ZTE have entered the crowded Indian smartphone market and are going head to hear with Xiaomi, and OnePlus with the newly released Nubia Z9 Mini.
The Z9 Mini is the most affordable 2015 Nubia but features some very neat hardware features that both Xiaomi and OnePlus lack. For example the Z9 Mini boasts room for a 128GB SD card plus there is dual LTE SIM support!
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Processing comes from a Snapdragon 615 processor with 2GB RAM. The screen is a 5-inch FHD unit attached to an all alloy chassis with a glass panel on the rear for a high-class finish.
Camera’s are normally a large selling point of any Nubia phone, and the Z9 Mini is no different with a 16 mega-pixel Sony IMX234 F2.0 sensor on the rear and 8 mega-pixel Sony IMX79R on the front.
Nubia will be selling the Z9 mini exclusively though Amazon in India for Rs. 16,999.
I like it and the camera looks great.
It doesn’t have dual tone flash, but I like this phone and it’s design.
…and here we have a mini which is bigger than another’s flagship (Mi4). I guess one company’s “mini” is another’s main phone…
Then again I’m of the opinion that mini should be the diminutive of the word “miniature”, which in turn means smaller than typically expected. This phone is not small in anyone’s hand unless you’re bigger than 2 meters / 6′ 7” tall.
The phone dimensions are very close to each other.
Mi4: 139.2 X 68.5 x 8.9
Z9m: 141.3 X 69.8 x 8.2
Mi4 is a bit smaller but the Z9 is thinner, side by side they will look almost identical.
Which is my point, it’s bigger (even by a little) than another company’s flagship and it’s still called “mini” which (as I commented) I find a bit disorienting.
It’s called “mini” because their “flagship” is 5.5 inches. I don’t understand how that is “disorienting”. Xiaomi’s new flagship is 5.7″ (Mi Note Pro), does it make your “disoriented” the normal Mi Note is bigger than the Z9’s flagship?
The Xiaomi Mi Series is Xiaomi’s flagship, Mi + sth else is a parallel series. Mi Note in particular is Xiaomi’s big mobile, i.e. their phablet.
My point is not that though, my point is how devoid of meaning the word “mini” has become. It comes from the word “miniature” which in turn means (quite) smaller than the original. Z9 mini is smaller than Z9 but is not miniature sized. It’s a full-fledged phone and not even that smaller than Z9 (actually it’s *wider* for crying out loud)…
I do find this disorienting, as one would expect to buy a small phone in the form of Z9 mini, but actually it’s a quite hefty one (two handed use for many/most of its operations…).
How you name things matter. If the “mini” phones are 5 inches one can’t expect truly miniature ones ever to be released (like the ones we had in 00s) which I find troubling as it greatly reduces the capacity of choice left to people (they’re forced to follow the trends no matter how impractical).
The definition of miniature is a representation or image of something on a small or reduced scale. The Z9 Mini is a Z9 on a smaller scale. There is nothing that says a Mini phone has to fall within a certain range as long as it is smaller than the original it would be considered “Mini”. This is a truly miniature one by the definition of the word. Just because you want smaller phones doesn’t mean this isn’t a mini.
People have hundreds of choices when it comes to phones. If you don’t want a 5 inch phone there are phones available with smaller displays such as the Iphone 6. The capacity for choice is still there. And phones of the 00’s where still in the infancy of smartphones, most people still had feature phones. Most displays in 2009 where still under 3.5 inches.
First Z9 mini is roughly of equal size compared to Z9 (shorter but wider), so mini does not apply at all but even if it did miniature typically means an order of magnitude smaller than the original, since that’s obviously impossible on phones (10 times smaller in each dimension) , it can mean more than 10% smaller or at least “by some perceptible degree”. In this case they’re practically identical.
Iphone 6 is almost as big as many/most 5 inchers due to gigantic bezels. Apple is aware of this which is why they offer the one handed mode.
