generation on the front and back. There is no strictness in it, rather it is a more youthful model, which is why the color palette is not very diverse: standard black and gold and blue, which is very difficult to get. The flagship turned out to be really compact. With a display diagonal of 5.73 inches, it has small frames at the top and bottom and has completely lost them on the sides, which we have already seen since the Z11 and some smartphones from Sony, so it’s beautiful, but not very surprising.

The display has FullHD+ resolution and this is quite enough for its diagonal size. The corners are oval, the content looks nice, movies run without problems in full screen mode without any software modifications, however, for example, YouTube has black stripes on the sides, which, although a little, does not look very aesthetically pleasing. Overall, I liked the display.

Software part.

Everything is complicated here, the smartphone is officially sold only in China, for the Chinese market, but the Russian language is present to a greater extent, mixed with English. You can use it, but for a perfectionist it’s a pain. There is also no Play Market and it is unlikely that you will be able to install it yourself, so it is better to look for a seller on Ali who offers custom firmware without updates, but with the market. Everything works smartly, but there are also brakes, you can live with it, I didn’t find any critical bugs.

There are several features that make use of the frameless nature of the smartphone. A sidebar with the latest saved files: photos, notes, bookmarks, etc., so that there is quick access to them, this is just an example. I also liked the function of switching between applications by swiping along the edge of the screen, while a nice animation appears in the form of a folded sheet of a book. There are a lot of features in the system, it would take a long time to list.

I won’t dwell on performance for long, since this is a top-end flagship with the most powerful hardware, it can handle any task, chews absolutely any game, and in Antutu it gets 176-178k points, which corresponds to its characteristics.

Satellite navigation

The GPS works quickly, the location is determined quickly, I don’t have a lot of satellite cables here, mostly only Chinese, since I’m in China.

Cameras

The company did not skimp and put in not 2, not 3, but 4 cameras at once, two on each side. I won’t torment you with all sorts of clever names. The front modules have a 5 MP resolution, and the main ones are both from Sony. The main module has an aperture of 1.8 by 12 megapixels, and the telephoto lens has a 23 megapixel resolution with an aperture of 2.0, which in practice should give decent photo quality in any lighting conditions, but, alas, at least in the initial firmware, there is no smell of quality here. Nubia Z17S can take photos with bokeh effect, both main and selfies, but good lighting is a must. There is also optical zoom.

In general, the rear camera takes cool portraits with a bokeh effect and rarely makes mistakes; add a little more and it will be absolutely sweet. By the way, there is no optical stabilization during video, only digital, it is turned on directly in the camera application settings.

Autonomy.

Whether the fact that the Z17S has a 3100 mAh battery is disappointing or not is up to everyone to decide for themselves. For me, a smartphone without any problems lasts for the whole day from morning to evening of very active use with the Internet and GPS always on. 4.5-5 hours of screen, and sometimes more, is a mere trifle for this model.

Also a huge bonus is fast charging with proprietary NeoCharge technology - this monster unit charges the smartphone from 0 to 100% in 50 minutes. Yes, yes, there is no error here, less than an hour is needed for you to use the phone for 1 more day without the need to recharge.

Results.

Of course, it’s too early to draw conclusions, but overall the smartphone was not surprising. I will say this if you need innovation and a huge display in a compact case, while you have developed calluses on your fingers, pressing the power button and the volume up to enter custom recovery (that is, it can easily cope with any problem with the firmware, and generally know how to flash smartphones), then it’s your choice. Otherwise, take a look at Xiaomi Mix 2, or the classic 1+5 for the same money.

• Technical characteristics of the version with 6 GB of RAM (participant of this review)
• Technical characteristics of the version with 8 GB of RAM

Characteristics of ZTE Nubia Z17S in detail

Platform

Chipset Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 (MSM8998) Octa core CPU 4 x Kryo 280 @ 2.45 GHz 4 x Kryo 280 @ 1.90 GHz 64-bit Yes GPU Adreno 540 @ 710 MHz NPU No Process technology 10 nm FinFET (LPP) - Samsung

Memory

RAM 6 Gb - LPDDR4x @ 1866 MHz (Dual Channel) Built-in storage 64 Gb - UFS 2.1 Memory expansion No

