Want a phone with a headphone jack? Nubia Music Phone has two, plus a huge speaker
A phone that celebrates analog audio and vinyl? Thanks, ZTE
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I’m no gambler, but if you’d asked me to predict what we’d see atMWC 2024, my top picks would have been the (oddly Eve fromWall-Eesque)Nothing Phone 2a, abendable concept phone you can wear like a wrist cuffandtransparent laptop screens– after all,Samsung’s first ever transparent micro-LED displaywas unveiled at the start of the year.
What I wouldn’t have bet on was ZTE releasing a colorful, vinyl-styled smartphone with not one buttwoanalog 3.5mm headphone jacks and a huge DTS:X-certified speaker on its rear panel, thus becoming a solid rival tomy current pick for the best phone for sound, theSony Xperia 1 V.
But here we are. ZTE says that thanks to its vinyl-styled, rear-mounted speaker (not too dissimilar to the speaker seen on the Nokia 130, one oftwo ‘dumb’ Nokia feature phoneslaunched last year, albeit a more powerful proposition), the Nubia Music smartphone promises 600% higher volume than your average smartphone. If true, bringing one of thebest Bluetooth speakersalong to add music to your next barbecue, beach or camping trip may soon become wholly unnecessary.
And let’s talk about those two 3.5 mm headphone jacks! WhileSony’s aforementioned Xperia lineup is one of the last handsets to keep supporting the humble headphone jack, I’ve not seentwoof them on a piece of portable audio kit since the Sony Walkman of my childhood. Not evenFiiO’s new CP13 tape playerhas two jacks, and thats' an actual Walkman wannabe…
3.5mm jacks and Ambilight? This is the retro phone of my dreams
Nubia also includes a special music companion app that helps you control the special RGB strip on the edge of the screen to match the music – yes, ZTE thinks Ambilight is the future and I’m here for it, despitePhilips dropping a key Ambilight feature I lovedlast year, even asPanasonic added integrated LED lighting to its in-flight entertainment system.
As reported byNotebookCheck, the Nubia Music phone totes “a powerful amplifier and an AI algorithm” to achieve its much higher volume output than conventional phones. Elsewhere it reportedly sports a 90Hz HD display, a 50-megapixel dual camera, a 5,000mAh battery, plus up to 8GB of RAM.
Solid details are otherwise thin on the ground (the phone has an unspecified Unisoc processor, the DAC chip is unknown and pricing and availability hasn’t yet been made official by ZTE), but based on those specs, it’ll likely arrive as a mid-range offering. And I will be ready.
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Becky became Audio Editor at TechRadar in 2024, but joined the team in 2022 as Senior Staff Writer, focusing on all things hi-fi. Before this, she spent three years at What Hi-Fi? testing and reviewing everything from wallet-friendly wireless earbuds to huge high-end sound systems. Prior to gaining her MA in Journalism in 2018, Becky freelanced as an arts critic alongside a 22-year career as a professional dancer and aerialist – any love of dance starts with a love of music. Becky has previously contributed to Stuff, FourFourTwo and The Stage. When not writing, she can still be found throwing shapes in a dance studio, these days with varying degrees of success.
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