A 4.3 incher with minimal bezels is/can be as small as phones from 00s. Just look at sharp phones, their 5.5 incher are as small the 5 inchers over here due to minimal bezels. It’s not a fetish either, everything happens incomparably faster in such a size, it’s not as if human hands can or did grow lately.
Apart from z3 compact there is no other phone currently in production in those sizes. There are some low end phones but they defeat the purpose of owning a small phone as they’re lacking in everything else (terribly slow, bad cameras, build quality, etc etc). So no we do not have a choise and part of the reason is that 5inches has become a “mini”, i.e. the smaller size any manufacturer bothers with..,
It does apply if you consider screen size. But I do agree that it should be also narrower. ZTE would win even more clients if they packed the same stuff from z9m in a fatter but more narrow and shorter shell with 4.7″ screen.
They would actually lose more clients if they did that. The majority of the market wants phones that are 5 inches or bigger. While they would gain the customers who want phones under 5 inches, they would lose everyone else who would then just buy a Mi4i or one of the many other competitors with 5 inch displays.
Sony Z3 Compact has 4.6″ and it’s a top seller in Japan. The market is overcrowded now with top spec devices at 5.2-6″, yet there are not many flagships that are smaller then 5″.
Small phones can sell as evident by the Redmi 1s and 2, among the top selling phones in the world. But for flagships consumers in both China and India (the two biggest markets) wants displays bigger than 5 inches.
It does apply if you consider screen size. But I do agree that it should be also narrower. ZTE would win even more clients if they packed the same stuff from z9m in a fatter but more narrow and shorter shell with 4.7″ screen.
Compared to the 5.5 inch Z9 Max it is a Miniature phone. Everything else is just hyperbole.
The consumer always has a choice. The choice not to buy, no one is forcing you to have a smartphone. There are several under 5 inches which offer good build quality and cameras such as the IUNI U2, Xaiomi Redmi 2, Moto G, Galaxy S4, Iphone 5 etc. If you want the latest flagship specs you have to evolve with the market or be left behind. Have you ever tried a 5 inch phone? There really isn’t that much of a difference going from 4.7 to 5.
Yes I did very awkward to use. I can’t evolve bigger hands, neither did anyone else, I still laugh at people struggling to use their gargantuan devices, I have almost had a fight when I chuckled at a guy in the tube when he was trying to respond to a text but couldn’t because of the crowdy space and the loong movements he needed.
If everybody starts walking on their heads doesn’t mean that I will start doing so too. It’s not sth to grow into, it’s sth for the masses to “grow out of”. As Steve Jobs said, tehnology ought to serve us, not us to serve it. He died and look what Apple became, of course they sell well but at the cost of good taste, ergonomics and Job’s vision.
As for the phones you recommended they’re all 5inchers, or of that size (due to giant bezels), or old, or all of the above. In fact only iphone 5 is pocketable/not useless from that list but it’s too old…
Lastly I commented how Z9 mini is not actually a mini as it is wider than Z9 proper, Z9max doesn’t enter to this argument.
Which phone was it? Most kids these days with smaller hands than adults have no problems using 5+ inch phones, personally I have average sized hands and I found very little difference going from Nexus 4 to a 5 incher.
Everybody isn’t walking on their heads, the majority of the market is buying phones over 5 inches though. Manufacturers build what the majority want not what the lone guy standing on his head wants.
All of those phones are under 5 inches. As for bezels you act like the phones of yesteryear were super thin with no bezels, when in fact the opposite is true for most of them.
Xiaomi Mi4. I bought it because (a) it was cheap for its specs and (b) actually cared to minimize the bezels (73% screen to body ratio). After a week of use I gave it away. I loved *everything* ’bout it, beautiful screen, performance, great cameras, apart from one, the size. I went back to my heavily modified droid mini.
With my Droid mini I feel the phone being an extension of my hand, everything’s in instant reach, in a few milliseconds I can navigate to most places of my phone. With 5+ behemoths there’s a screen between me and the world. It actually makes me pause from what I’m doing so that to start fiddling with the phone. The reason is simple, there are parts of the screen which are completely out of reach and this will *never* change. And unless most people are more that 6’8″ or 2 meters tall, the same is true for everybody else too.
