Nubia Flip Review: A Compact and Stylish Small Folding Phone

Most female friends nowadays have considered or are planning to buy small foldable screen smartphones. The advantage of small folding lies in the compact volume after folding the elongated screen, making it easy to slip into small handbags and jeans pockets. Moreover, the width of the phone is generally narrow, making it easy for even girls to hold single-handedly. This easy operation and the exquisite feeling brought by the compact size and vertical folding shape are very attractive to the majority of female comrades.

However, for most people, their preference for small folding phones stops at the price, which is understandable. The high price and low practicality are the main factors hindering more people from trying small folding. The small folding phone Nubia Flip launched by Nubia, targeting young users, has broken through the high price barrier at one stroke. Coupled with its high-quality appearance design and fully equipped folding screen gameplay, it is definitely a blockbuster in the mid-range folding screen market with serious product shortages. Nubia Flip is like a small car that can be easily controlled with one hand. It is full of entertainment, emotional value, and the price is not expensive. It provides a good opportunity for consumers who like small folding to experience it with low threshold.

Aircraft-grade aluminum alloy frame + AG glass back cover, configuration exceeding the price
Although positioned in the mid-range, Nubia Flip's packaging is very ceremonial. The packaging box of the phone is a square black box, equipped with the usual charger, charging cable, and phone case.

The moment you pick up the phone, you feel the impact of the metal frame + AG glass back cover. You know, there are not many products at this price that can use a full metal frame. Under the two high-end materials, Nubia Flip's feel is outstanding. The delicate glass surface of both the frame and the back cover can bring a silky smooth feeling.

Because the thickness of the phone after unfolding is only 7mm, it feels sharp when held with one hand, and the phone weighs about 214g.

Looking at the side of the phone, the full metal frame signal isolation makes it clear that the phone's signal will definitely not be poor. Of course, the most eye-catching thing is the red power button of the phone. This design not only continues the design elements of Nubia's flagship machines but also the slightly recessed design indicates that it has fingerprint recognition function. Indeed, not doing under-screen fingerprint recognition for foldable screen phones can save a lot of space, reduce the thickness of the phone, and the fingerprint recognition can be triggered while pressing the power button, which is elegant enough for most users. I believe it will be a loved feature.

As for the phone itself, the Nubia Flip we got is named "milk tea" color, which looks between champagne gold and white. In addition, there are caramel and taro colors to choose from. Apart from the foldable screen, the external screen part is definitely an unignorable highlight. Compared with the square external screen design of other small folding phones, Nubia has designed the external screen as a black disc this time. In the case of not being lit, it is almost impossible to discover that there is a circular screen inside.

Nubia calls this design the "vinyl record design". The black glass and the metal decorative ring between the phone backboard enhance the product's design sense. The color collision between the black lens module and the white body also has a refreshing effect. In the increasingly homogeneous design of foldable screen external screens, it can be considered as a unique style. However, the actual display area of the circular screen is not large, and it may be slightly difficult to view messages with more text notifications.

If you need to use the external screen, tapping the screen lightly can activate the screen saver animation of the external screen, and double-tapping the screen can officially enter the lock screen wallpaper interface. At this time, the brightness of the external screen will be further increased. You can directly use a series of functions by swiping left or right on the external screen, such as taking photos, recording, etc. In addition, Nubia Flip also supports the popular external screen pet gameplay, just select the pet wallpaper on the external screen wallpaper, and you can raise electronic pets on your phone at any time.

120Hz high refresh rate + AMOLED blessing, a new world after the screen is unfolded
After the screen of Nubia Flip is opened, it is a 6.9-inch AMOLED high-definition flexible large screen, with a classic 21:9 movie ratio, which makes it especially suitable for watching some movies. In addition, this screen also supports a 120Hz high refresh rate, so you can feel the smooth and silky display effect in daily use.

In terms of actual display effect, thanks to the high contrast of AMOLED, when using high-contrast wallpapers and photos, Nubia Flip can maximize the advantage of the colorful and eye-catching screen. In daily use, there will be no problem of jagged and fuzzy fonts on the screen, also because the overall area of the screen is not large, it can well avoid the problem of pixel loss of AMOLED screens. For phones in the same price range, its screen display effect will definitely not be a weak point. The brightness of the screen is also high enough when used outdoors, although it has not yet reached the level of flagship phones, it will definitely not lag behind in daily use.

However, for the protection of the screen, Nubia Flip has a ring of plastic protective ring on the edge of the screen to reduce the damage to the screen when dropped or collided. Although this approach may make the edge of the screen look thicker and less aesthetically pleasing, it is a reasonable cost for safety.

As for the fold mark problem that everyone is concerned about, Nubia Flip uses a new water drop-type hinge with a double-track suspension design. When folded, the screen is almost back to back. In most cases, the fold marks are not very obvious, and they can only be seen when viewed against the light when the screen is off. However, the fold marks are still perceptible when touched by fingers, which is a problem that foldable screen products cannot solve in the short term.

However, compared with the rich folding screen functions of Nubia Flip, this small flaw is not worth mentioning. Nubia Flip has a full set of folding screen functions, such as multi-angle hovering, split-screen shooting, dual-screen simultaneous preview, etc., which will be explained in detail later in the imaging section. Here, let's not go into detail.

A camera that loves sunlight, performance and positioning match
In the final analysis, Nubia Flip is a phone that focuses on daily life scenes and young groups, and imaging is also a focus of this product. The one near the flash is the main camera with a large aperture of 50 million pixels, and the other lens is a blur lens, which can bring more delicate and realistic blurring effects for selfies.

