Nubia Air 5G review: tougher than it looks
The battle between premium phones may be exciting to watch but the best fights can be seen at the mid-range and value segments.
The Nubia Air 5G might be mistaken for a device that belongs to a higher tier because of its ultra-slim build. Not only that, but it also has a triple ingress protection rating of IP68, IP69, and IP69K which translates to the phone’s resistance to submersion and high-pressure and high-temperature water jets. It’s really tougher than it looks.
At 5.9mm and 172 grams, it’s definitely one of the thinnest and lightest phones out there. The 6.78-inch AMOLED screen is incredibly bright and vibrant with a 120hz refresh rate. It’s quite easy to see even outdoors. Perhaps the only downside is the screen’s tendency to oversaturate some colors. Eye comfort and read mode settings can help mitigate the boosted colors for those who prefer less eye candy. The under display fingerprint sensor is fast and responsive.
The phone comes packed with a 5000mah battery and 33W fast charging. It won’t beat battery endurance records, but it’s on par with phones with similar battery capacity, giving it a whole day of battery life under normal usage. For contactless payments, the phone is equipped with NFC. Sadly, there’s no wireless charging.
At the back is a prominent hump that houses the camera array. There’s a main 50MP sensor with a pair of auxiliary lenses and LED flash. It’s the main shooter that does all the work and in good lighting conditions, the images that it produces are rather decent for uploading to social media. Look elsewhere if you’re looking for ultrasharp images or noise-free lowlight and night shots. The lack of an ultrawide lens may also turn off some photography buffs. Video is limited to a max setting of 1080p/30 fps.
The Unisoc T8300 chip under the hood copes well with day-to-day tasks such as browsing, productivity, basic connectivity, and light gaming. When trying to quickly switch between tasks and under heavy load, there may be some occasional stutter or slowdown. The 6-nanometer 8-core chipset may not dominate benchmarks but as long as the graphic settings aren’t set to max level, the Nubia Air 5G is surprisingly good enough for most 3D games.
Those who encounter working with multiple languages will appreciate the AI Translate feature but that’s pretty much the extent of the AI features that’s baked in the phone. You have to rely on other AI apps such as Gemini for other tasks.
In terms of value proposition, you are getting a lot of phone for just a hair under P11,000 with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. If you’re willing to live without the top tier features but need a mid-level device for use as a daily driver or a second phone, the Nubia Air 5G ticks all the boxes of having a slim and premium-looking phone without the hefty price tag. — Ed G. Geronia Jr.
