ZTE’s booth at MWC is one of the more interesting. We spotted the nubia Z50 flagship phone, but also the company’s first 3D tablet, and a pair of shades that actually create a virtual 120-inch display of him.
ZTE Nubia Z50
The Ultra model has just been announced and the vanilla nubia Z50 went on sale in China in mid-December. bottom.
This vanilla model is no slouch. It has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 inside and can be configured with up to 16 GB of RAM and up to 1 TB of storage (UFS 4.0). One of the main advantages the Ultra has over this one is the 85mm telephoto lens.
If you’ve been following nubia’s recent releases, it’s no surprise that the Z50’s main camera (64MP, 1/1.7″, Sony IMX787) is equipped with a 35mm lens. This sits somewhere between a portrait lens and a typical smartphone main lens (which tends to be fairly wide at around 24mm on average). Anyway, this lens has a bright F1.6 aperture and OIS. The main camera is easily recognizable by its red trim.
It also packs a 50MP ultra-wide angle module with a 14mm lens (116° FoV). With autofocus, the UW camera can also take macro images. Surrounded by LED flashes, the third module is not a camera, but a multi-channel color sensor for ambient light.
Up front, there’s a 16MP camera punch with a hole in the display. At 6.67 inches in size and with FHD+ resolution (20:9), the display isn’t as crisp, but with a 144Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ support, it provides great visuals for multimedia and gaming. Stereo speakers also help support DTS:X Ultra.
For comparison, the Red Magic 8 Pro’s display is 120Hz. Of course, this one has an active cooling fan, but the nubia Z50’s 36,462mm² vapor chamber is bigger than many flagships.
The nubia Z50 unit we played with was white, but the company also offers black and green (vegan) leather options.
Anyway, the phone has a massive 5,000mAh battery with 80W fast charging (wired only).
Unfortunately, there is no information yet on when ZTE will bring the nubia Z50 to users worldwide.
ZTE Nubia Pad 3D
3D was entrenched in cinemas, but quickly became obsolete on televisions and mobile devices. Most people just shrug their shoulders, but some people find it really cool to watch videos and play games in 3D. If that’s you, ZTE has you covered with the new nubia Pad 3D.
This is a more comfortable glasses-free display. Also, wearing weird glasses doesn’t make you look weird. But if that bothers you, check out the next section. Anyway, the tablet uses face tracking to show an immersive 3D image of him from your perspective.
The stereoscopic effect is achieved using a proprietary DLB layer on top of a standard 12.4″ LCD (120Hz, 2,560 x 1,600px, 16:9). The viewing angles are also amazing before the 3D effect fails, so you don’t have to look completely at the screen like you did with early autostereoscopic displays. Unfortunately, the effect cannot be photographed.
The nubia Pad 3D display offers a glasses-free 3D experience for videos and games
3D’s failure at home means there’s not much content that’s easily accessible. ZTE thought of it. Pre-installed LeiaTube and LeiaFlix stream 3D video, while LeiaPlayer and LeiaViewer work with on-device content. It also has built-in 2D to 3D conversion capabilities for 2D content.
3D games can naturally render a second perspective. Over 50 titles are currently supported (from Gameloft, Invictus, PlayChemy, etc.) and can be downloaded from the LeiaAppstore.
Plus, you can create your own 3D content with the dual cameras of 2x 8MP on the front and 2x 16MP on the back. They take both photos and videos, and if you have two nubia Pad 3Ds, you can even make 3D video calls.
Whether gaming, watching videos, or video chatting, the tablet pumps audio out of quad speakers (with Dolby Atmos support) and features two microphones with noise suppression.
The slate runs Android 13 on an older Snapdragon 888 chipset with 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB of storage. With the availability of a microSD slot, you can take your 3D movie collection with you.
There is a large capacity battery of 9,070mAh inside, and 33W fast charging is possible. There are five pogo pins on the side of the tablet, intended for use with charging docks and smart accessories (such as keyboards, though ZTE has yet to announce one specifically for the nubia Pad 3D).
Pre-orders for the nubia Pad 3D will begin later this month, with sales beginning in early April (but we haven’t heard pricing yet).
ZTE nubia Neovision glasses
ZTE also showed off glasses that are actually portable head-mounted displays. They’re fairly light at 79g, and while they’re eye-catching, you might not notice the thick frame that houses the electronics. The front “lens” is attached with magnets, making customizing the look quick and easy.
Neovision Glass is not self-contained. You need to connect an external device to drive it. Of course, it works not only on phones and tablets (such as the nubia Z50 and Tab 3D), but also on laptops and consoles (Xbox, PS5, Switch). Ideally these devices have native DisplayPort capabilities, but if not, you can use a projection box to connect. Either way, the glasses don’t have a built-in battery (and are therefore very lightweight), so they’re also powered by the connected device.
ZTE’s nubia Neovision Glass
The glasses can create displays with an apparent size of up to 120 inches and a viewing angle of 43°. It uses her Micro-OLED display with a pixel density of 3,500ppi and renders 1080p video per eye. The display is also super bright, reaching up to 1,800 nits and with an adjustable interpupillary distance.
For audio, you can use the built-in omni-directional speakers or just headphones, depending on your settings. Brightness and volume are controlled by his two sets of buttons on the frame.
Just to clarify, these glasses are not VR headsets. No head tracking. It’s a small, portable display that you can cram in your backpack and use on the plane or on the train, in your hotel room, or at home when someone else is occupying the TV.
