Just five years ago foldable phones started at the sky-high price of $2,699, but the Nubia Flip and its sub-$ $1,000 price tag represent a new step for the technology. Now that foldables can step down to the mid-range bracket, consumers can expect hotter competition and higher standards from the flagships. While the Nubia is average, its existence means big things.
- Surprising night mode quality
- Great battery
- It folds!
- No software update information
- Mixed camera performance
Foldable smartphones have been available to consumers since 2019, and manufacturers have made massive strides in just five short years. However, I would argue that one of the most important milestones happened this year with the Nubia Flip 5G - foldable technology has officially entered the mid-tier market.
Writ large foldables phones have always felt somewhat mid-tier as it is. They require compromises on battery life, durability, and camera quality. Generally, the same trade-offs you make when you opt for a cheaper handset over a flagship, and yet the price never reflected those concessions. Consumers were expected to pay the big bucks for the novelty of a foldable screen, but the Nubia Flip 5G proves that we’re ready to buck that trend.
Imitation and flattery
Nubia’s Flip 5G looks like the love child of a Samsung Flip and a Xiaomi 17 Ultra. On the pastel, clamshell design sits a circular camera bump, front display hybrid. Along the metal-look edges are the usual volume and power buttons, the latter coloured a bright statement red. When I first took the device out of its box its glitter finish was dazzling, but over a month of use that finish has already started wearing out, now only shimmering in certain lights.
The 3cm display shows the time and basic notifications, with the ability to slide through eight other widgets like the weather, a calendar, pedometer, and quick access timers. While you can change the order of these tiles, the device doesn’t support custom widgets on the external display. You also can’t customise the look and feel of these screens which is a shame because they look like they fell out of Canva’s backend.
Although you can see if you have notifications on this front display, you’ll only get a small snippet of the message before needing to open your phone to check it in full. The screen itself is large enough to let you scroll through a message comfortably, so it feels like a missed opportunity to not better utilise that space. We had similar complaints about the first few rounds of foldables from Motorola and Samsung, although these small external displays were less invasive than the Xiaomi duplicate we see on the Nubia.
The similarities to Samsung's original Z Flip keep coming when the phone is open. I’m more forgiving of the long aspect ratio and noticeable crease in the middle though, considering the Nubia is a full $1200 cheaper than the original Z Flip was at launch. The display itself is lovely and vibrant, with thin bezels, but it doesn’t quite fold entirely flat. The distortion is less noticeable when the home screen is a photo, but if you stick with the default black patterned display it is harder to ignore.
Admittedly these design choices do add to the mid-tierness of the Nubia Flip 5G. Manufacturers tend to skimp on the finishes across this bracket, making the devices feel less polished than flagships. Still, it would have fared Nubia better to concentrate on the cheaper details, like the widget design for example, to get a more premium feel without blowing big bucks on hardware.
Feeling insecure
Although the system can have a bit of lag, the overall performance of the Nubia 5G Flip is pretty good. The device has the same Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chipset as last year’s Motorola Razr 40, and while we saw no issues with performance in the Moto there are a few noticeable hiccups on the Nubia.
Apps launch with a small delay, animations can be jumpy - nothing that causes serious issues, but odd to see after the seamless experience of the Razr. Rather than running pure or light-touch Android, Nubia uses a skin called MyOS which could account for the jittering. More than likely there are a combination of factors that make the Nubia just that little bit less efficient.
Battery performance is excellent, lasting upwards of six hours of screen time between charges which is about on par with a full day of use with a substantial buffer. Both of these aspects are once again synonymous with the mid-tier bracket, which loves a big battery life claim. The Nubia falls below the middle of the pack when it comes to security, however.
At the time of writing, there was no security update plan for the Flip 5G handset. According to the product team there will be “periodic updates” but they were unable to advise on a solid yearly timeline when we inquired, telling us that it is “under active planning”. Nubia really dropped the ball here. Generally, a phone’s lifespan is only as good as its security updates, so having no plan in place makes it hard to recommend the Flip 5G. Even the cheapest Android phones tend to get about two years of basic security updates so we would expect the Nubia to support at least that.
