The nubia NaviX Ultra, the brand's AI-focused smartphone, has now been officially launched. Built around the Doubao mobile assistant, the phone supports deep reasoning, self-correction, extended context adherence and summarisation capabilities — features that may leave users unfamiliar with AI somewhat baffled. Deep reasoning means the AI can formulate a plan, breaking complex tasks down into simpler sub-tasks and tackling them one by one. Self-correction allows the AI to recover lost ground when it hits an unexpected snag, while extended context adherence helps Doubao keep track of where it is in a task.
Summarisation, meanwhile, lets it draw on knowledge from one application to solve problems it has not encountered before.
The nubia NaviX Ultra repurposes its fingerprint-sensing button as an AI key. A quick tap summons a prompt window, a long press enters voice command mode, and a double tap launches a "video call" with the AI, using the phone's camera to show it what you are looking at. Doubao is a multimodal AI capable of handling text, images, audio and video, and is currently undergoing testing in a continuous conversation mode that allows users to engage with the AI more deeply in order to tackle more complex tasks.
For longer-running jobs, a widget is also available to help users keep tabs on the phone's progress. Users can also assign additional tasks to the AI; the system intelligently reprioritises the workload, and users can manually bump important jobs up the queue.
NaviX Ultra's AI features lift the user experience
The AI plays nicely with third-party apps and can even call online service APIs, including Lark (a full-featured team collaboration suite), CaoCao Mobility (a Chinese robotaxi operator), mobile map apps and online music services. It can also handle incoming calls (including following scripted responses), transcribe voice memos, search screenshots, identify products on screen and more. With the AI tour out of the way, let us turn to the phone itself.
The nubia NaviX Ultra is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor and comes in three configurations: 12GB/512GB, 16GB/512GB and 16GB/1TB — all LPDDR5X RAM with UFS 4.1 storage. The device ships with Android 16 rather than 17, topped by the company's Nebula AIOS 2 layer. It carries a 6.78-inch LTPO OLED display with a 1–144Hz refresh rate and a resolution of 1,260 x 2,800 pixels.
Peak display brightness reaches 4,500 nits, with DC dimming supported. The phone is 7.6mm thick, weighs 208g, and packs a hefty 7,100mAh battery with 90W wired fast charging, 50W wireless charging and reverse wireless charging.
The rear camera array comprises a 50MP main shooter (1/1.4-inch sensor, f/1.6 lens, optical image stabilisation), a 64MP 3x periscope (OIS, DCG HDR) and a 50MP ultrawide (115°, f/2.0, autofocus). Selfies are handled by a 32MP sensor. The nubia NaviX Ultra is on sale now in China via ZTE's online store, with the base 12GB/512GB model priced at RMB 6,000 (roughly HK$895 / £665 / €775 / ₹85,800).
The 16GB/512GB variant costs an extra RMB 500 for the additional 4GB of RAM, while the top-of-the-range 16GB/1TB model is priced at RMB 7,500.
Item Specifications Processor Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 RAM 12GB / 16GB Storage 512GB / 1TB Display 6.78" LTPO OLED (1–144Hz, 1,260 x 2,800 pixels) Battery 7,100mAh Rear camera 50MP + 64MP + 50MP Selfie camera 32MP