Nubia Z60S Pro Review: How to make an affordable flagship
Nubia Z60S Pro Intro
We often lament how expensive flagship phones are nowadays, and there's some truth to this, as most top-notch models will set you back north of or close to $1000. What if a company decides to disrupt the status quo and offer a flagship phone for half of that?
Well, that's exactly what Nubia is trying to do with the Z60S Pro. So, we're starting this review with the price in order to put everything that follows in that context. The base model costs $499, and it comes with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
Now, some compromises have been made to reach this particular price point. Let's see if they really impact the overall performance and user experience and if Nubia has succeeded in the quest of making the most affordable flagship out there. Should OnePlus be concerned?
Well, that's exactly what Nubia is trying to do with the Z60S Pro. So, we're starting this review with the price in order to put everything that follows in that context. The base model costs $499, and it comes with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
Table of Contents:
Nubia Z60S Pro Specs
Snapdragon 8 Gen 2?
Let's start with an overview of the Nubia Z60S Pro specs:
| Specs | Nubia Z60S Pro |
|---|---|
| Size and Weight | 163.6 x 76 x 8.7 mm |
| Display | 220 g |
| Processor | Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 |
| Software | Android 14, MyOS 14 |
| Cameras | 50 MP, f/1.6, 35mm (standard), 1/1.56", 1.0µm, PDAF, OIS 8 MP, f/2.4, 80mm (telephoto), 1/4.4", 1.0µm, PDAF, optical zoom 50 MP, f/2.0, 13mm, 125˚ (ultrawide), 1/2.88", 0.61µm, AF |
| Battery Size | 5100 mAh |
| Charging Speeds | 80W wired charge No wireless charging |
| Prices | 12/256GB for $499 |
Nubia Z60S Pro Design and Display
Like a box of candy
The Nubia Z60S Pro front and back (Image credit PhoneArena)
Those of you who have had some experience with Nubia phones will recognize the design right away. It's very Nubia, which might seem boxy to some, but it has its own appeal. There are some distinctive elements that make this phone stand out a bit more.
The back is made of glass, but it's also textured in a very subtle way. If you try to scratch it with your fingernail, you will "hear" the texture.
The back camera system has a circular design that resembles a real camera lens with a coronet. We had the urge to try and turn this thing the moment we saw it, but it's fixed, and the engraved letters read, "Be yourself." We really don't know how to be anyone else, though; otherwise, we would've chosen to impersonate a domesticated cat, as these things are the happiest and laziest creatures in the known universe. Anyway, moving on.
The Nubia Z60S Pro is available in three colors: black, white, and aqua. The black variant is the textured one, the white one resembles mother-of-pearl, and the auqa is a very nice light green-blue hue.
For starters, the power button is bright red and textured, and we've always liked such accents. There's also a slider button that opens the camera in Street mode as a default setting.
The back is made of glass, but it's also textured in a very subtle way. If you try to scratch it with your fingernail, you will "hear" the texture.
The back camera system has a circular design that resembles a real camera lens with a coronet. We had the urge to try and turn this thing the moment we saw it, but it's fixed, and the engraved letters read, "Be yourself." We really don't know how to be anyone else, though; otherwise, we would've chosen to impersonate a domesticated cat, as these things are the happiest and laziest creatures in the known universe. Anyway, moving on.
The Nubia Z60S Pro is available in three colors: black, white, and aqua. The black variant is the textured one, the white one resembles mother-of-pearl, and the auqa is a very nice light green-blue hue.
That's a decent retail box right there (Image credit PhoneArena)
Nubia retail boxes have always been stocked, and the Z60S Pro is no exception. You get the phone with a pre-applied tempered glass screen protector, a fast charger, a cable, and a semi-transparent plastic back cover. Good job for a $569 phone.
Not terrible, not great (Image credit PhoneArena)
Moving to the display of the Z60S Pro, it's a 6.78-inch AMOLED with 2800×1260 resolution, 452 PPI pixel density, and 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate. Nubia calls this thing "1.5K Ultra Retina Eye-Care Straight Screen," and as flamboyant as this might sound, we're putting it through our display test procedure to see what's what.
Now, looking at the result above, it's very clear that this panel is a bit underpowered, compared to other flagship phones, especially in terms of brightness. The Q9+ light emitting material that BOE uses for these screens was able to output 755 nits of real-life brightness, which in 2024 is on the lower side.
Color accuracy is also way off at 4.40 deltaE, and the minimum brightness isn't great either. We're not bashing this panel at all; these numbers are just a bit average, and maybe not strictly flagship-grade, that's all.
