The nubia V70 Design is an entry-level offering with varying materials used depending on what color option you have.
At a first glance, it really does look easy on the eyes. It’s fairly reminiscent of what the TECNO SPARK 20 looks like from the camera island alone. Of course, what’s under the hood matters as well.
So today, we’re here to unpack how the nubia V70 Design performs overall. For reference, our review model came in the Black color option with 4GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
Design and Construction
As mentioned, the design and build of this device may differ depending on what color it is. The Green and Orange colorways sport vegan leather, while the Black and Pink variants have glass back panels.
We have the V70 Design in Black. This has a glass back panel that sparkles when you move it around in front of light. Sadly, this is also prone to smudging. It’s good to note that the device comes with a clear case to address this.
Personally, I’m not a fan of the shimmer it brings. I think it could’ve been better off with a solid matte-like finish. First impressions aside, the phone has a nice feel, thin and has a good heft to it.
On the back of the phone, you’ll find the camera island on the upper left. There’s three sensors and a LED flash situated here. We’ll get to these in depth a bit later.
At the front, we have the display panel and a camera situated in a hole punch. The screen has fairly thick bezels as well.
For buttons, we have the volume rocker and a red power button which doubles as a fingerprint sensor on the right side. There’s the dual SIM tray on the left as well.
At the bottom, there’s a 3.5mm audio port, a USB Type-C port, and a loudspeaker. On top, there’s a microphone for calls and recording.
Additionally, the phone does not come with an ingress protection rating. Suffice it to say, it might be wise to keep this device away from bodies of water.
Overall, I think the phone could’ve done better in this colorway. While the glass panel is alright, the sparkles are a bit of a pet peeve since it’s smudge prone. I think the other color options could fare more well.
Display, Multimedia, and Biometrics
The phone has a 6.7-inch IPS LCD with HD+ resolution and a refresh rate of 120Hz. For audio, it comes with a mono loudspeaker, Bluetooth for wireless connectivity, and a 3.5mm port.
The display performs surprisingly well. I wasn’t expecting much since it’s an entry-level device. Notably though, scrolling doesn’t feel as smooth compared to an AMOLED panel.
Colors leaned more towards accuracy instead of vibrance and does quite alright even under sunlight. The thick bezels and the refresh rate work together to offer an enjoyable streaming experience.
If I had any gripes though, it would be the lack of another speaker. Most smartphones usually have dual stereo speakers nowadays. To work around this, I opted to use wired earphones at home or wireless earbuds when I’m out and about.
Biometric options include a side-mounted fingerprint sensor embedded on the power button and face unlock. Responsiveness from both security measures work as intended, quick and easy.
Cameras
The V70 Design is equipped with a 50-megapixel main camera and a 16-megapixel selfie shooter. While the phone does have three sensors on the back panel, they were not specified.
We assume that the sensors are auxiliary lenses powered by AI. This is because the device is capable of post-processing after capturing a photo.
It can produce great shots with great lighting conditions. However, lack thereof results in evident grain and lost detail. On a side note, we didn’t expect the device to be able to take relatively good macro shots.
Selfies with the device come out as you would expect. Details and texture are put away in favor of light. Then again, it’s decent as far as budget-friendly smartphones go.
Considering that expectations were low with the nature of the device, it did okay! I believe the post-processing is an unsung hero for this segment.
While it should take a bit more work to get great shots, nubia’s integrations help meet the right conditions. Either way, I’m sure users can make a handful of photos work with the device.
OS, Apps, and UI
The phone runs on MyOS 14 based on Android 14 out of the box. As a TL;DR, it’s basically a smoothened-out stock Android skin. There’s not much to unpack here.
Starting off with positives, users may add up to 10GB of extended virtual memory under settings. Since the device only comes with 4GB of RAM, this should be an appreciated touch.
Next, there’s barely any bloatware to be found. Some of them are fairly usable as well. TikTok, WPS Office, and YouTube Music come pre-installed. Less likely opened apps include two pre-installed games (MC: Rebel Guns and Puzzle Pets) and the ZTE Cares app.
