Nubia Z80 Ultra shimmies in with a global launch, before other 2026 Android flagship phones

Nubia has been hard at work to get its upcoming flagship phones out to the world as soon as possible. Late last week, it introduced the Redmagic 11 Pro to its home market, China, and this was swiftly followed by the global launch of the Nubia Z80 Ultra.

Nubia is among the first to announce its 2026 Android flagship handsets. It came after Vivo’s X300 Pro and gamer-friendly iQOO 15, and Xiaomi’s China debut of its Xiaomi 17 series. In Nubia’s case, both the Redmagic 11 Pro and Nubia Z80 Ultra pack the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, which is an atypical arrangement, as most of these Chinese Android phone makers dabble with flagship processors from both MediaTek and Qualcomm.

Nubia said in its official release that the Z80 Ultra is targeted at users who also value performance and photography (on top of gaming), which we dissect below.

Nubia Z80 Ultra

The Z80 Ultra offers a series of competitive features, including a 7,200mAh battery with 80W wired and wireless charging, a BOE X10 1.5K AMOLED panel (6.85-inch and 2,688 x 1,216 pixels resolution), and “dual focal length” rear cameras. 

Going beyond a specs dump are the gritty details: the AMOLED has a 3,000Hz instant touch sampling rate, 2,000 nits peak brightness, and an added Synaptics chip for touch navigation and accuracy. It also contains an under-display front camera like before, making Nubia (and its parent company ZTE) one of the few brands that consistently has that technology in its handsets.

The main camera among its triple rear array is a 50MP shooter using a 1/1.3-inch Light Master 990 sensor with an f/1.7 aperture, and its accompanying lens is a standard 35mm focal range that prompts convenient street photography. It is also accompanied by a 50MP ultrawide camera at 18mm range with a generous f/1.8 aperture, and a 64MP telephoto camera that doubles up as a macro shooter.

What sets the Nubia Z80 Ultra apart for street photography is the dedicated camera button that does not require the user to unlock the phone before snapping photos. This is on top of 21 film-inspired filters for post-processing.

Nubia also did not stop at implanting a high-end processor, pairing it with UFS 4.1 storage and LPDDR5X RAM. It’s true customisation, however, comes from its support for a 144Hz refresh rate, further assisted by AI Super Frame Stabilisation and the adoption of Redmagic’s Cube Gaming Engine for frame-processing.

To manage thermals, it also has a 3D Ice Steel VC cooling system built in (35% larger than before).

It also checks the essential boxes like IP68 and IP69 ratings for dust and water resistance, NFC support, and the use of Android 16 (reskinned as Nebula AIOS 2). However, there’s no mention of eSIM support in its global announcement, and neither did Nubia provide a specifications fact sheet for its global variant (the other specs are still based on its China variant here).

Pricing and availability

With the Nubia Z80 Ultra slated for a 6 November 2025 global launch followed by an 18 November 2025 retail run, official prices are not out yet. We will update once it’s available.

For reference, its China variant starts at CNY 4,999 (12GB RAM, 512GB), approximately ~S$911.72.