Forget dual cameras, this phone has dual screens

Bucking all of the hot smartphone trends, Chinese company Nubia has introduced a new flagship with just one camera and no notch. 

Instead, the Nubia X has two full-sized displays — one on the front, and a second on the back for setting up the perfect selfie. 

The Nubia X comes equipped with a primary 6.3-inch LCD display and a secondary, rear-facing 5.1-inch OLED. The second display eliminates the need for the front camera found on so many phones now — think Apple iPhone XS and Google Pixel 3 XL — and which is usually technically inferior and embedded in an unsightly notch. When you flip the Nubia X around, the second display activates and boom — there’s your dedicated viewfinder for selfies. 

This kind of thing has been done before. In 2014, the YotaPhone 2 came out of Russia equipped with a standard front LCD and a secondary E Ink display on the back. It was designed to let you read e-books for long periods without draining the battery. But the E Ink technology wan’t great, and the phone was too expensive to become anything more than a niche device. On paper, at least, the Nubia X appears to have more potential to help dual-screen devices hit the mainstream. 

In addition to the two displays — and an in-screen fingerprint scanner, like the one found on the OnePlus 6T unveiled earlier this week — the Nubia X has a respectable array of features. Here are the specs listed on Nubia’s Chinese-language website (translated by Google):

• Front display: 6.3-inch LCD, 2,280×1,080-pixel resolution
• Rear display: 5.1-inch OLED, 1,520×720-pixel resolution
• Nubia’s own UI, based on Android 8.1 Oreo
• In-screen fingerprint scanner
• Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 845
• Adreno 630 GPU
• 6GB or 8GB of RAM
• Up to 128GB of storage
• 3,800-mAh battery
• Dimensions (HWD): 6 x 2.9 x 0.33 inches
• Weighs 6.4 ounces (181 grams)

In 2015, Chinese company ZTE spun off Nubia into its own brand. Though some ZTE and Nubia phones have been released outside of China, there’s no word yet on pricing or availability for the Nubia X in the US, UK or Australia.