ZTE’s latest phone ships with a digital camera crown, and I love every bit of it Leave a comment

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Abstract

• ZTE is showcasing its Nubia Focus 2 Extremely smartphone at Cell World Congress 2025.
• The Nubia Focus 2 Extremely contains a distinctive rotatable digital crown for adjusting each zoom and aperture, in addition to a devoted Seize Button.
• Smartphone cameras are emulating options from skilled cameras to drive innovation in a plateaued market, and I really feel that ZTE is placing a superb steadiness of latest and outdated applied sciences.

Like many different shopper electronics makers, ZTE is exhibiting off its newest and biggest product choices at this yr’s Cell World Congress (MWC) commerce present. Whereas the corporate has a fleet of merchandise on show, one in all its smartphones piques my curiosity above all the remainder: it is known as the Nubia Focus 2 Extremely.

As its identify suggests, the ZTE Nubia Focus 2 Extremely is a high-end flagship phone with each a premium construct and several other top-of-the-line inner elements. By way of specs, the cellphone ships with a 6.8-inch 120Hz AMOLED show able to 2800 nits of peak brightness, a big 5,000mAh battery, and a Unisoc T760 octa-core chipset.

Externally, the cellphone doesn’t instantly stand out a lot from its contemporaries. At first blush on the present ground stage, I discovered the gadget to appear and feel in step with different fashionable large-screened Android handsets. I did come away impressed with its eye-catching forest inexperienced and dawn white colorways, which gleam within the mild.

Nonetheless, the Nubia Focus 2 Extremely has a trick up its sleeve, and a intelligent one at that. Its rear digital camera protrusion, which contains a triple array of digital camera sensors, is stealthily lined with a digital crown. The ring across the bump may be twisted and rotated, which in flip adjusts the zoom and aperture measurement of your digital camera viewfinder in actual time. This Rotatable Lens Ring, as ZTE calls it, is complimented by a devoted Seize Button for fast entry to the viewfinder.

What’s outdated is new once more

ZTE attracts inspiration from the skilled digital camera world

In case you’ve ever used a standard DSLR or a devoted mirrorless camera with modular digital camera lenses, then the thought of twisting your digital camera {hardware} to regulate and tweak settings is nothing new.

Rotatable crowns began disappearing in most compact cameras, in favor of a less complicated point-and-shoot design with retractable sensor {hardware}. Naturally, smartphones adopted this easier interplay mannequin as digital camera telephones grew in recognition, switching out a zoom lever for touch-screen controls and pinch-to-zoom capabilities within the course of.

Now, nevertheless, innovation within the smartphone area has plateaued, and it’s grow to be clear that handset makers are utilizing ever-more-powerful digital camera programs and options to drive upgrades and to justify excessive worth tags on flagship fashions.

…it’s grow to be clear that handset makers are utilizing ever-more-powerful digital camera programs and options to drive upgrades.

Apple’s Digicam Management interface launched final fall on the iPhone 16 sequence, which provides a dedicated button for taking pictures, locking in focus, zooming, and extra. Extra not too long ago, Xiaomi’s 15 Ultra has seen notable protection as a result of its point-and-shoot digital camera design undertones.

At MWC, the latter firm even showcased an experimental product known as the Xiaomi Modular Optical System, which brings modular (and twistable) digital camera sensors to a smartphone through a magnetic MagSafe-like attachment system.

What’s much less clear is whether or not the broader smartphone shopper base will discover this added digital camera cellphone complexity to be a optimistic or a detrimental growth. Smartphone pictures changed devoted compact cameras out of comfort and luxury, and the return of unwieldy sensors and extra advanced interplay fashions is of venture that will or could not repay.

With the Nubia Focus 2 Extremely, I reckon that ZTE has struck a steadiness that is each cheap and sensible. In my temporary time demoing the cellphone at MWC, I discovered the power to zoom and regulate the aperture measurement to be a tactile and kinetic expertise.

…I like ZTE’s mixing of latest and outdated applied sciences.

The digital crown would possibly evoke dearer digital camera gear, however crucially, it doesn’t get in the way in which or introduce compromise. The cellphone’s digital camera hump isn’t any larger than those discovered on competing flagships, and also you aren’t pressured to work together with the crown if you happen to don’t need to. For what it’s, I very a lot recognize ZTE’s mixing of latest and outdated applied sciences.

Actual launch date and availability particulars have not been specified by ZTE but, however the Nubia Focus 2 Extremely is anticipated to launch someday within the second half of the 2025 calendar yr.