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ZTE nubia Z20 review
Main: 6.42" AMOLED, HDR10 support, 1080 x 2340px resolution, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, 401 ppi; Secondary (on the back): AMOLED, 5.1 inches, 1080 x 2340px resolution.
Introduction
Some may say that the pursuit for a full-screen design has brought us a whole host of innovative mechanical solutions - slider mechanisms, pop-up mechanical selfies cameras, and even rotating and flipping cameras. Among those, dual-screen designs stand out as the most unusual of the bunch.
Which brings us to the nubia Z20 - a handset that tackles the full-screen design with two screens. However, nubia has kind of a unique take on the matter with a back display that blends with the design. You have to look real close to see that the phone has a secondary screen and you turn on the always-on feature, it looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. Oh, and both displays are OLED - a feature that's hard to ignore.
But the duo of screens isn't enough to sway users into buying the nubia Z20, so it has to impress with other specs and features. And we have some good news. The phone is a flagship-worthy handset checking almost all boxes for a 2019 top-shelf device. Running a Snapdragon 855+ chipset, a complete set of all three cameras (normal, ultra-wide and telephoto) and a generous 4,000 mAh battery, the Z20 is a competent contender to the flagships from the top brands.
ZTE nubia Z20 specs
- Body: 158.6 x 75.3 x 9 mm, 186g; metal frame, Gorilla Glass 5 front and back.
- Display: Main: 6.42" AMOLED, HDR10 support, 1080 x 2340px resolution, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, 401 ppi; Secondary (on the back): AMOLED, 5.1 inches, 1080 x 2340px resolution.
- Rear camera: Primary: 48MP, f/1.7 aperture, 1/2" sensor size, 0.8µm pixel size, PDAF, OIS. Ultra wide: 16MP, f/2.2, 1.0µm pixels; AF. Telephoto camera: 8MP, f/2.4, 3x optical zoom; 4320@15fps, 2160p@30fps, 1080p@120fps video recording.
- Front camera: Uses the main and the ultra-wide on the back.
- OS: Android 9 Pie; Nubia UI 7.
- Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ (7 nm): Octa-core (1x2.96 GHz Kryo 485 & 3x2.42 GHz Kryo 485 & 4x1.78 GHz Kryo 485), Adreno 640 (700 MHz) GPU.
- Memory: 6GB/8GB of RAM; 128/512GB storage; no microSD card slot.
- Battery: 4,000mAh; 27W fast charging over USB Power Delivery 2.0.
- Connectivity: Dual-SIM; LTE-A, 4-Band carrier aggregation, LTE Cat-20/ Cat-13; USB-C; Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, hotspot, GPS; Bluetooth 5.1, A2DP, LE;
- Misc: 2x side-mounted fingerprint readers for ease of use of the two screens; Pressure-sensitive frame; single down-firing speaker; no NFC; no FM radio.
And judging by the launch price in China, the nubia Z20 will give a few of the flagships a run for their money. Its global price of only €550 is low enough to overshadow its secondary screen.
Unboxing the ZTE nubia Z20
The handset comes in a generous box containing all the necessities such as charger, USB-A to USB-C cable for data transfer and charging as well as the usual user manuals. There's also a USB-C to 3.5mm audio jack dongle since the phone doesn't have one on its own.
More importantly, nubia is giving away a free transparent silicone protective case for the Z20, which to our surprise, works with the secondary display. It appears to be touch-sensitive and wraps around the phone's side frame and back completely. So don't worry about the secondary screen, this case should be enough to keep it out of harm's way. Unfortunately, it's still a silicone case, so it's not ideal for touching and swiping across it even feels unpleasant.
Design
The nubia Z20 is a delicate device, there's no denying that. This handset has twice the number of screens that can shatter, so you suffer from anxiety about breaking your phone, perhaps the Z20 isn't the right one for you. Still, nubia boasts Gorilla Glass 5 on its both sides while the camera lenses are protected by synthetic sapphire glass.
On the other hand, the handset is gorgeous. We got the blue variant with subtle gradient - the color shifts ever so slightly when viewed from an angle. The back acts as a mirror and fingerprints and smudges are quite visible. When you look closely, you can also see the outlines of the display but when looked from afar, it blends perfectly with the colorful glass plate.
The glass back is also curved to the sides improving the hand feel and ergonomics and seamlessly connecting with the side frame. Right above the display is located the triple-camera module and two LED flashes, one of which is dual-tone. The ambient and proximity sensors for the secondary display are tucked away somewhere above the camera array. Speaking of which, it doesn't stick out too much. In fact, the bump is barely noticeable, so bonus points for that. Interestingly, there's also a secondary earpiece so you can use the backside of the handset for calls as well.
