Review verdict: For the price, the Nubia V70 Max was surprisingly good as a daily driver and was reliably snappy for everyday tasks. This little budget workhorse surprised us in many different ways and is certainly worth a look.

Pros

• Incredibly Affordable
• Great Battery Life
• Great Cameras and Optics for the price
• Large screen
• Punchy Colors
• Rugged and reliable

Cons

• A little too tall
• Software needs work
• UI is not as smooth as other phones
• Can feel a little laggy at times

A smartphone isn’t a luxury anymore; it’s an essential tool. But breaking the bank for a decent device? Not necessary. The Nubia V70 Max emerges as a compelling solution for the budget-conscious, offering a surprisingly robust experience for under Php 5000. Forget the compromises – this phone redefines what’s possible in the entry-level segment.

Nubia V70 Max Review Philippines: Design

The Nubia V70 Max has a sleek yet rugged design. It features a polycarbonate frame with a plastic back that has an etched metal feel. In terms of weight, the phone has the right amount of heft but isn’t too heavy to use comfortably for extended periods.

It’s comfortable in the hand, though users with smaller hands might find its height a challenge. The screen is large and has thick bezels with a water drop notch for the selfie camera. The button placements are perfect for its size, and it feels responsive when pressed. I appreciate that the power button doubles as a fingerprint sensor, a feature uncommon in phones at this price point.

On the back, it has a large camera module that’s similar to the ones on phones released by other brands recently. For ports, it has a USB-C charging port, a microphone hole, a single speaker grille, and a 3.5mm audio jack (users with wired headphones will be happy with this). It has a dual SIM card tray on the opposite side of the buttons.

Overall, it’s simple and stylish and doesn’t come off as a low-budget smartphone despite being one. The screen and bezels do appear a bit dated, but aside from that, it’s a premium-feeling smartphone.

Nubia V70 Max Review Philippines: Display and Speakers

Considering the price, I was surprised to learn that it has a large, 6.9-inch 120Hz IPS LCD panel. The colors are punchy and bright, but the screen does struggle under direct sunlight because of its low brightness. Other than that, using it at home to watch videos felt good, and the mono speaker was surprisingly loud.

In terms of sound, its single speaker has a good balance of mids and highs but struggles with bass. It tended to sound slightly grainy and tinny at maximum volume, but performed adequately despite its mono speaker. If you’re using it to watch Netflix and YouTube, it’s perfectly fine for that.

Nubia V70 Max Review Philippines: Cameras

The cameras on the Nubia V70 Max were pretty decent. It has a 50-megapixel main camera, a 2-megapixel depth sensor, and an AI camera. For selfies, it has an 8-megapixel front-facing camera.

The picture quality was pretty decent, and the 50-megapixel camera does a lot of work. Note that the phone heavily relies on post-processing to achieve acceptable image quality. For normal and zoomed-out shots, the cameras do fine, but you will note that zooming in makes photos incredibly grainy. Selfie performance was relatively similar.

Overall, it performed fine, all things considered. For an entry-level budget smartphone, the cameras are perfect for taking a quick pic in a daily setting.

Nubia V70 Max review Philippines: Performance, software, battery life

Performance is adequate. Nothing special overall, but again, considering it’s an entry-level phone, it performed better than most other phones at this price point. It runs on a UNISOC T606 chipset and a Mali-G57 chipset with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage.

We ran the phone through several benchmark testers, and needless to say, the numbers are what you’d expect from a phone of this price. We’ll include the benchmark numbers for those who are interested, but know that it’s not particularly powerful.

The Nubia V70 Max tends to lag when too many background tasks are running, but handles single-process tasks well. The UI is fairly standard and easy to navigate, even for those who aren’t so tech-savvy. It has respectable and snappy gesture controls, as well as a suite of pre-installed apps and system tools. It handles web browsing and video playback well, but video editing with apps like CapCut is not recommended.

It can handle Genshin Impact on the lowest settings and does pretty well with games like Honor of Kings, Mobile Legends, and Wild Rift. I’d say this phone is perfect for people who love to play mobile games and are on a budget.

The Nubia V70 Max ships with MyOS 15 on Android 15 and comes pre-installed with Google apps and a bit of bloatware. It’s simple, effective, and user-friendly.

Battery life for the phone was surprisingly very good. Charging speeds are at 22.5W, with the phone achieving a full charge around an hour. On a full charge, the phone easily lasted a whole day of normal use. When gaming, it can last at least 3-5 hours on a single charge. And yes, surprisingly, this phone handles gaming reasonably well.

Nubia V70 Max Review Philippines: Wrap-Up and Conclusions

To repeat what I said earlier, it’s an overall decent phone and, while it’s not amazing, it performs surprisingly well for its price. It’s perfect for users who are on a budget and are looking for a good smartphone, as well as elderly users looking for a Netflix or YouTube-watching device. If you’re used to midrange phones and phones at much higher price points, this is not the phone for you. It’s a great value for its price, and I highly recommend it as a budget-friendly option.

Nubia V70 Max Review Philippines: Price

The Nubia V70 Max is priced at Php 4,699.