nubia is making big noises again and that’s cool.

In 2024 and earlier this year during major tech conventions, I got to walk around nubia booths and see some of their smartphones. Many of them are interesting and fresh in the eyes. And, while their specs sheets don’t go toe-to-toe against the titans walking through the industry, nubia makes up for it with a strong, vibrant personality.

One of their newest announced smartphones, the nubia Air, is among the thinnest devices you will see today. Flip it around, and yes, that is quite a rear camera design, which I’ve seen from only two others. I believe we’ll be seeing more of this in the coming months as the style picks up.

The nubia Air is light and easy on the hands, comfortable and nice to look at. The screen has 6.78 inches with a resolution of 1224x2720, 120Hz refresh rate, and 4,500 nits of brightness–careful in checking your phone at night.

Under the hood is a Unisoc T8300, and while that chip is not the cream of the crop, it serves well for most of our everyday usage. If you will be gaming on this device, worry not as Wild Rift and MBLL runs smoothly. Bigger titles such as Call of Duty: Mobile and Wuthering Waves may reveal the cap in performance. Both games are still playable under low settings.

As expected of it, the nubia Air heated up quite a bit when gaming with it for an extended period of time. This could affect performance and the 5000mAh battery. Thankfully, the nubia Air is waterproof, and should it get too hot when the competition gets aggressive, you can just dip it in a bowl of water to cool it off.

The claim that this is waterproof comes from nubia themselves, citing the nubia Air has IP69K, IP69, and IP68. I have not tried submerging the phone itself in any depth of water. Only water from the faucet, shower, bidet, and a spill from a glass, was all I did to test its waterproofness. But it still gives me the confidence the phone can be used when the weather turns bad.

Speaking of durability, despite its thinness and lightweight form factor, the nubia Air is drop resistant. nubia boasts 6,000 drop tests, 600 rolling drop tests, and five rounds of free fall tests. I’ll admit, I haven’t had the heart to try it. I’ll just take their word for it, since we all do baby our phones no matter what, anyway. Besides, we’re living at an age where smartphones are getting to the classic Nokia 3310-levels of drop durability and so I wouldn’t be surprised if nubia has managed to properly apply this in development.

The rear camera gets 50MP. This is coupled with a 2MP and what nubia says is an auxiliary sensor but gave no other detail about it. The front camera gets a respectable 20MP. And camera performance is what you’d expect from a phone at this range, which is impressive in its own way. You’d remain confident in taking photos and videos and sharing them online.

One more thing about the nubia Air is how much I appreciate there isn’t much bloat in it. Sure, they have a few apps that most people are expected to install on the get go, like Facebook. It’s also got some pre-installed games though. But other than that, the UI is mostly clean with only the essentials up front.

I like the nubia Air. I feel it’s a classy phone on its own. The waterproof aspect is a nice inclusion and the screen is incredible to binge watch movies on. It’s a phone that you’d want to carry around and show off to others just because it’s a bit different–or hilariously familiar–and so, if this sounds like your cup of tea, you should probably check out the nubia Air yourself.