Going around the side metal side frame, we can easily recognize the speaker grille and the USB-C connector on the bottom and the microphone. The top side houses the noise-suppression microphone while the volume rocker is on the right side.
For optimal convenience, the nubia Z20 features two side-mounted fingerprint readers that double as power buttons. So no matter how you hold the phone, there's a fingerprint scanner at your disposal.
The placement of the fingerprint readers is quite convenient. They are symmetrically placed on both sides and offer additional features when pressing both of them simultaneously, but we will talk about that later in the software section.
The front greets you with a tall 6.42-inch AMOLED screen with lightly curved edges to the sides and full-screen design. The bezels, however, are not at all that impressive - the side ones are thin but we've seen thinner frames fro the top and bottom. Especially the top bezel. It's big enough to house the earpiece, the proximity and the ambient sensor. Don't get us wrong, we are not complaining, we are just saying we've seen better full-screen implementations. Still, the fact that there are no holes or cutouts obstruction the screen's content is a big plus.
With all that hardware crammed up inside - two screens, big 4,000 mAh battery and three cameras - one would expect that the handset is heavy and thick. However, only the latter is true. The phone measures 9.2mm in thickness without the provided case but weighing in at 186g is pretty impressive. For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S10+ which sports a 6.4-inch display, tips the scale at 175g and that's a pretty lightweight smartphone. The Z20 is just 11 grams heavier with similar battery and two screens.
Honestly, we can't think of anything that needs radical improvement in terms of build and overall design. The handset is solid, usable with one hand and the secondary screen is pretty stylish when you turn on the always-on and perfectly blends with the surrounding colorful glass panel.
Two AMOLEDs - one for show-off, one for everything else
The nubia Z20 has not one but two AMOLED screens and neither of them is obstructed by cutouts or holes. The main display measures 6.42" in diagonal and features 1080 x 2340px resolution with 19.5:9 aspect ratio - pretty much standard these days. Not the thinnest bezels around but the lack of a notch or a punch-hole is much-appreciated.
The back panel is considerably smaller - 5.1" with the same 1080 x 2340px resolution and it's perfect for one-handed use. Since the glass is blue, colors are off, and it has a blue-ish yellow-ish tint so it would do for work, reading and showing off.
Anyway, at maximum brightness, the main display can go up to 430 nits but when in auto mode, it can boost the brightness to 616 nits. It's not chart-topping but it's enough to provide good sunlight legibility even on a bright sunny day.
Color accuracy, on the other hand, isn't impressive. The default color mode is called Colorful mode and average dE2000 is 6.1 while Natural color mode brought down the average dE2000 down to 4.7. However, neither of them fixed the rather blue-ish whites. If you are after the most accurate color reproduction possible on this device, you should stick to the Natural mode.
We also took the time to test out the secondary screen. It's significantly dimmer at 333 cd/m2 and doesn't have Max Auto so you might have some trouble with outdoor visibility. Also, as expected, the average dE2000 is 12.1 with yellow whites even with the Super Eye Care mode switched off.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | ||
| 0 | 430 | ∞ | |
| 0.045 | 616 | 13689 | |
| 0 | 333 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 525 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 743 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 571 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 605 | ∞ | |
| 0.353 | 424 | 1201 | |
| 0.399 | 455 | 1140 | |
| 0 | 396 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 820 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 450 | ∞ | |
Battery life
The nubia Z20 carries a big 4,000 mAh battery, but it has two displays to power up so battery life will largely vary from user to user. It all depends on which screen you use the most with the back one being more energy-efficient. It will also depend on whether you use the AlwaysOn display function. Keep in mind that both screens support always-on.
Anyway, we ran our tests the old-fashioned way using the front display only and the results show that the handset has more than satisfactory endurance. In fact, the battery provides plenty of screen-on-time while 3G talk time and standby scores are among the best in its class.
Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating above denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the nubia Z20 for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so that our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritty. You can check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.
The phone also supports fast charging over the USB Power Delivery 2.0 protocol capable of delivering up to 27W of power. However, the provided charger is capped at 9V/2A (equaling 18W), and given that the cable in the box isn't USB-C to USB-C, we are pretty sure that it's not Power Delivery charger bur a Qualcomm QuickCharge adapter.
