Here we are again, with a gaming phone, this time a Nubia and possibly the most powerful handset on the market right now. It’s the Nubia Red Magic 5G and it’s the first 144 Hz screen smartphone I’ve ever played with. It’s also got 5G, the best Qualcomm CPU on the market, as well as nifty accessories, 3 of which we showcased below. The starting price for Europe is 579 euros, which converts to $655 in other territories. Let’s have a look at the device’s beautiful box in the unboxing below!
It’s beautifully stylized and has a silver color, plus a female robot’s head, looking into the distance, covered by the Nubia logo. Inside we find a call to action, “Hasta la victoria siempre!” (“To Victory Always!”. The accessories include an USB-C to USB-A cable, as well a an 18W charger (the Chinese version has a 55W one), plus manual, metal key and that’s it. The device is available in hues like Eclipse Black, Hotrod Red, Black, Mars Red and Cyber Neon, plus Transparent.
we have the Eclipse Black, 8 GB RAM, 128 GB storage version of the device, by the way. The phone itself is made of glass and metal (glass at the back, aluminum and glass front) and can be quite massive, heavy and slippery. The back side is arched and may slip from hand with ease, so a case is a good idea. It’s also beefy, at 9.8 mm in thickness and 218 grams in weight. It has LED lights at the back, shaped like the Nubia logo and also lighting up the “REDMAGIC” text when you fire up the Gaming Mode.
Said mode is activated by pulling the physical button on the left side of the phone. It triggers a sort of “console”, that includes special profiles for each game and a side toolbar with settings for the fan, screen refresh rate and resource management. Also on the left side of the phone we find a 7 pin connector, used to hook up accessories, as well as an intake for the fan inside. On the right we find the Power button, which is placed way too low to be comfy, as well as volume buttons, the exhaust vent and the shoulder trigger buttons, capacitive ones. More visible than on the ROG Phone II for sure.
At the bottom there’s an USB-C port, plus a speaker and a SIM card tray, while at the top we have an audio jack. The speaker system here is stereo, so the bottom one is completed by the earpiece. The screen is an AMOLED, a 6.65 inch one with a 2340 x 1080 pixel resolution and a 144 Hz refresh rate. Honestly, I can’t feel that big of a jump from 120 Hz, but a step up from 90 Hz can be felt. There’s also a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor inside, 8, 12 or 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, 128 or 256 GB of UFS 3.0 storage and no microSD.
We do get a 4500 mAh battery with fast charge, plus a fingerprint scanner within the screen, working pretty fast and accurately. The front camera doesn’t need a notch, pop up, or punch hole, it’s integrated within the thick top lip of the handset. It’s an 8 megapixel shooter, while the back hosts a triple camera, including a 64 MP main shooter, 8 MP ultrawide cam and 2 MP Macro cam. This setup shoots 8K 15 FPS video, 4K 60 FPs too and has a LED flash.
The OS is Android 10 with Red Magic 3.0 UI and some customization, with a cool minimalistic vibe. On the connectivity front there’s WiFi 6, 5G and Bluetooth 5.1, NFC and GPS, plus USB-C. We also showed you some accessories towards the end of the unboxing, like the Handle Protect, which protects the sides and back of the phone. It’s priced at 14.9 euros and lets you attach side controllers to rail-like mechanisms. Then there’s the Protection Case, more flexible, sporting all required cutouts and also protecting all of the device’s sides. It’s 14.9 euros too.
And then came the controller, the E-Sports Handle, at 31.90 euro. It has its own 340 mAh battery, hooks up via a small indentation hooked to the rail of the case. It has 4 shoulder buttons/triggers (2 top, 2 bottom), plus a D Pad of 4 buttons and a thumbstick. It’s very easy to connect via Bluetooth and works like a charm. You can hook another one to the right side to complete the Nintendo Switch-style experience with action buttons and more triggers.
We’ll be back with more info and a review, but till then you can get the phone from here and also accessories, too.
