TL;DR
- Nubia president Ni Fei has attacked other smartphone manufacturers for offering “fake flagship products.”
- The executive also claimed that the Nubia Z70 Ultra phone bucked this trend, but a closer look reveals a couple of cutbacks.
We’ve seen plenty of next-generation flagship Android phones launching in the last month, ranging from OPPO and vivo to OnePlus and HONOR. Now, a top-ranking smartphone executive has lashed out at rival brands.
ZTE-affiliated phone maker Nubia just launched the Z70 Ultra, and company president Ni Fei claimed on Weibo that many rivals are launching downgraded phones that are actually “fake flagship products with only flagship chips.” The Nubia executive asserted that the cost of the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip was used as an excuse for these unspecified downgrades.
Ni claimed that the Z70 Ultra differed from rival brands by not offering an “Oreo,” referring to the circular camera housing seen on many top camera phones. The executive also suggested (via machine translation) that there was “no fruit,” potentially alluding to a design that isn’t inspired by iPhones. By contrast, we’ve seen a few phones with iPhone-like designs in recent times (e.g., vivo X200 Pro Mini, OPPO Find X8) featuring rounded corners and flat frames.
Are we seeing a trend of downgrades?
Nubia’s president even suggested that rivals were pursuing profits, “reducing configurations across the board,” and copying designs.
We have admittedly seen some recent flagship phones launching with downgrades or only mild upgrades. For example, the recently released Realme GT7 Pro lacks wireless charging and optical stabilization for the telephoto camera, while its predecessor offered these features. Meanwhile, the Xiaomi 15 actually has a less impressive zoom camera than the Xiaomi 14 (from 50MP 3.2x to 50MP 2.6x) The OnePlus 13 also sees little in the way of major camera upgrades, using the same main camera as the OnePlus 12 but switching to two 50MP secondary cameras instead.
Do you think the latest flagship phones have been downgrades?
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However, most of these phones also come with IP69 ratings for the first time, ultrasonic fingerprint scanners, much bigger batteries, brighter screens, and extremely powerful processors. So it’s clear we are getting a fair amount of upgrades with many next-generation flagship phones, but OEMs will still be feeling the pressure with rising chip prices.
Even Nubia’s Z70 Ultra isn’t as top-tier as its president would have you believe despite having a similar price as the OnePlus 13 in China. You’re still getting features like the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, an IP68/IP69 rating, a 35mm main camera with a variable aperture, and an under-display selfie camera. But the company’s main camera is the same sensor used in the mid-range Galaxy A55 5G, while the phone misses out on wireless charging.
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