Screen

Resolution 1080 x 2040 (FullHD+) Aspect ratio 9:17 Matrix type IPS Diagonal 5.73″ Area ~87.6 cm2 Fill percentage ~81.7% (of the total front surface area) Pixel density ~403 ppi Protection Corning Gorilla Glass

Connection

Communication standards GSM, UMTS, LTE 2G GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz 3G UMTS B1 2100 MHz, B2 1900 MHz, B5 850 MHz, B8 900 MHz 4G LTE FDD B1 2100 MHz, FDD B12 700 MHz, FDD B19 800 MHz , FDD B20 800 MHz, FDD B3 1800 MHz, FDD B4 1700 MHz, FDD B5 850 MHz, FDD B7 2600 MHz, FDD B8 900 MHz, TDD B38 2600 MHz, TDD B39 1900 MHz, TDD B40 2300 MHz, TDD B41 2500 MHz LTE support Yes LTE categories Category-16 DL / Category-13 UL LTE speed Up to 1000 Mbps in download mode, up to 150 Mbps in upload mode LTE device categories indicate the maximum speed at which it can send and receive data in 4G LTE networks through carrier aggregation. Number of SIM cards 2 Type of SIM cards Nano SIM Modem Snapdragon X16 LTE

Cameras

Main camera

Type Dual Resolution 12.0 Mp + 23.0 Mp Autofocus Yes Aperture No data Flash LED

Camera

The smartphone has a dual Sony IMX258 module. Both are 13 MP, both f/2.2, covered with sapphire crystal. But there are still differences. The second camera is monochrome. Laser autofocus and optical stabilization were not delivered. The quality of the photo will be directly proportional to the quality and quantity of lighting. Shooting in DNG/RAW is available. My friends claim that taking photos in RAW gives +100 to the quality of the final image, but I did not notice any noticeable improvements. On the contrary, a generous portion of noise appears. All photos were taken in 16:9 aspect ratio. Let's start with the divine Chinese software bokeh effect, which for some reason is called “Book”. Without a filter:

Available aperture effect values: f/1.0, f/1.2, f/1.4, f/2.0, f/2.4, f/2.8, f/3.2, f/3.5, f/4.0, f/4.5, f/5.6, f /6.3, f/7.1, f/8.0, f/11, f/13.0 and f/16.0. The photo is set to f/2.0.

The poor unicorn lost its tail, horn, hooves and a little bit of its mouth. The fifth point of another unicorn turned out to be completely unblurred.

At a closer distance, the processing is more accurate, but is only relevant for the distinct outlines of the subject. A person’s hair is very likely to get caught and washed out. f/1.0 is practically unusable due to overly aggressive processing. The subject has been out for quite some time and the chances of improving the algorithms with updates tend to zero.

In the daytime it is quite possible to get good pictures. As soon as it starts to get dark, the situation will quickly change for the worse. Shooting in Nubia in the evening is a completely different matter. Due to cloudy weather, the photo appears faded.

Let's fix this. A couple of minutes of surface processing and you can bring Nubian images to an acceptable level.

Monochrome camera. Monochrome camera. HDR doesn't work as well as we would like. In the vast majority of photographs, the brightness increases only slightly, but the richness characteristic of this mode cannot be achieved.

Monochrome camera. Only one picture will tell about the quality of shooting in the dark, from which everything becomes clear.

The front camera is 16 MP, f/2.0, and has a viewing angle of 80°. The photos are pretty mediocre. There is no autofocus. Portrait mode is also available, which gives nothing except useless soap.

Video is recorded in 4K / FHD 60 fps / FHD and HD. When shooting on the move, the image shakes noticeably. 4K video examples:

Autofocus speed.

The camera software is not the most functional and obvious. Some elements are completely illogical. For example, “Book” instead of “Portrait”. Manual settings are available only for photo mode.

All sorts of modes are available, half of which are not much different from auto. There is no usual MP setting. Select only one of three available aspect ratios: 1:1, 4:3 and 16:9.

Photos, by the way, are sorted in the device’s memory into separate folders in accordance with the mode selected when shooting.

Original photos here - drive.google.com/open?id=1D-Oh82Ee9OnIY7XTXoVqIz1-TcAxaCcT Original videos here - drive.google.com/open?id=18JKQxepnmOl9MB1qj2dbJf6VVS87Z8Rz