nubia Z17 mini Review

Overview

nubia is already quite familiar with its innovative devices which combine high-end design, hardware and features as to provide an enhanced life quality while maintaining reasonable price tags. It is a separate business from ZTE while being able to draw on ZTE's extensive hardware and software experience. The company does not have an extensive portfolio of smartphones but each and every one of its models really counts. The brand manages to put together both remarkable flagships and mid-range smartphones all of which provide a perfect balance of quality, performance and price. nubia Z17 mini is not an exception. Z17's little brother offers advanced photography options on a budget and looks like it does have some additional aces up its sleeve so we have its international version in our hands for thorough testing.

Specifications

nubia Z17 mini is equipped with a 5.2-inch LTPS display from Japan Display Inc. (JDI). The screen has a 1080 x 1920 resolution and is protected by a 2.5D curved Corning Gorilla Glass of unspecified generation. The model is powered by a 2950 mAh battery combined with a 5V/2A fast charger. Under the hood, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 MSM8976 system-on-chip is placed. It features an octa-core CPU with two clusters of four cores in a big.LITTLE architecture. The first quadruplet packs 1.8GH Cortex-A72 cores, while the second consists of 1.4GHz Cortex-A53 cores. An Adreno 510 GPU clocked at 550MHz is responsible for graphics handling. The onboard RAM measures 4GB. It is double-channel, LPDDR3, clocked at 933MHz. The built-in memory measures 64GB. It is of the eMMC 5.1 type and is expandable with up to 200GB. nubia Z17 mini boasts two rear cameras. One shoots in colour, while the other - in black and white. Both have identical sensors - 13MP Sony IMX258 Exmor RS ones and identical lenses - 6-element with an f/2.2 aperture. The module is aided by a LED flash and phase detection AF. The front-facing snapper packs a 16MP sensor with an 80-degree wide-angle lens of 5 elements and an f/2.0 aperture. The model supports 2G GSM (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz), 3G TD-SCDMA (1880-1920, 2010-2025 MHz), 3G UMTS (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz), 4G LTE-FDD (850, 1800, 2100, 2600 MHz), 4G LTE-TDD (1900, 2300, 2500, 2600 MHz) network bands and VoLTE. Its wireless connectivity options include dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi Hotspot, Wi-Fi Display, Bluetooth 4.1. NFC with Tap & Pay and Android Beam is on board as well. The model is equipped with a USB Type-C 2.0 port, 3.5 mm jack, single bottom-firing speaker, and a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor. It works with GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou. The Z17 mini runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow with nubia 4.0 on top.

Complete nubia Z17 mini specifications.

What's in the box

nubia Z17 mini arrives in a beautiful rectangular box. The outside is white with nubia's logo on top of the lid and a sticker with all the main specifications on the back. The internals are in red and white. Inside the box, the device lies in the top level compartment with all the standard packaging you'd expect. Below it, the following items are provided:

• USB Type-C fast charger (EU plug)
• USB Type-C data cable
• SIM tray pin
• Quick start guide
• Warranty card