There were even studies showing this very fact. Here’s an ars technica article that I found real quick: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/08/the-smallest-new-android-phone-you-can-buy-isnt-small-at-all/
It seems that “operating time” takes flight on more that 4.7 inches: http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/phone-screen-size-2.png
That’s close to my conclusions as well. I have used dozen form factors and sizes down the years. The absolutely largest that I’ve used that made “some” sense was/is the 130×65 Moto-X . That’s the limit of my normal sized (for a 5.11 , 1.8m man) hands. Anything more than than (i.e. the Xiaomi Mi4) is a handicap that only a fool would add to his workflow. My phone is two years old and it makes a FOOL out of all those $700 behemoths merely because it is human sized.
Yes older phones did use thicker bezels, but at least their screens were smaller. Down the years most phones *still* use thick bezels but the screens are twice as big.
If you ask me the best size is indeed 4.7 inches but only if even more bezel is shaved than in Moto-X’s cases (bring it close to iphone 5 size). Best as in bigger possible monitor at the largest usable size, of course it changes depending one’s height. For example the Xiaomi Mi4 would had been equally good in the hands of a taaall person and my droid mini would had been the absolute limit of a small(er) person…
Lastly (considering what the majority does), I’ll reply with another Steve Jobs’ quote “People don’t know what they want”.
You got way too much time on your hands if you read studies about display screen size. I have a Mi4, I am 6’1 and I have no problems reaching any part of the screen…..
Not hard at all to use one handed. Neither is my Doogee which is also 5 inches. Maybe the studies you referenced were done with little people? Even my GF who has tiny hands can use her Samsung S6 with one hand with ease.
You mean she can interact with the notification area, type fast, going back and forth with a single movement? I have yet to see such a person.
I like to observe people, it’s always funny to see them being awkward with their massive devices, my 4.3 inch phone can do things about twice as fast as they can. Maybe we have different standards of what “ease of use means”, I get easily impatient, and large screens do that to me…
It’s a severe downgrade to open my email, type a message and then send it all in twice the time as I do with my (current) phone. Xiaomi Mi4 was not *that* bad but it was still quite a downgrade, exactly as I described it before, “like a screen between me and the world”. I have no issue with people’s low standards, I’ll just not -wilfully- accept them in my life, that’s all.
You must not see very many people. I see people on the train every day using 5+ inch phones with ease with one hand while holding onto the handles with the other hand.
You would be able to do it quicker on a 4.3 inch screen because there is less area to cover but that doesn’t mean its impossible to do those same things on larger screens. You are gonna have to figure out a way to adapt or say goodbye to flagship level phones because the days of sub 5 inch flagship phones are close to being over.
My daily commute involves hundreds maybe even thousands of people. People are *indeed* slower while using their large phones, that’s not a hunch, it’s sth that I observed, it’s sth that studies show, it’s sth that happens when one uses a larger device.
I always laugh when I hear friends saying that they bought the newest and fastest phone. I mean what’s the point of a fast SoC if everything you do is done at half the speed than if it was on a human sized phone. I want to shout at the top of my lungs “your phone is slow no matter what”.
Yes i know that small phones are going the way of the dodo that’s exactly why I “nagged” when I saw that companies use the “mini” moniker for what once was thought as a tablet (do you remember the Dell Streak? Mini tablet it was called and laughably large was called, suddenly its screen size is a “mini”. It was 5 inches)
The point of the latest SoC is to run the latest games and apps. You lost me at “human size phone” . Your acting like a 5 inch phone requires 5 hands to operate it and a specialized cart to move it around. When I was growing up a 27 inch TV was considered a “big screen set”, now that is what some people have in there kitchens. Technology evolves, do you remember the first mobile phones? They were bigger than phablets are today.
A 27 inch TV is still a big tv if you’re looking at 480i image (like what most TVs would would back in the day). An equivalent (these days) would be an 85 incher (if you’re looking at 4k content). My point is (as it was with phones) that what’s big or small is anchored on natural limits.
