Clarification: TechRadar has spoken to Bytedance, to clarify that the Smartisan Nut Pro 3 is not in fact a TikTok smartphone, but a handset created by its parent company (Bytedance). TechRadar has amended this article as a result.
You probably know TikTok as a social media app that only really young people understand, but and parent company is making plays at the smartphone market for that same audience, having just unveiled its first ever smartphone.
This smartphone is called the Smartisan Nut Pro 3 – yes, that's a pretty strange name for a debut smartphone, but there's a reason.
- Could TikTok have made the best camera phone?
- So what's the iPhone 11 actually like?
- What we want to see from Android 11
TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, acquired Chinese smartphone company Smartisan, with the aims of releasing smartphones. The Nut Pro 3 is the first, but likely not the last, as the phone's specs reveal it to be a premium-looking device that could be pretty popular.
What's so good about TikTok's new phone?
The Smartisan Nut Pro 3 has four rear cameras, one more than the iPhone 11 Pro Max, and it's certainly not priced that high.
These consist of a 48MP main camera, a 13MP ultra-wide snapper, an 8MP telephoto for zoomed-in shots, and a 5MP macro camera for super-close-up pictures. On the front there's a 20MP selfie camera, which is pretty high quality too.
These cameras are backed up by a suite of post-processing algorithms and tricks, according to Bytedance, including one that automatically fixes distortion in the ultra-wide camera – that should fix a common gripe with smartphone snappers.
Obviously we can't say for sure until we've tested it, but those are some high-end specs, so the new phone could be an incredible device for photography.
The phone has a 6.39-inch FHD+ AMOLED display, which is pretty high-end as smartphone screens go, and this has an in-screen fingerprint scanner which, again, is a premium feature.
Inside the handset there's a Snapdragon 855 Plus processor, the highest-end chipset in phones right now, and the phone comes with either 8GB or 12GB of RAM, so it's going to have heaps of processing power. These configurations also come with either 128GB or 256GB of storage.
Finally, there's a 4,000mAh battery – that's a decent size, big enough to keep all those other high-end features running. We don't know much about the software of the device, but if there's one thing that's almost certain, it's that it will have the TikTok app pre-installed.
In terms of price, the Nut Pro 3 is on Smartisan's Chinese website for 2,899CNH (roughly $410, £320, AU$600) for 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, and 3,199CNH (around $460, £350, AU$660) to bump that up to 256GB of storage, but there's no availability on 12GB of RAM yet.
Now, for the bad news – the phone won't come out in the west, according to Bytedance. Smartisan is a Chinese brand, and while TikTok is a global name, the company isn't bringing its phone outside China, at least for the time being.
Via Techeblog
