At IFA 2025, ZTE has announced nubia Air, the company’s latest thin and lightweight smartphone, marking its first entry into the “Air-style” category. It boasts a 5.9mm thin body with a large 6.78-inch 1.5K AMOLED display, a 5000mAh battery, and intelligent AI, weighing just 172 grams.
Despite its body tapering to just 5.9mm ultra-slim design, nubia Air packs a 5,000mAh massive battery, which can sustain more than 1,000 charge cycles combined with nubia’s AI-powered power-saving technology, offering users more than three years of dependable everyday use, says the company.
Further, the thin phone has also been certified by top-level water and dust resistance—IP68, IP69, and IP69K waterproofing—meaning it can survive being submerged in water up to 1.5m for 30 minutes and endure high-pressure water jets at 80°C. It also includes an aluminum alloy frame, with proven durability through 6,000 continuous drop tests, 600 repeated rolling drop tests, and 5 rounds of free-fall tests.
nubia Air is powered by a UNISOC octa-core 5G processor with a dedicated AI Performance Engine—assisted by AI Scheduling (which optimizes CPU performance) and APP Freeze (which identifies rarely used applications and freezes them), further extending battery life by 20% and reducing power consumption by 25%.
nubia Air Specifications:
- 6.78-inch 1.5K (1224 x 2720 pixels) 120Hz AMOLED display, 440ppi, 4500 nits peak brightness, Corning Gorilla Glass 7i
- 8GB RAM (up to 12GB dynamic RAM), 256GB storage
- UNISOC T8300 (6 nm) Octa-core (2×2.2 GHz Cortex-A78 and 6×2.0 GHz Cortex-A55) SoC with Mali-G57 MP2 GPU
- AI Performance Engine
- Android 15
- 50MP sensor (f/1.6), 2MP depth sensor, and Auxiliary lens
- 20MP Front Camera
- In-display fingerprint reader
- Smart AI features: Dynamic Image, AI Sport Snapshot, Video Anti-shake, AI Magic Photos, AI Real-time Translate, AI Conversation Translate, Dual-Mic AI Noise Cancellation
- IP68, IP69, IP69K certified
- HiFi 4 DSP with High-performance Audio Codec
- 5G SA/NSA, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 6 802.11 ac (2.4 + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.4 LE, GPS, GALILEO, GLONASS, USB Type-C 2.0
- Dimensions: 164.2 x 76.6 x 6.7 mm; Weight: 172 g
- 5000mAh battery with 33W fast charging.
Pricing and Availability
The nubia Air comes in Titanium Black, Streamer Black, and Titanium Desert colors and will be available across Europe starting this month, followed by a global rollout covering Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and other markets, with prices starting from USD 279 (Rs. 24,595 approx.).
Regarding the launch, Bai Keke, Vice President of ZTE, said,
We listened to young consumers worldwide and heard a clear message: they were tired of choosing between a stylish, slim, elegant smartphone and a massive battery. nubia Air is our answer. In every key area that matters to our users, from the imaging system to the display quality, the waterproof level, the durability and the slimness of the design, we have engineered nubia Air to be the new industry benchmark in its price segment. We believe it’s a perfect smartphone tailored for youth, which keeps up with their active, style-forward lives without compromise.