Nubia Z11 Hands On Impressions


nubia z11 hands on review

I’ve been using a new phone, and I like it quite a lot! Here are my first impressions of the Nubia Z11 smartphone.

Nubia launched the Z11 in China and more recently India, and availability around the globe should be becoming better in the next few months, which is good because this is a great phone that you should consider buying.

I’m not ready to publish my full hands on review yet, but just wanted to give you all an idea of my impressions of the Nubia Z11 so far.

nubia z11 hands on review

The version of the Nubia Z11 which Nubia have supplied me with is the ‘standard’ model i.e this is the white gold version of the phone with “just” 4GB RAM. 4GB RAM is plenty, and Nubia have done a great job of optimisation and even the rather cool split screen feature works perfectly fine with this amount of RAM, but if you did lust for 6GB RAM there is the Black and Gold version of the phone to choose from.

nubia z11 hands on review

Back to the specs of the standard Nubia Z11. The phone comes with a Snapdragon 820 chipset and 64GB internal memory which is still good for a flagship phone and I seriously doubt anyone will know you don’t have the latest Snapdragon 821 pumping away inside.

nubia z11 hands on review

The unibody is crafted out of alloy with a fingerprint scanner on the rear, 16 megapixel main camera and dual tone flash. The main camera is a Sony IMX298 CMOS with F2.0 aperture and Sapphire glass IR filter and 6 lens stack. The front camera is an 8 megapixel F2.4 with 5 lens stack and both cameras are complimented with excellent photography features in the Nubia ROM.

nubia z11 hands on review

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Turn the phone over and you will be graced with a 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 display with a tough Gorilla Glass 3 screen. As you can see from these photos, this is an edge to edge display so its good to see that extra protection is there in case you drop the phone. Below the display is the main ‘Breathing’ halo that acts as a notification light and home button.

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nubia z11 hands on review

The final external details are a power button and volume toggle on the right side, USB Type C, headphone jack and IR remote. You may have also noticed a SIM tray and yes there is space in there for an SD card also.

nubia z11 hands on review

Nubia ensured that they sent me the international version of the Nubia Z11 for review, so I have all Google services installed as standard, and I’m happy to report that setting this Nubia up was much easier than the last model we reviewed. I’m also happy to report that I’ve already had my first update to the phone OTA as well! This might not sound like much but for a Nubia device to get any updates is quite impressive.

nubia z11 hands on review

Speaking of updates, the Z11 runs on Android 6.0 out of the box, yet the highly customised ROM means you get a heavily featured packed ROM to play with that includes Nubia’s own edge features, and even a split screen mode that other phones won’t get until Android 7.0.

nubia z11 hands on review

So far I’ve been impressed with every aspect of the Nubia Z11. It’s a quality phone with decent hardware. It’s a joy to use and boast tons of powerful features, and performance is top notch!

Over the next few days I’ll get some photos samples up and also keep you posted with how my full Nubia Z11 review is going. In the meantime, if you have any questions let me know in the comments section!

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28 Comments

  1. Raky_b
    December 29, 2016

    for me, there is only one problem with this device and it is that it does not support LTE band 20.

    • James
      December 30, 2016

      The international version does support 800mhz/band 20.

      • Raky_b
        December 30, 2016

        is it?
        did not find that infor before, and neather where to buy it!
        if you know is there any, please share a link.
        tnx

  2. Filipp
    December 29, 2016

    Price makes this phone useless
    Being twice as expensive as Mi5, this should be better in every aspect while in fact it has the same FullHD display, same camera, same SoC and even same battery being much larger.
    So, there is no reason to buy it. Even Galaxy S7 has lots features that make it slightly superior to Xiaomi, but this one doesnt.

    • dref
      December 29, 2016

      Comparing apples and oranges, the MI5 is in a different league (Andy could give his opinion since i believe he owned one) as for the S7 it has no edge to edge display and therefore should be compared to the S7 edge which is way more expensive than the Z11.
      For me the only competitor is the oneplus 3, yet the camera is way better on the Z11 so the choice was in the end easy.

