Another day, another high-end smartphone announcement — but this one, debuting on October 22 in China, is one of the interesting launches for us. nubia has officially confirmed details for its flagship nubia Z80 Ultra, a device that is set to challenge conventional smartphone photography with an unapologetically distinct camera system and, crucially, a truly uninterrupted display.

The Z80 Ultra takes the unique, full-screen philosophy of its predecessors and updates it with next-generation processing and a major sensor overhaul. While the design largely mirrors the nubia Z70 Ultra, featuring that iconic rounded camera frame and a dedicated mechanical shutter button, it’s what’s inside the massive camera island that demands attention.

The 35mm main camera returns

Most modern flagships anchor their imaging around a wide, 24mm or 26mm equivalent lens. nubia, however, is sticking firmly to its 35mm primary focal length.

Why does this matter? While a wider angle is great for sweeping landscapes, the 35mm focal length is a classic for street and portrait photography, offering a more “natural perspective” that closely approximates the human eye. The nubia Z80 Ultra pairs this field of view with serious hardware: a 50-megapixel, 1/1.3-inch Omnivision 990 sensor sitting behind a bright f/1.7 lens. It’s a bold choice that forces users to get closer to their subject, resulting in images that the brand promises will focus on natural color rendition and high contrast, steering clear of oversaturated computational fluff.

We here at Revü Philippines got a first look at the Z70 Ultra back at MWC 2025 in Barcelona, Spain, and its successor is clearly doubling down on that unique identity.

The ultrawide is no longer ultrawide

The most significant technical upgrade comes to the ultrawide lens, although the name has become a bit of a misnomer. nubia is trading field-of-view for raw quality, replacing the Z70S Ultra’s narrow 13mm lens with an 18mm equivalent lens. This sacrifices some of that “ultrawide” scope, but the tradeoff is massive: the sensor size jumps drastically from 1/2.88-inch to a hefty 1/1.55-inch, backed by a faster f/1.8 lens. This sensor increase is crucial for improved low-light performance and image detail, even if the user has to step back a little further to capture the scene.

Rounding out the trio is a 70mm telephoto camera (roughly 2x optical zoom from the main lens) with optical image stabilization and a slightly brighter f/2.4 aperture. The module still boasts a headline-grabbing 50x hybrid zoom, though the sample images shared suggest the company is being honest about quality, limiting its own showcases to a more reasonable 2x digital zoom.

nubia Z80 Ultra sample shots

Flagship power and that clean screen

Reportedly powering this imaging beast is the flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, promising brute-force performance for everything from demanding mobile games to complex computational photography tasks.

Another main selling point for many remains the display. It’s supposedly a 144Hz OLED panel that achieves true edge-to-edge immersion thanks to an integrated Under-Display Camera or UDC. This means zero notches, zero punch-holes, and nothing to distract from the content.

While we await official global pricing, this Ultra will launch in three distinct flavors: Light White, Phantom Black, and a highly collectible, art-inspired Starry Sky Collector’s Edition that pays tribute to Vincent van Gogh. Furthermore, rumors point toward two other massive specs that could make the nubia Z80 Ultra a power user’s dream: a rumored 7,100 mAh battery and 90-watt wired charging.

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