If you have been waiting for nubia’s big-screen gaming experiment to actually reach Pakistani shelves, the wait ended today. The ZTE-backed brand has put its Neo 5 Max PadPhone and Neo 5 Pro on sale across Pakistan from 2 November 2026 — just two days after the pair was formally unveiled at the brand’s 31 October launch event in the country.
The headline numbers are simple. The Neo 5 Max, built around a tablet-sized 7.5-inch display, starts at Rs 99,999, while the Neo 5 Pro — the smaller but OLED-equipped sibling with 12GB of physical RAM — is priced at Rs 119,999. Both phones are available through Jazz Experience Centers, PriceOye, Daraz, nubia’s own outlets and mobile markets nationwide, with the two models reported on sale today.
On sale today: prices and where to buy
Sales began on 2 November, two days after the launch event, and nubia is selling through an unusually wide retail net for a gaming-focused brand: Jazz Experience Centers, PriceOye, Daraz, its own outlets and regular mobile markets are all stocking the pair. The Max ships in an 8GB RAM with 256GB storage configuration, while the Pro comes with 12GB of physical RAM and 256GB of storage — the only variant headed to Pakistan for now. The Pro costs Rs 20,000 more than the Max, and these launch prices are the only official figures nubia has given so far. (WhatMobile noted that only the Max price was fully confirmed at the announcement, so treat the Pro’s figure as nubia’s launch pricing until retailers settle it.)
The two phones are very different animals despite the shared name — one goes for sheer screen size and battery, the other for display quality and memory.
Neo 5 Max: the 7.5-inch PadPhone
The Neo 5 Max is the phone that has been turning heads for weeks, ever since it appeared on nubia’s Pakistani website — as our coverage of the 31 October launch detailed. nubia officially calls it a “PadPhone”: a 7.5-inch display that sits halfway between a phone and a compact tablet, built for gamers who want console-like screen space in their pocket.
The panel is a 120Hz IPS LCD with 1.5K resolution, rated for up to 1,000 nits of brightness and SGS eye-care certification. Under it sits the MediaTek Dimensity 7100 — a 6nm chip with a 2.4GHz boost clock — paired with 8GB of LPDDR5X memory and 256GB of UFS 2.2 storage, tuned by nubia’s NeoTurbo engine. The headline hardware number, though, is the 7,100mAh battery, one of the largest ever fitted to a phone sold in Pakistan, with 45W wired charging and bypass charging that feeds the phone directly while plugged in, keeping heat out of long gaming sessions.
Cameras are secondary on a gaming phone, and nubia does not pretend otherwise: a 50MP main sensor with a 2MP depth sensor on the back and a 16MP front camera. The phone is also splashproof to IP64, which is welcome given where it will likely spend its life — in sweaty palms.
Neo 5 Pro: OLED screen, 12GB RAM and faster charging
The Neo 5 Pro takes a different route. It is built around a 6.8-inch Full HD+ AMOLED panel running at 120Hz with 1,300 nits of peak brightness — a sharper, punchier screen than the Max’s LCD, in a body that is far easier to hold. The chip is different too: a UNISOC T9100 with a 2.7GHz boost clock, which nubia pairs with 12GB of physical RAM — real memory, separate from the virtual RAM extension the phone also offers — and 256GB of storage.
The camera setup mirrors the Max (50MP plus 2MP depth on the back, 16MP up front), but the newer chip enables 4K video recording at 30fps, and the AMOLED panel allows an optical in-display fingerprint reader. The battery is smaller at 6,000mAh — the price of the slimmer frame — but nubia compensates with 80W charging, and the charger comes in the box. Stereo speakers tuned with DTS:X Ultra and IP64 splash resistance round out the package.
Built for gaming: triggers, cooling and bypass charging
Both phones carry nubia’s Neo Triggers 5.0 — pressure-sensitive shoulder triggers on the frame with a claimed 990Hz touch sampling rate and 4.7ms hardware response for aiming, firing and skill activation in four-finger play. Those are nubia’s own lab figures, so independent tests will be the real judge, but the intent is clear: these are phones that want to replace a handheld console, not just run games well.
Cooling is the other half of the gaming story. The Max gets a vapour-chamber cooling area nubia puts above 30,000mm², while the Pro carries 28,364mm² — serious thermal headroom for a midrange chip. Add the Demi 2.0 AI assistant, AI Game Space 5.0 and Dolby Atmos-certified stereo speakers on the Max, and the package is unmistakably aimed at Pakistan’s growing mobile-gaming crowd rather than the camera-first buyer.
Why the launch matters for Pakistan’s 5G market
The timing is telling. Pakistan is edging towards one million locally manufactured 5G smartphones, with Pakistan nearing one million locally made 5G smartphones per fresh PTA figures — and nubia, assembled locally through its own channels, is now fighting for the gaming end of that market at prices that undercut imported flagships by a wide margin.
At Rs 99,999 and Rs 119,999, the Neo 5 pair lands in the most hotly contested bracket in Pakistani retail: premium enough to promise flagship features, cheap enough to tempt buyers away from last year’s used flagships. Whether the PadPhone gamble pays off — or whether gamers simply prefer the Pro’s OLED — will be decided at the counters of Jazz Experience Centers and Daraz over the coming weeks. For now, both are on the shelf, and Pakistan’s mobile gamers have two new toys to argue about.
Sources: the Neo 5 pair was reported on sale today, while WhatMobile detailed the series’ specifications.
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