Nubia’s V90 Pro Leak Copies the iPhone 18 Pro’s Burgundy Look. The “Pro” Inside Is Another Story

The Nubia V90 Pro leak shows a roughly 7.7mm-thin phone in burgundy, light blue and dark gray, with a 108MP camera and up to 512GB of storage. You’ll see how it copies the $1,199 iPhone 18 Pro’s look, which of its three camera holes may be decoys, and what the “Pro” likely hides inside.

Share this post X LinkedIn Email Facebook Copy linkTL;DR

The Nubia V90 Pro just leaked in a deep burgundy finish that looks almost exactly like Apple’s new red iPhone 18 Pro, with a 108MP camera, a body around 7.7mm thin and up to 512GB of storage. Nubia is a phone brand owned by China’s ZTE, and its V-series sells iPhone-style design at budget prices in places like Latin America, which is why a $1,199 iPhone color showing up on a phone that could cost around a quarter as much matters. Here’s what leaked, what’s real and what’s for show, and who this phone is actually for.

The leak comes from well-known leaker Evan Blass, who shared official-looking promo images on X.

Nubia hasn’t announced the phone, so here’s what the images show, next to what we know about last year’s model:

The short version: the V90 Pro looks like a new paint job and a storage bump on the V80 Pro. The colors are the big change. The rest of the visible hardware barely moves.

Nubia isn’t hiding where it gets its ideas. The V80 Pro already copied the iPhone 17 Pro’s flat sides, metal edges, and big camera island in the top-left corner. The V90 Pro keeps that body and swaps in a fresh palette that lines up neatly with Apple’s latest:

The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199 in the US. The V80 Pro sold in Mexico for MXN 5,499 (~$298). If Nubia holds a similar price, the V90 Pro would cost about 25% of an iPhone 18 Pro. Put another way, one iPhone 18 Pro costs about the same as four of them.

Is that a problem? Legally, color isn’t something Apple owns, and phone makers have borrowed iPhone design cues for years. For buyers, it comes down to honesty. If you want a phone that looks expensive in a photo or on a café table, the V90 Pro does that job. Just don’t expect iPhone performance, cameras, or support behind the glass.

Nubia does keep a few touches of its own. There’s a red power button, its signature for years, a “Neo Vision” label on the camera island, and an extra button just below the SIM tray. Nubia hasn’t said what it does. On the V80 series, Nubia added a dedicated AI button that opens tools like scam alerts and live translation, so our guess is a similar shortcut, though that’s not confirmed.

Look closely at the camera island, and you’ll see three large openings plus an LED flash. On an iPhone 18 Pro, three openings mean three real cameras: main, ultrawide, and telephoto. On the Nubia, it’s very likely not the same.

The V80 Pro used the same layout with a 108MP main camera, a 2MP depth sensor, and a third “AI camera” that was largely decorative. Depth sensors help blur backgrounds in portrait shots, but phone makers increasingly do that with software alone. So in practice, the V80 Pro had one camera doing nearly all the work.

The V90 Pro’s renders don’t tell us what sits behind each hole. Our expectation is the same setup: one strong main camera and two lenses that are mostly about the look.

Here’s a simple way to check any phone before you buy: ignore the number of circles and look for the words “ultrawide” and “telephoto” on the spec sheet. If neither appears, you’re getting one real camera.

A 108MP main camera sounds huge, but here’s how it works on budget phones. The sensor merges groups of nine tiny pixels into one bigger “super pixel,” a trick called pixel binning, and saves a brighter 12MP photo by default.

That works well in daylight. You get sharp shots with plenty of detail, and you can crop into a photo, or use a “lossless” 2x or 3x zoom, without it turning to mush. In dim light, small budget sensors struggle, and noise creeps in fast.

So 108MP is a real upgrade over a basic 50MP camera for outdoor photos and zoomed crops. It’s not a substitute for the iPhone’s dedicated telephoto lens or bigger sensor.

Here’s the spec that surprised us most. The V90 Pro is tipped to offer 512GB of storage, double the V80 Pro’s 256GB.

That’s bold in 2026. Memory chip prices have climbed this year as factories shift production toward AI data centers, and most budget brands have responded by cutting storage and RAM, not adding more. Motorola, for example, is shipping its latest big-battery phone with just 4GB of RAM and 128GB.

There are two possibilities. Either Nubia locked in memory at a good price, or the 512GB model will cost noticeably more than last year’s phone. We’d bet on the second, with a cheaper 256GB version alongside it.

For you, 512GB means room for years of photos, offline Netflix downloads and big games. Whether the microSD slot survives is still unknown. If it doesn’t, the extra built-in storage makes up for it.

The leak skips the specs that matter most for everyday speed.

The V80 Pro ran on a Unisoc T7280, a budget chip with no 5G support. It handled messaging, social media, and video fine, but it’s not built for heavy gaming. If Nubia keeps a similar chip, the V90 Pro will again feel quick enough for basics and slow in demanding games.

Battery is the other question. The V80 Pro had 5,000mAh with 22.5W charging, plus bypass charging, which powers the phone directly from the charger while you play so the battery runs cooler. That’s now small by 2026 standards, when rivals pack 7,000mAh or more into budget phones. A body around 7.7mm thin doesn’t leave much room for a bigger cell, unless Nubia moves to a denser silicon-carbon battery.

Our wish list for the V90 Pro, in order: 5G, a bigger battery, and a clear promise of Android updates. Without at least the first, a “Pro” badge on a 4G phone in 2026 is hard to justify.

Nubia’s V-series isn’t sold in the US. It’s aimed at markets like Mexico and Latin America, where it’s sold through official stores and Amazon, and where a premium look at a mid-range price sells well.

It’s also a very different phone from Nubia’s flagship experiments. ZTE’s high-end Nubia NaviX Ultra can use your apps for you with an AI agent. The V90 Pro is the opposite: a design-first phone where looks and storage do the selling. ZTE’s broader strategy shows the same split, from cheap gadgets like its $90 portable 5G Wi-Fi hotspot to AI phones at the top.

Consider it if you want a phone that looks like an iPhone 18 Pro, need lots of storage, and mostly use messaging, social apps, and video.

Skip it if you play demanding games, need 5G, or want a camera that holds up at night.

From our side, the V90 Pro is a smart product, if not an original one. Nubia knows exactly who it’s selling to. Our only ask is that it puts as much effort into the chip and battery as it did into matching Apple’s color chart.

The headline is a variable aperture, a first for an iPhone, which lets you control how much of a scene stays in focus. The iPhone 18 Pro’s variable aperture and A20 Pro chip are the two biggest upgrades over last year.

Yes, and many beat it on battery and charging. Our pick of Android phones that make the iPhone 17 Pro look overpriced covers models with real telephoto cameras, not decorative ones.

It depends on your budget and how long you’ll keep it. Our ranking of every iPhone you can buy in 2026 sorts them from best buy to skip, including older models that still get updates.

Luxury editions add gold, leather, or rare materials to the same hardware.

Look for phones that list a large main sensor and a real ultrawide lens, not just high megapixels.

Vincee Cole is a technology journalist with four years of experience covering the full spectrum of modern tech — from consumer devices, artificial intelligence, to quantum computing, blockchain, and digital assets. His reporting cuts through complexity to deliver stories that are sharp, grounded, and relevant to both general readers and industry insiders. Previously, he worked with fintech research teams across Southeast Asia, analysing how emerging technologies are reshaping financial systems at scale.