In terms of biometrics, you have an under-display fingerprint scanner of the optical type (it's also buried in the menus) and facial recognition. Both work well enough, but bear in mind that Face Unlock uses a simple front facing camera.
In terms of biometrics, you have an under-display fingerprint scanner of the optical type (it's also buried in the menus) and facial recognition. Both work well enough, but bear in mind that Face Unlock uses a simple front facing camera.
Nubia Z60S Pro Camera
Neovision photography
Four holes but just three effective cameras (Image credit PhoneArena)
The Neovision camera system consists of three main sensors and one additional color sensor. The wide camera uses the flagship Sony IMX906 sensor, which is a 50MP, 1/1.56" sensor under a lens with f/1.59 aperture and some optical image stabilization on top of all that.
The Ultrawide camera uses another 50MP sensor and has a very wide field of view of 125 degrees. The focal length equivalent is 13mm, and the aperture is f/2.0. Finally, there's a dedicated telephoto camera with a rather humble 8MP sensor and 80mm focal length equivalent, and this translates to around 2.3x optical if we do the math (the main camera is 35mm).
Let's look at some samples and see what all these numbers look like in real life.
Main Camera
The main camera sensor is a flagship-grade Sony IMX906 and this shows in the day photos. They look great, with good level of detail, exposure is also decent, and the colors are true to life. The dynamic range is also flagship-grade.
When the night falls, the main sensor is still able to capture a lot of details, although there are some artifacts around light sources, and the images look a bit on the softer side. The dynamic range isn't great but on the other hand, night images look much more realistic and close to what we saw when taking them, than many HDR-enhanced samples from other phones.
Ultrawide Camera
The ultrawide camera has a really wide field of view, which can lead to distortion at the edges of the image. Object look quite stretched and there's a difference in quality, compared to the central region of the image. On the other hand, there's a good level of detail, the colors look good, and the white balance and exposure also look pretty decent.
Zoom Quality
The zoom camera uses an 8MP sensor, and the aperture is not the fastest out there either. In good lighting conditions you can get passable results but overall, there's a perceivable lack of detail, images look washed out and sometimes a little overexposed, too. The level of magnification is also not that great compared to the main camera, and overall, it might be better to use 2x crops from the main sensor.
Selfies
The selfie camera is nothing to write home about. It's a 16 MP, f/2.5, 26mm camera with a rather small sensor. There's a beauty mode, and a portrait mode as well, but both produce unnatural, squashed and plasticky-looking images. We suggest using the front camera in normal mode, without beauty filters or portrait bokeh algorithms applied.
Video Quality
The Nubia Z60S Pro can record videos with up to 8K resolution at 30fps which is impressive on paper. The 4K recording looks rather nice, even though there's more to be desired from image stabilization. The focus is fast and accurate, but you can't switch between lenses while recording, which means that the zoom is digital, and you can't zoom out once the recording has been started.
Nubia Z60S Pro Performance & Benchmarks
Old gen Snapdragon but overclocked
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 holds its ground pretty well (Image credit PhoneArena)
We mentioned sacrifices in the intro, and the biggest one lies in the hardware department. The Nubia Z60S Pro uses a soon-to-be two generations old Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset. The good news is that this is the AC version, also known as "for Galaxy," and it's slightly overclocked, offering a tiny bit more performance compared to vanilla Gen 2 chips.
The base version comes with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, but you can get the top 16GB/1TB model for not that much more cash, too. It's also worth mentioning that the RAM chps are LPDDR5x and the storage silicon is the faster UFS 4.0 variety. Time for some synthetic benchmarks.
The base version comes with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, but you can get the top 16GB/1TB model for not that much more cash, too. It's also worth mentioning that the RAM chps are LPDDR5x and the storage silicon is the faster UFS 4.0 variety. Time for some synthetic benchmarks.
Performance Benchmarks:
Well, the gap to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is obvious, but it's not as big as we expected. The AC version of the Gen 2 performs excellent, especially in single core benchmarks, and as we all know, single core performance translates to real life much better than all other benchmarks.
Subjectively, the phone feels like a true flagship; there's no lag or any other artifacts of using an older chipset. So, in conclusion, what we thought would be the biggest drawback of this phone - the processor - turned out to be just fine in the end.
Nubia Z60S Pro Software
In terms of software, the Nubia Z60S Pro comes with Android 14 out of the box with MyOS 14 UI on top, and it's mostly a pretty stock build, with a couple of extra features sprinkled here and there. One of these is called Z-SmartSidebar and it's a floating slider near the edge of the screen you can tap on to bring up shortcuts, apps, and other quick access tools.
