The Nio phone that appeared in a benchmarking database is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC with 12 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage.

A popular smartphone performance benchmarking platform has exposed the core specs of Nio's (NYSE: NIO) first phone model, after the handset recently completed its last major regulatory process.

The Nio handset completed China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) Internet entry license last week, meaning a release should be close, local benchmarking company Antutu said today on Weibo.

Based on the model number information, Antutu was able to find the configuration and score information of Nio's first phone in its backend database, according to the Weibo post.

Although Nio is a newcomer to the smartphone market, it has opted for a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC (system on chip) with 12 GB of built-in RAM along with 1 TB of storage, according to Antutu.

Based on the configuration aspect of the phone models appearing in this database, Nio's first phone is a good deal for customers, reaching the top flagship level, Antutu said.

The Nio phone has a total score of 1,360,974, with a CPU score of 355,091, a GPU score of 434,891, a MEM score of 304,072, and a UX score of 266,920, according to Antutu.

As a comparison, the Red Magic 8S Pro, which is also powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC, ranked first in Antutu's tests early last month with a total score of 1,633,002, a CPU score of 41,0631 and a GPU score of 635,866.

In a comparison with Antutu's monthly report, the Nio phone's performance is about the same as that of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 model, and there's still a noticeable gap between it and the common Snapdragon 8 Gen 2-powered models, Antutu said.

However, the bench test that was conducted may have been an early engineering unit, which may have dragged down the performance, Antutu noted.

(Antutu July Android phone performance ranking.)

Moreover, the performance of the Nio phone may not be the focus of expectations, Antutu said, adding that being a phone built by a car company, how deeply it integrates with cars should be the focus. The Nio phone in the test came with Android 13.

At the end of March 2022, William Li, Nio's founder, chairman and CEO, confirmed that the company would be getting into phone making, saying that one of the key things that drove the company's decision was the fact that the experience of car owners increasingly relies on a seamless connection between the phone and the vehicle directly.

Nio is looking at phones and car-centric smart devices for user benefit and experience, he said at the time.

Nio's first phone model will be released in the third quarter and deliveries will begin, Li said on April 1 during a forum on China's electric vehicle industry.

Nio's device received a license to access the Internet on July 10, which is valid until July 10, 2025, according to its filing on the MIIT website.

The smartphone's model number is N2301 and it is powered by Android with 5G support as well as dual-SIM, according to the information.

Nio phone completes last major regulatory process in China