Nubia Z11 locks horns with OnePlus 3T

Chinese smartphone company Nubia is no newcomer to Indian market. After debuting last year in collaboration with ZTE, they have decided to go solo with Nubia branded smartphones. Hot on the heels of Nubia Z11 Mini (Rs12,999) comes a new mid-range smartphone, called the Z11. The new smartphone is not just a big screen variant of the Z11 Mini, but is a lot more powerful too, which makes it a direct competitor to the likes of One Plus 3T, which is selling at Rs29,999 (64GB) and Rs34,999 (128GB). The Nubia Z11 will sell on Amazon.in. at Rs29,999.

Dimensions matter

The Z11 is a big screen phone with borderless design which means the phone’s has front bezels only on the top and lower part of the front panel. This gives it a very sleek look and that reflects in the phone’s dimensions. The Z11 is only 151.8mm tall and 72.3mm wide. This makes it more compact than the OnePlus 3T which is 152.7mm tall and 74.7mm wide. Despite the bigger dimensions the OnePlus 3T, at 158g, is lighter than the Z11 which weighs 163g. The other major design difference between the two is the position of the finger print sensor. In Z11 it is on the back while in OnePlus 3T it is integrated with the home button on front. Both devices use USB Type-C standard connector which means you to worry about the orientation of the USB cable before charging or transferring files to and from a PC.

Also read | Review: OnePlus 3T redefines Android ‘flagship killer’ phones

Divided by a thin line

The Z11’s 5.5-inch display has a screen resolution of 1,920x1080p and pixel density of 403ppi. It is equipped with Gorilla Glass 3 which provides it some amount of protection against scratches. The OnePlus 3T is very much on the same footing and has a 5.5-inch display with resolution of 1,920x1,080p and pixel density of 401ppi. It uses Corning’s more advanced Gorilla Glass 4 as protection against scratches.

Battle of custom UIs

The Nubia Z11 is a typical Chinese smartphone when it comes to software. The phone runs Android 6.1 with their heavily customised Nubia 4.0 UI over it. The OnePlus3T runs Android 6.0 with OxygenOS which looks a lot like plain Android interface but offers more customisation options than phones running plain Android. OnePlus 3T is also likely to get the latest Android Nougat update soon.

What makes it a flagship killer

What puts the Z11 right up with the flagship killers is the hardware that powers it. It runs on Qualcomm’s 2.1GHz Snapdragon 820 quad-core processor with 6GB RAM and Adreno 530 GPU. This makes it the only other phone after the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T to offer that much RAM. The OnePlus 3T runs on slightly better 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 quad-core processor and Adreno 530 GPU. The Nubia Z11 offers 64GB storage, while OnePlus 3T comes in 64 and 128GB variants.

Battery size

The Z11 is powered by a 3,000mAh battery while the OnePlus 3T offers a slightly bigger 3,400mAh battery. While we can comment on the battery only after testing the Z11, what helps the case of OnePlus3T is the fact that the plain Android interface puts less load on the battery compared to the custom UIs.