ZTE to launch Nubia line of smartphones in India on 19 May

Phone maker ZTE is the latest Chinese company to launch a new line of smartphones in India come 19 May. ZTE is expected to launch the Nubia line of smartphones with either the Z9 or the Z9 mini. The phones will be sold exclusively on Amazon and ZTE has also put a placeholder on the ecommerce site. ZTE had launched the **Nubia Z9** in Beijing on May 6 and it is rumoured to be its first launch (from the Nubia line) in India. There are no concrete details regarding the model number as the Amazon page just has a ‘Nubia Unlimit Yourself’ tagline beside a picture of the lower half of the phone. The ad claims that the Nubia phone comes with an SLR camera, which frankly sounds quite misleading. Going by the specs, the Nubia Z9 sports a 5.2-inch full HD display and there are no bezels on the sides of the phone. The phone makes use of the Frame Interactive Technology (FIT) which allows you to control the phone by touching the edge of the screen. It supports a dual nano SIM configuration. The Nubia Z9 houses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 SoC with Adreno 430 GPU and 3GB of RAM. There’s a 16MP rear camera and an 8MP front-facing camera. On the battery front, you get a 2,900 mAh battery. Its will be made available in three variants – Classic edition with 3GB RAM and 32GB onboard storage priced at 3499 Yuan (approx. Rs 36,100), Elite Edition with 4GB RAM and 64GB onboard storage priced at Yuan 3999 (approx Rs 41,200) and the most premium top edition with 4GB RAM and fingerprint recognition at 4499 Yuan (approx Rs 46,400). The price points put the phone in the premium segment for sure. But it isn’t confirmed if this indeed will be the phone at launch. On May 18, another Chinese phonemaker Meizu, is expected to launch its device in India. There is no information on what device will be launched as such. But back in March, Meizu’s India Facebook page had the m1 Note FHD smartphone on the cover, so it seems most likely that this phone that will first make it to the India market. In terms of specifications, the Meizu m1 Note sports a 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 pixel display covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. It comes powered by a MediaTek MT6752 SoC with an octa-core Cortex A53 cores along with 2GB of RAM. The m1 Note runs Android 4.4.4 KitKat atop which it has its proprietary Flyme 4 skin. On the camera front, you get a 13MP rear camera with LED flash and a 5MP front-facing camera. There is a 3,140 mAh battery under the hood. On the connectivity front, you have LTE, 802.11 b/g/n, GPS/A-GPS, GLONASS, microUSB and Bluetooth 4.0. The Meizu m1 Note is priced at around $220 which comes to around Rs 13,800 which seems like a decent price point. However, this is just a speculation at the moment. With Meizu, India will have one more Chinese smartphone brand after players such as Oppo, Xiaomi, Lenovo and Huawei.