Nubia has officially launched its latest flagship smartphone Nubia Z17 at an event held today in Beijing, China. It is the successor to the last year’s Nubia Z11 which came with the Snapdragon 820 SoC. Last month, the company also launched the Nubia Z17 Mini in this new series. Though Nubia has a little market share, the company has the global presence which is missing for many other brands. The unibody metal design gives a premium look to the device. This also the first Nubia smartphone to come with IP certification making it both water and dust resistant. Following the trend of recent flagship devices, the Nubia Z17 also misses the 3.5mm Audio port.

The device runs on Android 7.1.1 Nougat based Nubia UI 5.0 and comes powered by NeoSmart Artifical Intelligence. With the latest FiT 3.0 (Frame Interactive Technology), the user can swipe on the edges to access the device. The company newly introduced the FitCard that works same as the Shelf on the OnePlus devices or the Google app on the Pixel devices. It can be accessed by simply swiping from left to right on the home screen. There are also 3D Touch shortcuts as seen on the latest Google O Developer Preview. Along with all these features, the split screen multitasking is continued from the earlier version of Nubia UI.

It sports a 5.5-inch two-sided bezel-less display with Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) resolution and a pixel density of 403 PPI. There is also a 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass protection on top. Under the hood, the Nubia Z17 houses the 64-bit Snapdragon 835 octa-core processor built on the 10nm FinFET process. It comes coupled with Adreno 540 GPU for better graphical performed. The Nubia Z17 becomes the second smartphone from a Chinese brand to launch the Snapdragon 835 powered device. Earlier in April, Xiaomi launched the Mi 6 with the same Snapdragon 835 SoC. It includes 6GB/8GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 64GB/128GB of UFS 2.1 storage.

In the camera department, the Nubia Z17 features 23MP + 12MP dual lens camera with, Dual Pixel focus, f/1.8 aperture and 6P lens with Sapphire glass protection. Just like the iPhone 7 Plus, the Nubia Z17 also offers 2X optical zoom. For selfies, there is also a 16MP front camera with f/2.0 aperture and 80-degree wide angle lens. With the Quick Charge 4.0 fast charging technology, the 3,200mAh non-removable battery on this device can be charged from 0% to 50% in just 25 minutes. With the NeoPower 3.0 optimizations, the device is said to give two days of mixed usage. The Dolby Atmos certified speaker on the Nubia Z17 gives Hi-Fi audio output.

There is also IR Blaster on the top edge for controlling the home appliances like AC or TV just like a remote controller. While the recently launched Nubia M series devices came with a physical home button on the front, the Nubia Z17 comes with three capacitive navigation buttons, and the fingerprint sensor is placed on the rear. With the inclusion of NFC, the device can be used for mobile payments via AliPay and WeChat. Connectivity options include 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1 LE, GPS, and USB Type-C port. The power button and volume rocker are placed on the right edge, and SIM card slot can be found on the left edge.

It measures 152.60 x 72.38 x 7.60 mm and weighs 173 grams. The device comes in Black Gold, Soft Gold, Black, Blue and Red color options. Out of all these colors, the Blue color is only limited to the 8GB RAM variant, and the Black Gold color is limited to the 6GB RAM variant with 128GB storage. Talking about the pricing, the 8GB RAM variant Nubia Z17 with 128GB storage is priced at 3999 Yuan (approx $590 / Rs. 38,000). On the other hand, the 6GB RAM variant with 64GB and 128GB of internal storage will be costing 2799 Yuan (approx $410 / Rs. 26,500) and 3399 Yuan (approx $500 / Rs. 32,000) respectively.

All the three variants are now available to pre-order, and the open sales start from July 6th. Much like any other Chinese launch, there is no information about the availability of the Nubia Z17 in the foreign markets. Since the Nubia Z11 was made available in India, soon we might see the Nubia Z17 launching here too. Considering all these top-notch specifications, what should be the price tag for this device in India. Do you think the smartphones should actually feature 8GB of RAM? Lets us know your thoughts by commenting below.