Still, with the provided 18W charger, the phone's rather big 4,000 mAh battery charged from 0 to 46% in just 30 minutes. Surely, not the fastest one around but it's not too shabby either.
Loudspeaker
The handset has a single bottom-firing loudspeaker providing good clarity and overall good listening experience. We wished the phone had stereo speakers but we can't have it all given the price point. Loudness, on the other hand, could have been better, considering the smartphone's class. Here's how it stacks against the competition in terms of loudness.
| Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Ringing | Overall score | |
| 71.4 | 73.1 | 74.8 | Very Good | |
| 66.8 | 73.2 | 86.0 | Very Good | |
| 66.4 | 74.3 | 90.8 | Excellent | |
| 77.0 | 75.9 | 81.2 | Excellent | |
| 70.9 | 73.8 | 90.9 | Excellent | |
| 79.8 | 77.4 | 91.6 | Excellent |
Audio quality
Unfortunately, our pre-release review unit came with a bug with the audio output which should be fixed in the retail version of the phone. This meant that any readings we get now will not be representative of the actual performance of the nubia Z20. That’s why we won’t be posting an audio quality test until further notice.
Versatile triple camera setup, works for selfies too
The nubia Z20 is fully equipped with all the lenses you'd need - normal, ultra-wide and telephoto. For its main snapper, the Z20 uses the popular Sony IMX586 48MP sensor adopting the pixel-binning technology. The sensor is paired with a lens with f/1.7 aperture and is also optically stabilized.
The telephoto is 8MP f/2.4 capable of 3x zoom but no OIS, whereas the ultra-wide adopts a 16MP sensor with f/2.2 aperture and captures 122.2° field of view. That's pretty wide.
For selfies, you can use all of the aforementioned cameras although, the telephoto might not be all that useful considering the far-reaching 3x zoom. You'd need some long arms to make use of the telephoto for selfies. The secondary screen can be used as a viewfinder.
Camera menus
The default camera app isn't anything out of the ordinary - swiping left and right switches between camera menus while in Photo mode, you can switch between all three cameras with a signle tap. There are also hybrid 5x and 10x zoom modes but the native optical zoom is at 3x. There's also a filter preset in the upper right corner - all of the presented filters look nice and are fun to play with. There's also a toggle to turn on the secondary screen and use it as viewfinder.
But in order to switch to "selfie mode", you have to tap on the camera icon right next to the settings icon. The additional camera settings give you more control over the video recording resolution, photo resolution and aspect ratio, shutter sound, location data, etc.
Camera menus and options
Back to the shooting modes, there's a dedicated Pro mode that allows you to tinker with focus, white balance, exposure and shutter speed. There's also an interval that you can set and the phone will take pictures at every 1 to 60 seconds. A cool feature if you set the phone on a tripod, set the timer and then choose between the best photos. The Pro mode also works with all three cameras.
Daylight samples
We really liked the daylight samples we took with the nubia Z20's main 48MP camera. The detail is really good, contrast is nice and makes the colors pop out more while still being natural-looking. The samples we took are close to what the scenes look in person. We did notice some issues with the highlights, though. They are clipped in most of the photos and the overall dynamic range isn't impressive. It's not bad but it's far from what you'd expect from a flagship device. The generally low exposure doesn't help either.
12MP daylight samples
In 48MP mode, the rendition is pretty much the same while offering even better detail. Unfortunately, the trade-off here is the increased noise and sharpening halos can be observed even without trying too hard to look for them. Dynamic range remains uninspiring.
48MP daylight samples
The ultra-wide camera surprised us with nice colors and relatively good detail compared to most midrangers. It's not flagship-worthy but it produces generally nice photos. The issue we see with the clipped highlights is more prominent here and the barrel distortion is barely noticeable with the software correction turned on. Sharpening halos can be observed under really close inspection. The bottom line is that photos are absolutely suitable for social media. A big advantage over some of its competitors is that the ultra-wide snapper here has autofocus so you can produce nice close-up images with the added dramatic effect of the expanded field of view.
Ultra wide-angle daylight samples
The telephoto, on the other hand, is rather uninspiring. Clipped highlights, narrow dynamic range, the exposure metering is a bit off, colors are dull compared to the main and the ultra-wide camera and detail could be better. It's not the worst but we've seen better 3x zoom implementations.
Telephoto daylight samples
Low-light samples
Turning the lights off, the main camera captures nice stills with plenty of detail, juicy colors, high contrast and preserves neon lights quite well. Our complaints about the highlights still stand although, dynamic range is somehow better overall.