      • Filipp
        January 2, 2017

        Yes, defferent league, but it refers to the price 😀
        Actually all these phones are from the same gen and Z11’s edge to edge display should not increase the proce that much

  3. dref
    December 29, 2016

    My new phone i have the black front version, bought it second hand 375 Eur, I was using a mate 7 before, i love the way they managed to make a big screen fit a rather small frame, brilliant camera indeed

  4. Oscar
    December 29, 2016

    I have the Nubia Z9 Max and I have to say its an excellent phone with an amazing camera. I love the split screen feature. I’m a die hard meizu fan but meizu have lost the plot so I think I’ll be sticking with ZTE till meizu fix up. Just waiting eagerly now for the next ZTE phone. They were the first Chinese company to release a bezeless phone in the Nubia Z9, hopefully they can produce something similar to the xiaomi mi mix next year.

  5. bojan radovanovic
    December 29, 2016

    for me, there is only one problem with this device and it is that it does not support LTE band 20.

    • James
      December 30, 2016

      The international version does support 800mhz/band 20.

    • bojan radovanovic
      December 30, 2016

      is it? all i sow was B1/B3/B7….
      did not find that infor before, and neather where to buy it!
      if you know is there any, please share a link.
      tnx

  6. Filipp
    December 29, 2016

    Price makes this phone useless
    Being twice as expensive as Mi5, this should be better in every aspect while in fact it has the same FullHD display, same camera, same SoC and even same battery being much larger.
    So, there is no reason to buy it. Even Galaxy S7 has lots features that make it slightly superior to Xiaomi, but this one doesnt.

    • dref
      December 29, 2016

      Comparing apples and oranges, the MI5 is in a different league (Andy could give his opinion since i believe he owned one) as for the S7 it has no edge to edge display and therefore should be compared to the S7 edge which is way more expensive than the Z11.
      For me the only competitor is the oneplus 3, yet the camera is way better on the Z11 so the choice was in the end easy.

    • Filipp
      January 2, 2017

      Yes, defferent league, but it refers to the price 😀
      Actually all these phones are from the same gen and Z11’s edge to edge display should not increase the proce that much

  7. dref
    December 29, 2016

    My new phone i have the black front version, bought it second hand 375 Eur (1 month old) with 23 months local warranty, I was using a mate 7 before, i love the way they managed to make a big screen fit a rather small frame, brilliant camera indeed

  8. Guest
    December 29, 2016

    I have the Nubia Z9 Max and I have to say its an excellent phone with an amazing camera. I love the split screen feature. I’m a die hard meizu fan but meizu have lost the plot so I think I’ll be sticking with ZTE till meizu fix up. Just waiting eagerly now for the next ZTE phone. They were the first Chinese company to release a bezeless phone in the Nubia Z9, hopefully they can produce something similar to the xiaomi mi mix next year.

  9. DC
    December 29, 2016

    No mention of any hifi chip?

    • James
      December 30, 2016

      ofcourse there is. Mr.Sykes will prob bring that up in the full revuew

  10. DC
    December 30, 2016

    No mention of any hifi chip?

    • James
      December 30, 2016

      ofcourse there is. Mr.Sykes will prob bring that up in the full revuew

  11. Alexis Jean Jean
    December 30, 2016

    I hope the z11 mini s is good as this one, I have just ordered one.

  12. eliHd
    December 30, 2016

    Does it come with google play? That’s the question when buying phone from China.

  13. Alexis Jean Jean
    December 30, 2016

    I hope the z11 mini s is good as this one, I have just ordered one.

  14. eliHd
    December 30, 2016

    Does it come with google play? That’s the question when buying phone from China.

  15. afghanPower
    December 31, 2016

    It sure is a beautiful looking device.
    Looking forward to the full review!

  16. afghanPower
    December 31, 2016

    It sure is a beautiful looking device.
    Looking forward to the full review!

  17. James
    January 20, 2017

    Hey Andi! How is that Z11 review coming along? 😉

    Can you check that it works with Android Pay please?
    It is the one and only app I can’t get working with the SD810 powered Z9 Max.

    thanks!

  18. James
    January 20, 2017

    Hey Andi! How is that Z11 review coming along? 😉

    Can you check that it works with Android Pay please?
    It is the one and only app I can’t get working with the SD810 powered Z9 Max.

    thanks!