Nearly one year after its tech-related patent rights were acquired by TikTok's owner ByteDance, Chinese smartphone maker Smartisan finally released its new flagship device, the Smartisan Nut Pro 3.
(Photo: Smartisan)
The Nut Pro 3 is positioned as a budget-friendly flagship device with unique features and software optimizations added to cater to a niche and enthusiastic crowd.
It has also been a year since Smartisan released its last phone.
Design
The phone’s design looks similar to Apple’s old iPhone 5s, while still maintaining the company’s own take on design aesthetics.
The front panel is like its previous models with a 6.39-inch AMOLED display with a U-shaped notch.
Smartisan chose to stay away from using punch holes or a pop-up selfie cameras to house a larger and fuller display in order to maintain its preferred design philosophy.
It is encased in a solid glass cover with a rectangular camera module on the top left hand corner to house its quadruple camera lenses.
(Photo: Smartisan)
high-end specs
The inside of the phone has some of the most high-end specs for premium handsets including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ SoC, up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, a 4,000 mAh battery and a quadruple camera setup.
It runs the Smartisan OS 7.0, which comes with the much hyped features such as its signature Big Bang, One Step, Idea Pills, Smartisan TNT and many more.
Big Bang offers built-in OCR (optical character recognition) which converts images of typed or handwritten text into digital text.
One Step takes advantage of a brand new take on split-screen usage, giving users a more comprehensive interface to use and switch between apps.
(Photo: Smartisan)
As mentioned above, the phone has a quadruple camera setup featuring Sony’s 48MP primary sensor, IMX586.
The large sensor is paired with a 13MP ultra-wide angle camera with a 123° field of view, an 8MP telephoto camera and a 5MP 2cm macro lens.
(Photo: Smartisan)
Pricing
The 8GB RAM + 128GB entry model Smartisan Nut Pro 3 is priced at 2699 yuan ($380) while the 8GB RAM + 256GB version is 3199 yuan ($410) and the 12GB RAM + 256GB version is 3399 yuan ($480).
ByteDance acquired a set of patents from Smartisan in January.
Some Smartisan employees also transferred to ByteDance, as part of what the latter company called a “normal flow of talent.”
In July this year, ByteDance said it was developing a smartphone. “The product was a continuation of earlier Smartisan plans, aiming to satisfy the needs of the old Smartisan user base,” a spokeswoman said in a statement.
As cnTechPost mentioned previously, Smartisan is a niche player in China’s smartphone sector and is best known for its flamboyant founder Luo Yonghao.
ByteDance has risen to become a leading player in tech, rivaling the likes of Baidu and Tencent in influence.
Douyin, the company’s app for streaming short videos, has more than 300 million monthly users in China, ByteDance marketing manager Zhi Ying said in June.
TikTok, Douyin's global-facing counterpart, has also grown popular in North America.
More on Gadgets
