The Nova X1 Ultra arrived at a strange moment for flagship phones: everyone’s chasing bigger camera sensors and faster chips, but battery life and everyday reliability are what actually decide whether a phone earns its price tag. After six weeks of daily use, including a transatlantic flight and two weekends spent shooting almost everything on the camera instead of reaching for a separate camera, the Nova X1 Ultra is one of the few flagships this year that gets both right.
Design and build quality
The X1 Ultra keeps the flat-sided design language from last year’s model but trims the weight by 9 grams, which sounds trivial until you’ve held both side by side. The matte glass back resists fingerprints noticeably better than the glossy finish on the previous generation, and the titanium frame feels stiffer in hand without adding bulk.
IP68 water resistance and Gorilla Glass Armor on the front are both present, and after a fall onto a tiled bathroom floor in week three (accidental, not a durability test), the screen came away without a scratch.
Display
The 6.7-inch LTPO OLED panel runs from 1Hz up to 120Hz depending on content, and the adaptive refresh rate does a genuinely good job of balancing smoothness against battery drain. Peak brightness rated at 2,600 nits made a real difference reading the screen in direct sunlight on a hiking trip, one of the more common complaints about last year’s model.
Performance
Day-to-day performance is where the X1 Ultra separates itself from mid-range competitors that look similar on a spec sheet. App switching, camera launch time, and multitasking between a dozen open apps all stayed smooth for the full six weeks, with no noticeable slowdown as storage filled up — a problem that affected some flagships from two years ago.
Sustained performance under load (30 minutes of a demanding mobile game) does show thermal throttling after about 12 minutes, dropping frame rate by roughly 15%. It’s not dramatic, but competitive gaming phones in this price range handle heat slightly better.
Camera
The triple camera system — a 50MP main sensor, 48MP ultrawide, and 5x periscope telephoto — is the most noticeable upgrade over last year. Low-light photos hold onto more detail without the smeared, over-processed look that plagued the previous model, and the periscope zoom is usable up to about 15x before quality drops off sharply.
Video stabilization is excellent for walking shots, though it can look slightly too smooth ("floaty") for handheld action footage — a minor nitpick rather than a flaw.
Battery life
This is the category where the X1 Ultra earns its score. A full day of mixed use — camera, GPS navigation, an hour of video streaming, and background app refresh — left 20–30% remaining at bedtime. On the transatlantic flight, six hours of offline video playback with the screen at 50% brightness cost just 34% of the battery.
Charging is rated at 67W wired, which took the review unit from 10% to 80% in 28 minutes using the included cable (charger sold separately, in line with the rest of the industry now).
Pros and cons
- Pros: All-day battery life even under heavy use, excellent low-light camera performance, bright and smooth display, fast charging
- Cons: Thermal throttling under sustained gaming load, charger not included, price increase over last year’s launch price
Verdict
The Nova X1 Ultra doesn’t reinvent what a flagship phone should do, but it executes the fundamentals — battery life, camera quality, display brightness — better than most phones in its class this year. If sustained gaming performance is a priority, it’s worth looking at alternatives with more aggressive cooling; for everyone else, this is an easy recommendation.
Frequently asked questions
Does the Nova X1 Ultra come with a charger in the box?
No. Like most current flagship phones, the charging brick is sold separately; only the USB-C cable is included.
Is the Nova X1 Ultra worth it over the Nova X1 Lite?
If camera quality and top-tier performance under sustained load matter most, yes. If you mainly want strong day-to-day performance at a lower price, the Lite covers most of the same ground — see our full comparison for the breakdown.