The Nubia Neo 5G is Nubia’s latest affordable gaming smartphone packed with integrated fans, trigger buttons, RGB lighting and almost every other flagship features you can think of; In our review, we go through how this phone stacks up against its competitors.

Specs

Design

Starting off with the exterior, the body design of the Nubia Neo 5G carries a gaming phone-like flair to it, with the rear panel featuring a mechanical theme with a plastic-like finish which makes it look futuristic. The phone also has an eye design and ventilation space which can produce a 3D effect when exposed to light at a specific angle.

Overall, the body of the Nubia Neo is 7.49mm thick, which is an incredibly slim profile. Despite its wide dimension, the iron frame is lightweight and portable, thus providing portability and a comfortable grip for long gaming sessions.

On the side of the device is the power button, which also doubles as a fingerprint reader. Meanwhile, on the bottom of the phone are a USB-C port for charging as well as a 3.5mm audio jack.

The Nubia Neo runs on MyOS 13, an operating system based on Android 13. But what sets it apart from other Nubia smartphones is the interface theme dubbed Damaged Mecha, which gives the illusion that the device is alive and hiding.The theme can be seen in the application icon along with wallpapers, ringtones, animations, when charging the device.

Screen & Audio

For a gaming phone, a fast screen is essential. The Nubia Neo comes with a 6.6″ FHD+2408*1080, 120Hz, IPS LCD screen, which makes gaming very fluid, and scrolling on social media a smoother experience. With the IPS display and automatic refresh rate switching feature between 60Hz and 120Hz depending on the content displayed also helps with providing a pleasant user experience.

Coming equipped with the True Bright Display Technology, the screen is 35% brighter than the industry standard. When using the phone outside under the sun, there were no issues viewing content on the phone; so you won’t have to worry about needing to cup your hands over the phone in attempt to see what’s on your screen during a sunny day.

Unfortunately, the audio system on the Nubia Neo is less than desirable. Despite having DTS: X Ultra, the audio system is mono only and not stereo, which is the norm nowadays. While the quality is decent for content viewing, it doesn’t perform as well when used for gaming. However, it does have a 3.5mm audio jack port, which is better for gaming and wired audio connection.

Performance & Gaming Experience

Typically, MediaTek’s Helio series chipset or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon series 4 chipset will power gaming phones in this market. Instead, the Nubia Neo is run differently with the Unisoc T820.

The chipset is produced by a 6nm process, where the processor has an octa-core configuration divided into three blocks. The first cluster ARM Cortex-A76 is the most powerful with one core working at 2.7 GHz. The second ARM Cortex-A76 has three cores working at 2.3 GHz. While the third block ARM Cortex-A55 has four cores working at 2.1 GHz.

With 256GB of flash memory and up to 8GB of RAM which can be increased to 18GB with virtual RAM, the device offers plenty of storage and fast performances, enabling seamless multitasking and quick loading times.

The Nubia Neo manages to provide a great gaming experience and is capable of running a wide range of games at the medium to high graphical settings. However, don’t count on all demanding games to run smoothly at the highest settings.

We tried out 3 mainstream games with the phone:

Mobile Legends

The phone was able to run Mobile Legends very smoothly even during large scale team fights when there were tons of characters and ability effects on the screen. Speaking of, all the character models, abilities were shown beautifully and clearly in the game. Despite setting the graphics to Ultra, there were no lag during the matches I played.

PUBG Mobile

With PUBG Mobile, the graphics quality was already defaulted to HDR quality when I first booted up the game. At first glance, it looked visually appealing and it ran pretty smoothly. However, issues appeared when I turned on anti-aliasing, as the long load times became apparent. That being said, it’s recommended to turn off anti-aliasing or maybe lowering the graphics quality to ensure a smoother experience; as the most importing thing is keeping the refresh rates at 120Hz for a game like this.

Genshin Impact

The final game we tried out was with Genshin Impact, which can be considered one of the most graphically demanding games. Much to my surprise, I didn’t expect the Nubia Neo to run Genshin Impact relatively smoothly, despite having the graphics set to highest.

While there’s still a little bit of lag, it’s not on a level that’s impossible to play on. Given that Genshin Impact has a lot of graphic settings that you can change, you’re advised to tweak around to get a smoother experience.

Battery & Heat Management

The Nubia Neo has a modest battery capacity with 4500mAh, considering how thin and lightweight the device is. The phone also comes equipped with a 22.5W fast charging capability, and can be fully charged in approximately 40 minutes or less.

In terms of usage, the device is able to manage a continuous gaming session of up to 2 to 3 hours before being drained out (this test is based on running Mobile Legends: Bang Bang with the maximum settings). When it comes to lightweight usage, it can definitely last from morning till night before needing to charge it.

When playing games or performing demanding tasks, the rear panel of the Nubia Neo will get a little warm, but not to the point where it gets uncomfortable to hold or affect its performance. That’s because the Nubia Neo incorporates a multi-layer heat dissipation system into the device which helps keep the device cool even during intense usage.

Additional Features

The Gamespace app is one of the features come equipped on the Nubia Neo, which is also present in the RedMagic series. It enables the gaming experience to be customised to cater to individual needs by allowing users to choose between three performance settings – Eco, Balanced, and High.

On top of that, the phone also offers Game Performance enhancement, audio enhancement, game reminder, bypass charging, just to name a few. Users can customise their preferrred settings to enhance gaming performance in the Nubia Neo’s game space.

As the name implies, the Nubia Neo supports 5G networks thanks to its Unisoc T820 chipset. Additionally, it also has two physical sim card slots and the is capable to automatically switch between them if one of the sim networks experiences instability.

Camera

While the camera isn’t the main highlight with the Nubia Neo, it’s still able to produce sufficient results. The specs are as follows:

• 50MP Primary Camera 5P; F/1.8
• Bokeh Depth Camera 2MP; F/2.4
• 8MP Front Camera 4P; F/2.0

The pictures produced by this camera are pretty good. In daylight, the camera performs admirably, capturing nice, true-to-life colours and lots of small details. However, the dynamic range of these shots could be better and sometimes, the colours can look quite dull and muted under certain conditions.

Portrait shots from the main camera are just as good too. The quality of the background blur is very convincing, and the subject separation and detection is surprisingly decent. But of course, it’s not up to pair as with other camera-focused phones on particular subjects like animals or hair.

Verdict

All in all, the Nubia Neo 5G is a gaming phone, just as it says it is. It’s among the most potent mid-range smartphones you can get for less than MYR1,000, and it’s able to run most games pretty smoothly.

Of course, for a phone to come to this price, some sacrifices has to be made. With a 4,500 mAh battery, it has a smaller battery size as compared to the majority of its competitors, on top of not having a stereo audio system. Not to mention, it’s worth taking note of if you’re planning on playing heavily intensive games such as Genshin Impact.

Despite some shortcomings, the Nubia Neo 5G is unquestionably more capable in terms of gaming performances. In any case, the phone is marketed as a low-cost gaming phone that excels at running a wide range of games without lag.

This affordable device is jam-packed with modern features and is painted a distinctly youthful flair, perfect for gamers in Malaysia for those looking for a gaming phone under MYR1,000.

For those interested, do check out the official Nubia shopee store here.