The selfie camera has a beauty mode and smile-to-capture function. One can also use shutter priority and enhanced depth-of-field detection. The Pro mode allows users to play around with ISO, white balance, focus, and the likes. The Nubia Z9 Mini has one of the most feature-rich camera apps we've used with ample manual controls for the photographer. Such issues highlight that the software developers haven't paid attention to small details. Also, there are places in the menu with serious grammatical errors. The camera app crashed each time we switched to the high frame rate video mode. The Nubia UI 2.8 skin has toned down animations. There is also a very laggy split-screen mode that doesn't make sense on a phone of this size. There are touch gestures and smart sensing functions, for example you can double-tap to unlock the phone and flip it over to mute an incoming call. The first home screen is filled with shortcuts to specific camera modes and you cannot move any other app there. There is no app drawer and all apps are lined up on the home screens. It has a flatter design and default apps have round icons. The phone runs Android 5.0.2 (Lollipop) with the Nubia UI 2.8 skin on top of it. However, since it is very reflective the sunlight legibility takes a beating. It is also protected by Corning's Gorilla Glass 3. The screen is crisp, adequately bright and not overtly saturated. The 5-inch IPS LCD screen has a resolution of 1080x1920, which translates to an extremely high pixel density of 441ppi. The battery has a rated capacity of 2900mAh. Other connectivity options include Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 4.0. The phone accepts two Nano-SIM cards, one of which can connect to 4G networks even on the 2300MHz band which is used by Airtel. The Nubia Z9 Mini has a 16-megapixel rear camera with a Sony IMX234 sensor and the front camera can shoot 8-megapixel images. Additionally, the Micro-USB port can act as a host for USB devices. This can be expanded by up to 128GB using a microSD card. The phone also has 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage space. ZTE decided to go with a 1.5GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 SoC featuring Adreno 405 graphics for the Nubia Z9 Mini. Removing the rear cover reveals the microSD card slot, but the battery is in-built and cannot be replaced. At first glance it looks like the rear is made of glass but in reality it is an extremely glossy and reflective sheet of plastic that can be removed. The 3.5mm audio port and yet another microphone lie on the top. Located on the bottom are the Micro-USB port, speaker and microphone. The power button and the volume rocker sit on the right edge of the phone. Above the display you can find a small slit for the earpiece and a front-facing camera. For example, the rear camera is surrounded by a red ring and the three capacitive buttons below the display are backlit in red. The Nubia Z9 Mini is predominately black but has small doses of red sprinkled around to distinguish it from the herd. Our only gripe with the design of the Z9 Mini is that it feels a little uncomfortable to hold because the metal trim running around the edges is raised and creates a ridge, which will dig into your palms. However, it feels about the right size for a phone with a 5-inch screen. It isn't exactly slim at 8.2mm or lightweight at 147g. The Nubia Z9 Mini doesn't do anything drastic with the standard candybar design but is still a strikingly handsome smartphone. Let's find out if ZTE is successful in cleaning up its act. ZTE has also cleaned up its Android skin and has installed the latest version, Nubia UI 2.8, on the Z9 Mini. This mid-range smartphone is called the Nubia Z9 Mini and it has a really powerful camera. One of the smartphones in this range is a scaled down version of the flagship Nubia Z9 (which comes in three variants: Classic, Elite and Exclusive). Therefore, we think it is a smart decision for the company to refocus on a more premium brand: Nubia. We reviewed one of its phones, the ZTE V5 ( Review | Pictures), and despite packing powerful hardware, we found that its middling software held it back. However, it didn't rise to much prominence thanks to tough competition from brands like Xiaomi, Asus, and Motorola. The company entered India last year with powerful devices priced aggressively to take on the competition. ZTE is among the top five smartphone manufacturers in China.
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