ZTE’s Nubia 5S mini LTE is an affordable phone with some great specifications

nubia 5s mini LTE front back angle

Some smartphone manufacturers know how to make midrange devices that are actually worth your money, and the new Nubia 5S mini LTE from ZTE is one of them. It looks good and it’s affordable at $279 off-contract, and yet it’s surprisingly impressive under the hood.

Not too long ago, midrange smartphones came with some pretty significant compromises. They had small screens with low resolutions, slow processors, and terrible cameras. But as the cost of smartphone components falls, manufacturers are able to produce decent devices that still cost very little.

The Nubia 5S mini LTE has a 4.7-inch HD (720p) display, a quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor, and a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera. LTE connectivity is also onboard (it’ll be compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile in the U.S.), there’s a 5-megapixel camera on the front, and 16GB of expandable storage.

That’s a set of specifications for a device that costs just $279 off-contract — half the price of devices like the Galaxy S5 — and it’s packed inside a handset that actually looks pretty nice. If you’d like to get yours hands on the Nubia 5S mini yourself, it will be available to pre-order from Amazon later today before shipping on August 27.