The Z-Pop is something similar, but it's a floating point (that's actually quite distractive), and you can access a fixed set of shortcuts, such as Home, screenshot, status bar, restart, sound mode, etc.
Both of these can be useful, but there's a learning curve, and they require a change of habit to be able to take the most of them. And we're not sure many people would go through the trouble of putting in the energy.
Nubia says there are some Google AI features available, such as Magic Eraser, AI Blur, and AI Sky, but they weren't available at the time of review, so we might get them with a future software update.
Speaking of updates, the Z60S Pro offers three years of major software updates, which is a bit short compared to mainstream flagships these days, but not too bad considering the brand and price point of the phone.
The Z-Pop is something similar, but it's a floating point (that's actually quite distractive), and you can access a fixed set of shortcuts, such as Home, screenshot, status bar, restart, sound mode, etc.
Both of these can be useful, but there's a learning curve, and they require a change of habit to be able to take the most of them. And we're not sure many people would go through the trouble of putting in the energy.
Nubia says there are some Google AI features available, such as Magic Eraser, AI Blur, and AI Sky, but they weren't available at the time of review, so we might get them with a future software update.
Speaking of updates, the Z60S Pro offers three years of major software updates, which is a bit short compared to mainstream flagships these days, but not too bad considering the brand and price point of the phone.
Nubia Z60S Pro Battery
Solid
There's a 5,100mAh battery inside the Nubia Z60S Pro, and while it's a decent capacity, we're now so spoiled that it seems almost not enough. The Nubia Z60 Ultra, in comparison, comes with a 6,000mAh battery, and the Honor Magic 6 Pro has a 5,600mAh cell onboard.
Nevertheless, the battery life is really good, totally in the ballpark of two days of moderate usage, or a comfortable day of heavy lifting.
Interestingly, the 5,100 mAh battery doesn't perform as expected, specially against the competition. Not that the results are bad, but the overall score is not that impressive for a cell of this capacity. The 6h 38m overall estimate ranks the phone #32 which is almost spot on at the average for the category.
Fast wired charging, but no wireless charging support (Image credit PhoneArena)
Sadly, another big sacrifice (especially if you're used to having this feature) is the lack of wireless charging. This might be absolutely irrelevant to some people or a dealbreaker for others, but it is what it is. No wireless charging onboard. The good thing is that the fast wired charging is very fast indeed. The 80W bundled charging brick fills up the battery from 0 to 100% in just 37 minutes. Who needs wireless charging when the wired one is so fast, right?
Nubia Z60S Pro Audio Quality and Haptics
The stereo speakers inside the Nubia Z60S Pro sound pretty decent and quite loud as well. We were impressed by the quality of the sound; even at maximum volume, there was little to no harmonic distortion, and the sound was clear and rich.
The haptic feedback is another pleasant surprise; the vibration is strong and tight. You won't be missing any calls in silent mode. Good job!
There's no 3.5mm headphone jack, but in 2024 this is not surprising. There's an IR blaster (which is typical for Chinese smartphones), so you might be able to turn this phone into an AC control, or a TV remote, if that's your thing.
The haptic feedback is another pleasant surprise; the vibration is strong and tight. You won't be missing any calls in silent mode. Good job!
There's no 3.5mm headphone jack, but in 2024 this is not surprising. There's an IR blaster (which is typical for Chinese smartphones), so you might be able to turn this phone into an AC control, or a TV remote, if that's your thing.
Should you buy it?
Another tough call, pocket it or not? (Image credit PhoneArena)
Should you buy this $499 flagship then? That's a tricky one. As a package, the Nubia Z60S Pro offers a good experience, especially considering the aforementioned price tag. The thing is, you can get an OnePlus 12R for $599 or a Pixel 8a for even less.
These aren't strictly better, but they're more readily available, they offer better software support, and the resell value is also much better. The lack of wireless charging and the somewhat subpar screen don't help the Z60S case.
On the flip side, the Nubia Z60S Pro offers great performance despite using the Gen 2 chipset; the main camera snaps pretty decent photos, and the battery life is solid. Will this be enough to make people pick this phone instead of the aforementioned alternatives or a device from the Galaxy A lineup? We can't say.
These aren't strictly better, but they're more readily available, they offer better software support, and the resell value is also much better. The lack of wireless charging and the somewhat subpar screen don't help the Z60S case.
On the flip side, the Nubia Z60S Pro offers great performance despite using the Gen 2 chipset; the main camera snaps pretty decent photos, and the battery life is solid. Will this be enough to make people pick this phone instead of the aforementioned alternatives or a device from the Galaxy A lineup? We can't say.
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