A music phone in 2024? It’s definitely an interesting concept.
Back in the day, music-centric phones were all about playing MP3s, boasting loudspeakers, and occasionally offering unique ways to share tunes. Fast forward to today, and the ZTE nubia Music Phone revives some of those features with the added fun factor of being a very cool-looking device. Here’s our quick review.
Design
If you’re getting the ZTE nubia Music, you’re definitely going to want it in this Pop Color. It is, without a doubt, one of the most fun-looking phones I’ve seen this year and is something I’ve been proudly showing off.
The Pop Color resembles textures you’d find in Pop Art or comic books — strong bold lines, a halftone-reminiscent pattern, and geometric cuts. What makes the nubia Music even more of a music phone is its speaker — shaped and molded like a little vinyl record. And that little DTS logo in the middle? It lights up because why not?
And it’s placed right near the camera for everyone to see, too.
I’m a sucker for quirky designs, and there’s no shortage of quirk with the nubia Music.
Its overall build is very familiar as well, with hard edges all around. We’ve got the usuals as well—a power button on the side, a Type-C port for charging, and a volume rocker.
And you know how companies are doing away with the headphone jack? Well, this is a music phone, and ZTE isn’t having any of that. Instead, it packs two headphone jacks because, as the cliché goes, music is meant to be shared. It even provides a button dedicated to music playback controls so you won’t have to fidget with double/triple pressing buttons or navigating to your music player.
For its display, the ZTE nubia Music features a 6.6-inch HD+ IPS panel with a resolution of 1612 by 720 pixels and a 90Hz refresh rate, providing a decent viewing experience. The touchscreen response can be a bit iffy, but given that this is an affordable niche phone, it’s one of those things you’ll have to live with if you decide to get it.
Performance
As a daily driver, the nubia Music Phone comfortably handles everyday tasks like browsing, social media, and video streaming.
Powered by the UNISOC SC9863A chipset, paired with an IMG8322 GPU and 4GB of RAM, it delivers solid performance for most casual users. With 128GB of internal storage, expandable via microSD, there’s plenty of room for music, apps, and media as well. Editing on Canva wasn’t the most smooth but it is doable — especially when you’re fresh from a clean install. Social media apps didn’t complain either and I could even edit quick cuts on CapCut.
While it’s capable of light gaming, more demanding tasks may push its budget-friendly hardware to the limit.
Multitasking is fine, but given its processor, I wouldn’t suggest having anything heavy running in the background. It runs on Android 13 and even comes with a dynamic island-inspired notification bar up top. Whether its OS will be upgradeable is something I’m not sure of right now.
The phone packs a 5000mAh battery, which provides excellent longevity, lasting through a full day of moderate use. Charging takes a bit of time, as it lacks fast charging capabilities, taking about 2.5 hours to reach a full charge.
Music Features
Surprisingly, it does offer a handful of music-centered features. We’ve already mentioned its dual headphone jacks—that’s one.
And remember that vinyl record-shaped speaker? It actually boasts an ultra-loud speaker that can go all the way up to 600%.
Surprisingly, it doesn’t sound too blown out. I’m confident enough to say that you can easily use this as a party speaker with no problems. It even supports high-resolution audio natively, so you can retain all that quality while cranking up the volume.
Camera
The ZTE Nubia Music comes with a 50-megapixel main camera featuring PDAF, complemented by AI enhancements for better shots. It’s also equipped with an LED flash and a 5MP front camera. There is a secondary camera on the rear but the hero really is that main 50-megapixel shooter.
And while these specs sound quite solid for a budget device, the real-world performance tells a more nuanced story.
In bright, well-lit environments, the rear 50-megapixel main shooter can deliver sharp, vibrant photos with good detail. You’re getting natural-looking colors as well though consistency can be an issue. But head indoors, go against the light, high contrast scenes, and low light, performance and quality does show a noticeable drop with grain and other artifacts popping up.
As for the front camera, the 5-megapixel shooter is hard to justify in 2024 and like I said, you will end up using the rear for most — even for your selfies.
Final Thoughts
In any review, we always ask: who is this device for? Or more importantly, who’s likely to buy it? And for a niche phone like this one, that question becomes even more relevant.
In our opinion, the ZTE nubia Music Phone is one of those devices you might pick up on a whim—because it’s cute, because it’s affordable, and because the idea of a music-centered phone is exciting. At its price point, that’s not a bad reason to consider it. Sure, it’s not the top performer in its category, but it’s undeniably a unique little gadget that’ll be fun to show off.