Lucky dip
Camera performance is a usual casualty in both foldable phones and the mid-tier, so it is unsurprising that the Nubia Flip 5G has some photography quirks. Rather than the usual high contrast, high saturation images you tend to get on Android devices, the Nubia tips in the opposite direction snapping cooler tones instead.
These cooler tones can make colours look washed out, especially when shooting in unnatural light. Take the photos below; while the details are sharp and clear, the yellow couch looks almost grey with how much the colours shifted. Similarly, the warm tones in the table wood and the food are entirely cancelled out, making the whole image look flat.
This dimension returns in bright, natural light which is usually the case for cameras in this bracket. You can see some beautiful contrast coming through across the pizza, and the foliage below as an example.
Performance dips once again when we add motion to these bright, daylight images. The shutter speed is too slow which results in plenty of motion blur across subjects. It falls further when we switch to night mode, and really bottoms out when you add motion to lowlight images.
Despite the dip, this isn’t the worst night mode we’ve seen. Many manufacturers fall into the trap of upping the brightness while using night mode which throws off not only colour balance, but detail. In its best examples the Nubia manages to capture detail while retaining contrast across the image.
The light through these trees for example; rather than blowing out, the Flip 5G manages to focus in on the light bulbs themselves and maintain the interesting lighting textures within the shot. You can also make out textures of individual leaves and shadows, which is admittedly rare for a night mode at this price point. I wouldn’t even bother trying to snap a moving subject at night though.
All up the camera performance across the Nubia Flip 5G is telling of its price point. Mid-tier phones tend to perform well in natural light but struggle across low light and motion capture. This does make the night mode a pleasant surprise, but all-around photography on this device is a mixed bag. In ideal shooting conditions, you’ll be able to get a shot worthy of sharing, but otherwise, you’ll need to work a bit harder for it.
Nubia Flip 5G camera samples
Check out these camera samples taken on the Nubia Flip 5G. Click or tap on any photo to see a larger version. You may notice the “Shot on Nubia” watermark in some of these photos. This is on by default, but can be switched off in camera settings.
Nubia Flip 5G - Final Thoughts
While the Nubia Flip 5G is wholly a mid-tier phone, its trade-offs are a reflection of its price point, rather than a reflection of its form factor. The slow shutter speed, laggy performance, and excellent battery life are cornerstones of the $750-$1000 phone market. For the price these compromises are understandable even in a solid handset, for a foldable it is miraculous.
Although I couldn't genuinely recommend buying a Nubia Flip due to security concerns, I'm glad that it exists. Foldable development has begun to feel stale lately. The most reliable foldable brand Samsung has already fallen into the trap of incremental updates. The awe that foldables brought has begun to tarnish under the incessant march of tiny spec bumps.
Nubia's cheap foldable phone may just spark the flame of innovation in the space again. If mid-tier foldables can exist, with no additional compromises than you would expect for the price, flagships have two choices. Either lower your prices, or up your game.
These are the most popular SIM-only mobile plans with WhistleOut users this week:
|
#1
|
SpinTel
Editor's Pick
$23 Mobile Plan
$12.00/mth
Min. cost $12
|
|
#2
|
Boost Mobile
$39 Prepaid
$39.00
Per 28 Day Renewal
|
|
#3
|
Tangerine Telecom
30GB 5G Mobile SIM
$30.00/mth
Min. cost $15
|
|
#4
|
Pivotel
25GB Mobile Swift Plan
$11.45/mth
Min. cost $11.45
|
|
#5
|
Dodo
Editor's Pick
Medium Mobile Plan
$30.00/mth
Min. cost $15
|
|
#6
|
Swoop
30GB SIM Only 5G
$14.00/mth
Min. cost $14
|
|
#7
|
Optus
$60 Optus Choice Plus Plan
$39.00/mth
Min. cost $39
|
|
#8
|
TPG
Editor's Pick
30GB Small Plan
$15.00
Per 1 Month Renewal
Link not supplied
|
|
#9
|
felix mobile
felix 25GB Mobile Plan
$30.00
Per 1 Month Renewal
|
|
#10
|
Yomojo
Starter 29GB Plan
$24.90
Per 30 Day Renewal
Link not supplied
|
Anula Wiwatowska
Offsite Editorial Lead | Instagram
Related Articles