Low-light samples with the main camera
The Night mode fixes most of the issues by introducing even more detail and sharpness to the photos. Highlights and light sources look a lot better and brings out some information from the shadows. Artifacts from the noise reduction algorithm can be seen in some parts of the image under close inspection.
Low-light samples with Night mode
While everything we said above is true, we found that the Night mode is rather inconsistent when it comes to shadows. Some of the samples we took appear to be with lower exposure than the ones taken without Night mode resulting in loss of detail in the shadows. Pictures look darker than they should, which is strange behavior for a Night mode. Take a look at the first and the third sample above.
With all being said, we recommend using the Night mode in even when enough light is introduced to the scene. The Night mode makes the photos more appealing, that's for sure.
The ultra-wide camera struggles to produce good photos with enough detail. They look soft, highlights are still clipped despite the rather satisfactory dynamic range. They are also noisy. The good thing about those photos is that colors are nice. Our statement about the camera being better than midrangers still stands. If a Night mode is introduced down the road, we can expect some decent low-light shots with this camera.
Low-light ultra wide-angle samples
The telephoto is far from what we can call usable. It's soft, colors are flat and the dark f/2.4 aperture struggles to let enough light come into the sensor. You will also have hard time producing sharp images due to the lack of OIS. Shaky photos in the dark are a common thing.
Low-light telephoto samples
Macro samples
The dedicated Macro mode is a growing trend these days and pretty much all of the OEMs use the ultra-wide lens for capturing those macro shots. Of course, the ultra-wide needs an autofocus feature to work properly. We found it hard to focus at times and when going outdoors for some macro shots, even the lightest breeze could ruin your shot. Leafs and flowers become a challenge to focus on.
Macro shots
But once you get the right focus, the subject comes out with plenty of detail, nice colors and with a natural-looking bokeh. Oh, and we didn't find the Macro mode anywhere in the camera menu so you have to trigger it by closing in on the subject and tapping on it to focus. The software will then switch to the ultra wide-lens and inform you that you are in macro mode with a prompt. You have to get really close to the subject to trigger it, just so you know.
Once you are done with the real-world samples, it's time for some pixel peeping using our photo compare tool.
Now let's take the time to compare the phone to some of its competitors in a more controlled environment.
12MP: ZTE nubia Z20 against the Zenfone 6 and the OnePlus 7T in our Photo compare tool
And here's how it stacks against other 48MP-capable smartphones.
48MP: ZTE nubia Z20 against the Zenfone 6 and the OnePlus 7T in our Photo compare tool
Portraits
Portraits came out excellent with plenty of detail, natural-looking skin tone, good dynamic range and exceptional edge detection. Even with a more complex background, the software did a splendid job separating the subject from the background. Also, there's something to the bokeh effect - it looks natural but we can't quite put our finger on what's so good about it.
Portraits
Selfies
Selfies look pretty good snapped with the main camera but we can't say the same for the ultra-wide selfies. They appear soft and with less than stellar dynamic range. We found that the main camera struggles to get good selfies in low-light conditions. And we only say that because we expect better from the big 48MP sensor compared to the usual front-facing snappers on the market. The edge detection for portrait seflies is once again pretty nice, though.
Selfies: Normal • Ultra-wide • Portrait • Portrait
Selfies: Normal • Ultra-wide • Normal • Ultra-wide
Video recording
The nubia Z20 is capable of recording 1080p and 2160p at 30 and 60fps. But it's also capable of shooting 8K footage at 15 frames per second - just like the nubia Red Magic 3 that we've reviewed a while back. But don't get too excited about that because you probably won't be able to watch those 8K videos afterwards unless you are one of the few in possession of 8K TV or a monitor. And 15fps is not nearly enough for smooth movement - everything looks choppy. There is some extra detail compared to the 4K, though.
Off to the standard 4K@30fps video recording, we are hard-pressed to find anything off. Detail is nice, colors are great, contrast is ideal and there's no visible noise. The clipped highlights are still an issue, however, and exposure is just ever so slightly lower than we would like it. But besides that, that's excellent 4K footage.
The same applies for the Full HD video. Expectedly, detail is lower but it's great for 1080p video, nonetheless.
As far as EIS goes, we are disappointed to see that the handset doesn't support EIS in 4K as you can see for yourself.
And here's how the phone compares to some of its competitors in 2160p video recording.
2160p: ZTE nubia Z20 against the Asus Zenfone 6 and the OnePlus 7T in our Video compare tool
ZTE nubia Z20 review
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