Review: Nubia Z60 Ultra phone

I did not expect to like the Nubia Z60 Ultra. It’s a big, chunky slab packed with high-end specs at a relatively affordable price from a lesser-known Chinese manufacturer. The usual proposition is that you sacrifice on the software front to get cutting-edge hardware without breaking the bank. Sure enough, Nubia’s unimaginatively named MyOS adds little to Android 14, but the Z60 Ultra confounded my expectations in other ways.

Photograph: Simon Hill

Refreshingly free of bloatware, the Nubia Z60 Ultra has an expansive screen, uninterrupted by any camera cutout (there’s one under the display). Performance is near flawless, with a flagship processor providing plenty of grunt under the hood. But what really won me over was the versatile triple-lens camera. It’s a little inconsistent, but after a week with the phone, I have captured some lovely photos.

While the Nubia Z60 Ultra has a design that will turn some folks off, I have thoroughly enjoyed using it. There are things you can criticize, and I’ll get to them, but if you hunger for something different, and gaming and photography are priorities for you, the Nubia Z60 Ultra is worth a look.

Nubia was originally a subsidiary of the ZTE brand, but it became an independent company in 2015. (Nubia’s PR team specifically mentioned that the two are separate companies.) Nubia’s gaming subbrand RedMagic has been turning out impressively powerful, aggressively priced, and slightly unrefined gaming phones for several years now, and the Z60 Ultra bears some relation.

Here is the Nubia Z60 Ultra side by side with the Apple iPhone 14 Pro to give you an idea of its size.

Photograph: Simon Hill

Sliding the Nubia Z60 Ultra from the box, I was struck by its heft. This phone weighs 246 grams. For context, Apple’s biggest phone, the iPhone 15 Pro Max (8/10, WIRED Recommends), weighs 221 grams. The Z60 Ultra is a rectangular slab in a matte black or silver finish. My black review unit has an aluminum frame with textured glass on the back and a prominent camera module. The bold design also has shiny red metallic highlights around the main lens and a textured power button. Above the power button is a volume rocker, and below is a handy sliding switch that quickly launches the camera but can be used for a different shortcut. The SIM card tray and USB-C port are on the bottom edge. The Z60 Ultra is thick enough that it’s easy to balance on its sides or ends.

With an IP-68 rating, it can survive rain and even a dunk in freshwater. It feels like a durable device, but with Gorilla Glass 5 on the front (which is an older version introduced in 2016) and a tempered matt glass on the back, it’s probably best to use the hard, clear case in the box.

Photograph: Simon Hill

The benefits of such a big phone include a 6.8-inch AMOLED screen with a 2,480 x 1,116 pixel resolution. It supports a 120-Hz refresh rate (but is limited to 60 Hz or 120 Hz) and HDR 10+, and it offers a peak brightness of 1,500 nits. I found it sharp, vibrant, and bright enough for outdoor use. I particularly like the lack of any notch or cutout, achieved by situating the front-facing camera under the screen (if you shine bright light on it when the screen is off, you can just about make it out). A reasonably responsive fingerprint sensor resides at the bottom of the screen.

A screen this big is ideal for playing games or watching movies. After an hour of Grimvalor, the Z60 Ultra remained cool. The speakers offer surprisingly strong sound in the mid and high range, but inevitably lack a little bass. It’s also noticeable that the bottom-firing speaker is doing more work.

Photograph: Simon Hill

The Nubia Z60 Ultra features an interesting triple-lens camera. Nubia has prominently listed the focal length (the distance where lens and sensor converge). Measured in millimeters, smaller numbers mean a wider field of view and depth of field. There is a 50-megapixel, 35-mm main camera; a 50-megapixel, 18-mm wide-angle camera; and a 64-megapixel, 85-mm periscope telephoto camera. All three have optical image stabilization.

Daytime shots with good lighting are rich and detailed with accurate colors, and the color matching across the lenses is spot on. The main and ultrawide lenses have a good depth of field, enabling you to keep foreground and background in focus. You can also tap to focus on a subject with the main camera and achieve a decent bokeh effect (where the background or foreground are blurred). The telephoto lens is great for close-ups from a distance, though it is crucial you don't get too close to the subject (the app repeatedly warned me about this).

The main camera occasionally oversharpens images and doesn’t always nail the exposure in mixed lighting, sometimes blowing out areas or losing details in the shadows. All three cameras have large sensors, so nighttime detail is impressive, and you don’t need much light to get a decent shot. The shutter speed is also fast (see the photos of a bird in flight), but the processing can take a minute.

Nubia’s camera app is quirky and packed with options, some good and some silly. From the cloying “Beauty” mode to smooth out wrinkles to the “Milky-Way Night” mode for capturing the stars. I disliked the default watermarking on photos (who wants that?), though you can turn it off in the settings. There’s also a Pro mode for folks who like to tweak every aspect of a shot. The 12-megapixel front-facing camera under the screen is fine for video calls, but it may disappoint if selfies are important to you.

If you like to shoot video, the Z60 Ultra can record up to 8K at 30 frames per second or 4K at up to 120 fps (but only for 15 seconds). Most folks will want to stick with the default 1080p at 60 fps. There are fun time-lapse and slow-motion options.

Nubia spared no expense on the spec sheet. The Nubia Z60 Ultra has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor and comes with 12 gigabytes (GB) of RAM and 256 GB of storage ($649 / £749 / €749) or 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB storage ($779 / £899 / €899). That storage is Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 4.0, which is lightning-fast and battery-efficient. You will also find support for the very latest Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

The Nubia Z60 Ultra boasts a 6,000-mAh battery that will see you through busy days and can stretch to two days with regular use. Playing Asphalt 9: Legends for 20 minutes claimed just 3 percent of the battery. Nubia also provides an 80-watt charger and USB-C cable. It took around 45 minutes to fully charge from dead, but you can reach 80 percent in less than half an hour.

I am delighted to report that there is virtually no bloatware. You get Google’s suite of apps and a few basic utilities. Nubia’s MyOS is a very light user interface on top of Android 14, and the Z60 Ultra feels quite close to stock Android. Sadly, Nubia loses some points because it is only “committed to providing regular system updates for up to 3 years.” Historically, Nubia has been slow to roll out new Android versions, and we expect to get security updates for a lot longer than three years (Google and Samsung commit to seven years now).

There is also a global version of the Nubia Z60 Ultra available in the UK and Europe, but interested folks in the US should be aware that it is missing several commonly used US wireless frequency bands and may not work all that well as an actual phone.

Perhaps the most obvious competitor for the Nubia Z60 Ultra is the OnePlus 12 (8/10, WIRED Recommends), and it will certainly be a better buy for folks in the States. People in the UK should also consider the Xiaomi 13T Pro (7/10, WIRED Review). You can find more options in our Best Android Phones guide. The Z60 Ultra is a powerful phone, but it's also a really heavy, bulky one with some drawbacks.