Nubia V80 Max Review

Nubia is a brand often associated with affordable products, and each year, they introduce a bunch of devices that almost… The post Nubia V80 Max Review appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines Tech News & Reviews.

Nubia is a brand often associated with affordable products, and each year, they introduce a bunch of devices that almost anyone can afford. In 2025, we were able to try out a bunch of their phones, including the V80 Design and the Nubia Air, and we were impressed by what they offered. This 2026, Nubia is kicking things off with another budget smartphone – the V80 Design. It features a large 6.9-inch 120Hz display, a large 6,000mAh battery, and a price of under PHP 10,000.

On paper, it seems great, but of course, the question remains – how does the Nubia V80 Design stack up, especially against the highly competitive budget smartphone segment? Let’s find out. What immediately caught my attention about the design of the Nubia V80 Max is how similar it looks to the Samsung Galaxy S24 and S25 series. At first glance, anyone might have mistaken it for Samsung’s flagship device.

It features a “triple camera” island arranged vertically, but don’t be fooled. There’s only one main camera, but we’ll talk more about that later on. It’s quite a big phone, but it’s not that heavy nor is it bulky. It only measures 8.3mm thick and weighs roughly 191 grams. Since this is a budget phone, it’s not exactly the most premium to the touch. The frame and back panel is made of plastic, and not the best kind.

But at least it looks great, especially in this Stardust Purple color. Thankfully the volume rocker and power button that doubles as a fingerprint scanner are positioned ergonomically. They’re easily within reach of our fingers, even if the users have small hands. At the bottom, you’ll find the USB-C port, the mono loudspeaker, and a 3.5mm audio port which is a rare find these days. On the left side, there’s the dual-sim card slot with a separate microSD slot at the same time.

Meanwhile at the top, there’s a secondary microphone. Nubia claims the phone is quite rugged, capable with TUV-certified drop resistance. It also features an IP64 rating for dust and water resistance. With that, you shouldn’t exactly submerge it in water. But at least it can get wet no problem. Considering how big the Nubia V80 Max is, naturally, it also features a large 6.9-inch IPS pane with 780nits peak brightness.

Despite its big size, it’s not exactly the best looking display on a phone. It only has HD+ resolution, not even Full HD. With that, you are limited to just 720P on apps like YouTube. The colors aren’t that vivid, and the blacks aren’t that deep, looking a bit gray instead. The viewing angles aren’t that great, especially at the sides. The borders aren’t that thin either, leaving users with less screen space.

It’s not the brightest display, but it’s adequate for outdoor use. If you’re someone used to a higher resolution smartphone, you can definitely tell this isn’t a great looking display. Thankfully, the display features a 120Hz refresh rate display, which makes the animations smooth when watching videos. It’s more obvious when playing games, but we’ll get to that later. While the 120Hz display gave the phone smooth animations, the display quality didn’t really live up to our expectations.

As for the single loudspeaker, it’s decent for what it offers. The vocals are relatively clear, and there’s also a good balance between the highs and mids. It’s quite loud too, with the option to bump the speaker levels to 200%. However, we don’t recommend doing so since the quality is sacrificed in exchange for loudness. Just keep in mind that the speaker can be easily blocked by your finger.

As for biometrics, there’s a side mounted fingerprint scanner and face unlock. I’m not a big fan of side mount fingerprint scanners, as the under screen ones feel a lot more ergonomic to use. At least the one on the V80 Max is quite fast, but I would recommend face unlock for a faster experience. Remember the camera layout of the Nubia V80 Max? Well, it’s not a triple camera system as you would expect.

It only has a 50MP main shooter with PDAF but no OIS. But what about the rest of the camera modules? Well, those are a 2MP depth sensor, and an auxiliary sensor. For selfies, there’s a 16MP front camera. The camera of the Nubia V80 Max captures decent images in well-lit environments. By keeping it in 1x zoom or 2x at most, the images were relatively sharp and featured nice contrast. The colors don’t look too vivid though, but it’s more than adequate if users want to capture memories.

From our eyes, the images look a bit flat, lacking the moody feel some cameras give, but it’s nothing users can fix in post. However, when users start losing light, the image quality also starts to drop. The camera of the V80 Max struggles when shooting in lowlight. The images come out soft, and there’s a lot of noticeable grain as well. It gets even worse when users try to use the zoom function.