During the time of using Nubia Flip, we found that this phone has many interesting functions in photography. For example, "metering separation" can separate the focus point from the metering point, which means that the metering target and the focus target do not need to be consistent. For example, sometimes you want to focus on a light bulb but don't want to use the light bulb as a metering reference. You can move the metering point to a brighter object in the background. This way, you won't have the problem of only focusing on the light bulb and the background being black.

Nubia Flip has most of the classic multi-angle hovering photography gameplay of foldable screen phones, which can be placed steadily on the desktop or wall by folding the phone at 90°, which is very useful for both static shooting and selfies.

In addition, you can also use the folding characteristics of the phone to simulate the holding posture of a DV machine, and the gameplay of dual-screen simultaneous preview. Generally, Nubia Flip is equipped with the folding gameplay that most expensive small folding phones have, and it will not be trimmed due to its positioning. Moreover, there are rich professional photography gameplay supports in the negative one-screen of the phone interface, such as creative star tracks, slow motion, light painting, ID photo, panoramic shooting, and other practical shooting tools, all of which are available.

As a phone mainly for young users, Nubia Flip has put effort into selfies. The front camera of the internal screen is the main force for selfies, and the color tone is more youthful and cute, with a warm color temperature and a slight skin smoothing effect, and the beauty effect is relatively restrained.

When using the rear camera of the phone for selfies in the same scene, the imaging style will be quite different. In terms of white balance, the color temperature of the rear camera is cooler, and the skin tone it shoots is whiter and looks more realistic. However, the suppression of highlights in the picture is not as excellent, and the background with direct light from the lamp appears obviously overexposed. If you use the rear camera for selfies, remember to avoid direct "death highlights".

As for Nubia's landscape shooting performance, it is a pity that during the testing period, it has been raining in Guangzhou, so there is no chance to show the best performance of Nubia Flip in well-lit environments. However, even in cloudy weather, the imaging effect of the phone is not bad. It can easily capture the layering between the clouds, and the shadow parts of distant trees can also show some details. The picture resolution can reach a usable level. In terms of color, it tends to be oversaturated, making the picture more colorful and eye-catching. Matched with cloudy weather with clouds, it can strengthen the oppressive feeling brought by bad weather.

Moreover, shooting in indoor lighting conditions can elevate the imaging performance of Nubia Flip to another level. Whether it's the resolution, fineness, or texture of the picture, it has been significantly improved. There are also very few noise and smearing traces in the shadow parts. The overall picture presented is pure and transparent, making you forget that this is an entry-level positioned phone. Such imaging performance is definitely more than enough for daily life recording.

Of course, nighttime scenes are a big challenge for phones of this level. If it is nighttime indoors, it is still okay. As long as the lighting is sufficient, most of the time, stable images can be captured. Overall, there is no obvious noise and smudging in the picture, nor will there be strange sharpening. Also, there is no need to worry about color restoration. However, if you come to a darker outdoor environment at night, compared with indoors, Nubia Flip will be slightly inferior. From the overall perspective of the sample images, the visual perception of the picture is good, the restoration accuracy of the color temperature of the light is relatively accurate, and there is no obvious blurring in extremely dark sky and shadow parts. The technological progress of modern phone camera sensors is worthy of recognition.

Of course, overall, the imaging performance of Nubia Flip is at the normal level of products in the same price range. The internal space of small folding is more compact, and there is no possibility of piling up configurations wildly. Moreover, whether the overall visual perception of the sample images is comfortable obviously is more important. For a small folding phone, being able to take good-looking photos with just a snap is the biggest value of such products in daily use.

If you are tired of traditional straight board phones, this is an excellent palate cleanser
Finally, let's make a simple summary of the daily experience of the phone. Nubia Flip gives people the feeling that it is indeed like a small sports car born for fun: it is not as multifunctional and suitable for family use as traditional sedans, SUVs, or even MPVs. It may not have a large passenger capacity or a large space, but it is indeed fun to use. Similarly, I believe no one will use a small folding screen phone to play games, right? Games are like the family-use attributes of small sports cars; you must know what you want and what you are willing to give up.

But if you can accurately use its advantages: compact size, thin body, plus quite good battery life, I believe you will definitely fall in love with using this phone: after 1 hour of Bilibili videos, 1 hour of Weibo, 1 hour of Douyin, plus 1 hour of WeChat chatting + Moments of super daily mixed use, the phone can still have 67% of battery remaining with automatic brightness throughout the process. If you're slacking off in the office, playing games for a full 8 hours during work hours, and still being able to continue playing on the subway after work without charging. However, if you insist on using this small folding phone to play "Genshin Impact", then I'm afraid we may not be able to reach a consensus.

Of course, all of the above achievements are based on the use of WiFi. If you use a 5G network throughout, the battery life will be slightly worse, and the remaining battery power will decrease to about 60%.

As for the charging speed, Nubia Flip starts charging from 1% with the original charger, and the full-speed power can reach 35W. It takes 1 hour and 02 minutes to fully charge on the front end. The advantage is that the charging speed will not be significantly reduced when the screen is on, and the phone will not heat up. This is good news for users who like to play while charging.

Moreover, although it does not use a flagship chip, there is no obvious system lag during daily use, and Nubia's MyOS system is quite mature. There are also plans to carry a series of AI functions such as AI smart voice, AI smart translation, and AI magic elimination. In the same price range, being able to experience the fun of small folding and rich AI functions is indeed very rare.

It can be said that with mature chip technology and excellent system optimization, Nubia Flip can fully demonstrate its entertainment in terms of supplementing entertainment. The phone not only brings you flexibility that traditional straight-board phones do not have but also has a variety of folding gameplay. Even if you take it out and open it to answer the phone on the roadside, it can increase the look-back rate. Not to mention, besides the entertainment attributes, it also provides long battery life. If you need a durable and easy-to-use daily small folding screen phone, considering the overall price of the product, Nubia Flip is definitely a product that is very easy to like.