ZTE might finally seem interested in expanding its presence in the United States, but the company is well known in Asian markets for its Nubia line of phones. Back in July, the company quietly unveiled the Nubia N1 in China, and now, the handset is making its way to India, where it will retail for 17,200 rupees ($255) beginning December 14.
In terms of design, the Nubia N1 might not appear wholly original, but it shows some flair with a red circle accent around the rear camera lens and the capacitive home button on the front. Continuing our tour of the outside, the Nubia N1 features a 5.5-inch, 1,920 x 1,080 resolution display, with a 13-megapixel main camera and an equally beefy 13MP selfie shooter. Quickly becoming the status quo for Android phones, a rear fingerprint sensor sits below the main camera.
Under the hood, a 64-bit 1.8GHz octa-core MediaTek Helio P10 chipset and 3GB RAM represent the Nubia N1’s beating heart, with 64GB of native storage expandable by up to an additional 128GB through the MicroSD card slot. Furthermore, the Nubia N1 runs ZTE’s Nubia 4.0 UI above Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
Other odds and ends include dual-SIM support, 4G LTE with VoLTE, and USB Type-C support.
The Nubia N1’s claim to fame, however, is its huge 5,000mAh battery. According to ZTE, you will get three days of use out of the phone before you have to plug it in, though the company did not say how it arrived at such a statistic. If that sounds familiar, that is because Blu announced the Energy XL, which also includes a 5,000mAh battery.
For those willing to go through import channels, the Nubia N1 will be available through ZTE’s online store sometime soon for 1,699 yuan, or $254. Even though the phone does offer a lot of bang for your buck, you might want to look at options like the upcoming Motorola Moto G4 or Huawei Honor 5X for better U.S. network support.
Article originally published in July. Updated on 12-13-2016 by Lulu Chang: Added news of Nubia N1’s availability in India.