Thumb limit in the case of the phones, eyesight in the case of TVs. So yeah , a 5inch phone is nearing phablet size (i.e. exclusive two handed control). It’s a *big* phone as it can be used one handed but is mostly used two handed. I bet you that you often use two hands, well i never do. That’s how you know that you own a big phone, and if you always use two hands, well that’s how you know that you own a phablet (a pocketable tablet).
See? Naturally drawn limits. The fact that everybody started using phablets or semi-phablets (big phones) and that you are accustomed to that sight doesn’t mean that those are human sized devices. There was a time that smoking was thought as sign of societal upgrade. Humans can be foolish like this. For example nowadays we live in the era of awkward handsets, it’s an era that people would look back to and chuckle ( I already do). Foldables can never come earlier.
Most content today isn’t delivered in 480i as the push to HD is becoming a global thing. Most people consider big screen to be 55″ and above these days. Natural limits are different for everybody, you obviously have great trouble using a 5 inch phone, I don’t.
…which is why 27inches is not thought as big anymore and when 4k content becomes a norm a 55 incher would be thought as small. How big or small we perceive our tv sets is dependent on the content shown (thus our eyesisht).
The equivalent role is played by thumb reach. Maybe you’re a freak of nature and you do everything on your (gargantuan) phone one handed, in which case it *is* a phone, but it would also make you an outlier. Everybody struggles at using their gigantic devices, just look at them, *look*, they use two hands more often than not.
From where I’m standing they look like obtuse ducks. Meanwhile I’m enjoying the perfect ergonomics of my phone and laugh at others…
And most cell phone content is moving to HD formats which is why 4.3 inches isn’t considered “human size” anymore. People want bigger screens to see their content better.
My 5″ Mi4 is in no ways “gargantuan” and no one that I know struggles to use it.
Well for that I have my tablet. But yes I understand why people move to bigger screens. It’s still a silly move given that it comes at such a huge cost (usability).
I didn’t say that they struggle, I said that they’re very slow as compared to a smaller screen because they’re right at the threshold that a 2nd hand is needed. Sure they can convince themselves that they’re content (as I’m sure they did), but feeling better doesn’t *make* you better.
Also content can easily be seen on a 4.3 inch screen. Obviously watching movies is out, but like I said I have a tablet for that. I’m not going to sacrifice the thousands hours of general use so that to gain 1 hour of movie viewing on the go (that’s how much I’ve watched movies in my phone in total). Priorities man.
This is something we have to agree to disagree on. I have no problems with usability for my 5 inch Mi4 and my girl has no problems with her 5.2” S6. You obviously find the usability very bad on those phones and it takes you thousands of more hours to use them somehow. Hope you find your under 5 inch flagship, but hope you realize outside of the z3 compact their isn’t much out there. If you don’t need flagship specs the Redmi 2 is very good but 4.7 inch might still be too gargantuan for you.
Well there’s no agreeing or disagreeing, there’s sth that happens to all of the people. If we were to measure our speed of interaction I will be on top no matter what, at all times. If you wish I can give you more studies showing that people are *slow* with their phone interactions as compared to the past.
We just call different things comfortable. What you call comfortable I don’t, and what I call comfortable (opening things way faster than most people) you value less. Different priorities. You like a big screen, I like ease of use to the MAX …
Different priorities, you like a small screen, I like the latest technology and a larger screen which I can use faster than you.
Like I said you may be an outlier, that’s statistically unimportant. My point is that we have entered an era of abhorrent ergonomics, that’s all, I have the studies to back me…
It’s like driving a sports car (ultra fast ,etc) and then suddenly they give you a Hummer. Yeah, it can go places, but I want my speed back . What is in fact a niche has been sold as *the* thing by eliminating alternatives. So everybody has a hummer of their own these days and I laugh at the general tackiness around me :p
Oh and btw my phone would always be faster despite the low end hardware (by today’s standards), the simple fact that I can do thing at half the time than most people more than compensates the sluggishness (well I eliminated that too due to software tweaks, but still my point stands)…