MAY 2020 • TECH ADVISOR 55taking away the night mode and telephoto options
to focus on stuff you’re likely to want for a selfie.
One consistent annoyance is that this includes a
beautification mode that is on by default and won’t
rememberanyotherdefault– in shortthatmeans
thatif you don’t want an AI beauty mode, you’ll have to
remember to turn it off for every single selfie.
Thesecondscreenoffersanotheradvantagebeyond
soupedupselfies.It alsoletsyouturnonbothscreens
simultaneouslywhileusingthecamera–pointless most
of the time, but handy for portrait shots where you want
the subject to see the shot before you take it.
Asforvideo,themainlenscanshootin 4Katup
to60fps. It can even shoot 8K video, but since it’s
limited to 15fps and you probably don’t own an 8K
display to run it on, there’s not really much point.
HDR10 support is a more useful addition, as is OIS
- though the stabilization is fairly basic, and may
disappoint compared to some rival phones.
Software: Double trouble
Unfortunately it’s not all rosy, and while Nubia has
mostly done a good job of incorporating the second
display into the phone, there are still software quirks
that irritate. The Z20 ships with Android 9.0, but
doesn’t feature the gesture controls that Google began
including in that Android version. That means you’re
stuckwiththeregularnavigationbaratthebottom
ofthescreenthewholetime,negatingsomeof the
benefit of the full-screen display.
Translation issues abound in Nubia’s custom parts
of the OS – mostly devoted to the second screen