Lastly, the user interface is what you would expect from Android devices. It’s pretty simple to digest. It offers the usual quick toggles in the drop down menu for dark mode, screen recording, etc.
Like I said, nothing much to write home about. This isn’t necessarily bad though. After all, if it’s convenient and easy to digest, then the user experience is good based on familiarity alone.
Performance and Benchmarks
Under the hood, the nubia V70 Design is powered by a UNISOC T606 chipset clocking up to 1.6GHz. It also comes with a Mali-G57 MP1 GPU, 4GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage.
From experience, I’ve used the phone for streaming videos, reading articles, and a bit of gaming. I’m pleased to let readers know that it can handle a title like Genshin Impact provided low settings are enabled.
This does, however, come with the con of frame drops. Still, I think it could be passable if any users just want to get dailies out of the way and such. Despite running Genshin, it didn’t heat up as much as I expected too.
I’ve also played Teamfight Tactics and League of Legends: Wild Rift on the phone which yielded better results. Both games don’t need that much memory and are fairly stable with 30 or 60 frames.
I think games like TFT, WR, or even Mobile Legends are where the phone can shine based on my observations. While it won’t give you the smoothest experience possible, it’s surely reliable.
I’ll leave our synthetic benchmark scores on the nubia V70 Design below for readers to see.
Battery and Connectivity
T
his device packs a modest 5,000mAh battery with support for 22.5W of charging via USB Type-C. I believe battery life is one of the phone’s biggest pros, so we went ahead and took some tests.
In PC Mark’s Battery Test, the phone was able to perform for 16 hours and 18 minutes. We took the test with 50 percent brightness, muted volume, and in airplane mode.
For our proprietary video loop test, it was able to provide 30 hours and 57 minutes of playback. This test was taken with similar variables mentioned above while playing a full HD movie.
We also took a gaming test for the V70 Design. We found that it can provide consistent gameplay for 8 hours and 20 minutes. This was taken with brightness and volume set to 50 percent over a Wi-Fi connection and Game Mode active.
As for charging, the device takes 1 hour and 59 minutes to power up from empty to full. This test was taken with the charging brick available out of the box.
Summing it up, the nubia V70 Design does well under this segment. Users are set to make it through an entire day (or more) with a fully-charged battery.
Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, and dual nano-SIM. We didn’t really encounter gripes with these as the internet and calls were stable.
Pricing and Conclusion
It’s kind of ironic that the phone’s built around the word design. I feel as though I like everything that the device offers BUT the design.
Putting it into perspective, it offers a good display, decent cameras, lack of bloatware, and great battery life. Meanwhile, the cons include its smudge-prone shimmering back panel and its mono loudspeaker.
Then again, this can be remedied by choosing another color option. If so, then the device barely has any cons to begin with. Either way, this is an affordable find to end the year.
It’s insanely affordable as well! The nubia V70 Design retails for PHP 5,299 and can be found online via Shopee. I encourage you guys to save the listing if this manages to be under your budget.
What we liked:
* Display
* Cameras (post-processing)
* Absence of bloatware
* Battery life
What we didn’t like:
* Design (back panel shimmer, smudge prone)
* Mono loudspeaker
nubia V70 Design specs:
6.7-inch HD+ (1600 x 720) IPS LCD, 120Hz refresh rate
UNISOC T606 (12nm) chipset
2x Cortex-A75 processor
6x Cortex-A55 processor
Mali-G57 MP1 GPU
4GB RAM (up to +10GB extended memory)
256GB internal storage
microSD card support (dedicated slot)
50MP main camera
Unspecified secondary camera
Unspecified tertiary camera
16MP front camera
3.5mm audio port
Mono loudspeaker
Dual nano-SIM
4G LTE
Wi-Fi 5
Bluetooth 5
GPS
FM Radio
USB Type-C
MyOS 14 (Android 14)
5,000mAh battery
22.5W charging support (wired)
Black, Rose Pink (colors, glass back panel)
Jade Green, Orange (colors, vegan leather back panel)