Switching to night mode helps a bit, but the image loses even more details in the process. Video recording on the V80 Max is limited to just 1080P@30FPS for both the front and rear cameras. There’s no OIS or any sort of stabilization either, meaning users will have to bring a tripod or gimbal for steadier shots. As for the output, it’s very much similar to the images we captured. It’s decent during the day or in well-lit environments, but starts to drop in quality when in low-light conditions.

However, the drop in quality is a lot more noticeable in the video. We noticed there was more grain and also less details in the low-light videos. If anything, we wished Nubia added at least a 1080P@60FPS option for shooting video using the rear camera, which is already the standard for most budget smartphones. Under the hood, the Nubia V80 Max packs a Unisoc T7250 processor. Our review unit comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

We found the storage quite lacking after installing only our benchmarking apps and two games. With that, we highly recommend taking advantage of the dedicated microSD slot. It’s not exactly the best performing smartphone, but it’s more than adequate for everyday use. If we leave too many apps running in the background, the phone experiences some lag once in a while. However, it’s not bad enough to cause problems.

We noticed that performance takes a significant hit when storage is full. There are times when apps won’t load or simply not load the app. But once we freed up some space, everything was back to normal. As for gaming, it’s not exactly great at it, which is a shame considering it features a 120Hz refresh rate. It’s more akin to playing light games like Mobile Legends. Heavier titles like Genshin Impact have a hard time running on this phone.

Even with all the settings at their lowest, the phone has a hard time running it smoothly. But then again we have to set our expectations considering this is a budget smartphone. In terms of OS, the Nubia V80 Max ships with Android 16 skinned with MyOS. It’s not exactly the best looking OS on the market, but there are some customization and personalization options. Users can fully customize the home screen and design to their liking.

While it doesn’t have bloatware, which is nice, there’s also no dedicated gallery app. Instead, all the photos captured using this phone are saved to Google Photos. It’s a great way to backup photos to the cloud, but we do wish there was a gallery app to sort through the photos much faster. The highlight of MyOS is its AI functions. Google Gemini and Circle to Search are integrated into the phone despite being a budget model.

It also features its own Nubia AI, which features a wide range of tools for use. These include AI Live Translator, AI Notepad, AI Magic Eraser, and AI Scam Alert. Unlike the V80 Design we tried out, there is no AI button on the V80 Max. We wish it also had the same AI button to make accessing nubia AI a lot easier. Powering the Nubia V80 Max is a large 6,000 mAh battery pack. It’s a bit bigger than those of its competition, and from our experience, it lasts quite a while.

We were able to get through an entire day of using the phone to run benchmarks, play games, watch videos, and even capture photos and videos. The benchmarks also proved our point, managing to get a decent score using PC Mark’s Work 3.0 battery test. It managed to record 14 hours and 9 minutes, which is a decent score for the phone given the battery size. For reference, the tests were done with 50% brightness, zero volume, and on airplane mode.

In terms of charging, it only features 22.5W wired charging, which isn’t the fastest. But with the V80 Max, you can be a bro and help others since it supports 10W reverse charging. For connectivity, it features dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.2, GPS, but no eSIM support. The nubia V80 Max is a decent phone for those who just want an everyday workhorse. It’s not the best performing nor the best looking, but at least its rugged and durable design will help make the phone last a lot longer.

This means you can tough it out with this phone, no problem. As for the price, we mentioned it retails for under PHP 10,000. However, compared to what its competition offers in terms of performance, it’s hard to pick this phone over others. It retails at PHP 9,999, for the same 8+128GB variant as our review unit, which is expensive considering the lackluster performance and our experience on this phone.

Thankfully, those who are interested can get it for PHP 6,499 via the early bird promo. At that price, it sounds a lot more reasonable. So if you really want the nubia V80 Max, we recommend doing so now. Because once the promo period is up, it’s no longer worth it. Still, what do you guys think about the nubia V80 Max? Would you choose this over other budget smartphones despite its relatively expensive price?

Share your thoughts in the comments below. nubia V80 Max specs: 6.9-inch IPS display 120Hz refresh rate Unisoc T7250 8GB RAM 128GB internal storage 50MP rear camera 16MP front camera MyOS (Android 16) Dual SIM | 5G Wi-Fi Bluetooth 6,000mAh battery AI Night Charging Bypass Charging 10W reverse charging Color options: Stardust Purple, Stellar Silver, Aurellia Gold, Sky Cyan, Space Black Contributing writer at YugaTech, covering the latest in technology news and reviews.