Nubia Red Magic 5G

amazon Nubia Red Magic 5G reviews

Design

Briefly talking about the Nubia Red Magic 5G’s box, besides receiving the main object of the phone, the case is also equipped with a USB-C cable for charging and data transmission, a 55W charging cup for the Chinese market, and an 18W charger for the rest of the markets. Nubia says the 55W charger can be purchased separately in markets other than China.

While the smartphone market tends to favor the design of glass back or imitation glass, the Red Magic 5G is no exception with a glass back and a glossy aluminum body. It is unclear what generation the front is protected by the toughened glass Gorilla Glass.

The Black version reviewed in this article offers a perfect blend of the minimalist, elegant look and the aggressiveness of a typical Gaming Phone. The back is equipped with an eye-catching RGB light strip, with the words “Red magic” along with the logo at the bottom.

The rear glass is curved from the middle to the sides seamlessly, providing a firm grip when in use, especially when playing games. The camera module is designed to protrude slightly but only slightly, almost lying flat with the rear glass, very delicate. This module houses a 64MP main camera, a 2MP macro lens, while the ultra-wide lens is located separately at the bottom.

The frame is perfectly designed with curved edges, creating a seamless transition between the back and the front, with no gaps or protrusions. Besides, the anodized aluminum material in the chassis also feels smooth but not enough to grip firmly in hand.

On the left side is a 7-pin connector for attaching gaming accessories, a fan grille, and a physical switch for Game Mode. The volume rocker and power button are located on the right. Unfortunately, the finger position is not very convenient when the thumb is located right on the volume rocker instead of the power key. Fortunately, you don’t have to press the power key too much because there is already an in-display fingerprint sensor.

The bottom of the Red Magic 5G is slightly concave and houses the SIM tray, USB-C port, and speaker. The top edge still retains the 3.5mm jack. On the front, the screen has no defects, although the top and bottom bezels are a bit thick; for a reason, this is where the selfie camera and sensors are located. More importantly, the bezels are not too thin to ensure an easier grip when playing games.

Overall, this is a smartphone with a perfect design, except for the power button position and uneven weight distribution, a bit heavy at the top.

Screen

The front design has no “rabbit ears,” no “water drops,” nor “mole” to help users grip more comfortably and safely when playing games in landscape mode, and at the same time, no need to worry about silence when accidentally touching the screen.

Red Magic 5G owns a 6.65-inch AMOLED screen, FHD + resolution (1,080 x 2,340), and 19.5: 9 aspect ratio, along with a super-fast 144Hz refresh rate. That is considered the smartphone with the highest screen refresh rate currently on the market, even the latest flagships of Samsung and OPPO are limited to 120Hz.

However, it is suggested that mobile games on Android do not support such high refresh rate screens, which is true for most titles. However, there is no denying the growing trend of high-refresh-rate content on smartphones, the future phone. Besides, the 144Hz screen also brings a much smoother feeling of scrolling and manipulating applications.

The screen’s maximum brightness reaches 483 nits; in Max Auto mode, it even reaches 685 nits, enough to provide a comfortable experience in hot sunny conditions. In addition, the colors on the screen are quite accurate and eye-catching. The average DE2000 in normal mode defaults to 5.4, while the natural mode offers a slightly more accurate 4.6. You can also enable Colorful Mode for colors that pop.

Battery life

Nubia Red Magic 5G has a relatively large battery with a capacity of 4,500mAh. However, it’s a step back from the previous generation Red Magic 3 and 3S with a 5,000mAh battery capacity.

When using the phone with the default refresh rate of 144Hz, the on-screen time is not high, but switching to a 60Hz refresh rate will significantly increase battery life.

Besides, you can turn on the 90Hz refresh rate to save more battery for the screen while still providing a relatively smooth experience. In terms of charging time, if you buy the Red Magic 5G outside of China with an 18W charger, the results will be quite disappointing, taking 30 minutes to charge from 0 to 33%.

Sound quality

Nubia Red Magic 5G has a stereo speaker setup similar to other gaming smartphones. The phone also proved to be one of the smartphones with the loudest speakers in the speaker test, second only to the ROG Phone II.

According to the author’s subjective assessment, ROG Phone II provides better bass, but the sound quality of Red Magic 5G is enough to satisfy fastidious users.

Operating system and interface

Previous versions of Red magic UI often had problems translating from Chinese to other languages, and this time was no exception. For example, there is no battery settings menu; you cannot even set the battery percentage in the upper right corner of the screen. However, Nubia said this is not the final version, and the company is about to release a new update to fix the bug.

The software on the device looks pretty much like stock Android without a lot of tweaked UI elements. However, a few color customizations in the settings menu make it easier to use. Besides, Red Magic 5G offers some interesting software features and gaming-related features that we will cover in a later section.

The first is the highly customizable Always On Display with clock styles and graphics. You can even set a short clip or GIF to display on the screen. Furthermore, you can also set the refresh rate to 60, 90, or 144Hz. 90Hz is the ideal level, balancing between battery life and smooth experience.

The unit also gives you the driver for the RGB LED lighting on the back. You can choose between different styles, colors, gradients and also have the option to turn it on/off when receiving messages, incoming calls, and when playing games.

In addition to improving gaming performance, the cooling fan can also cool the phone while charging, allowing for better thermal management and shorting of thermal throttling. Still, it’s only useful with the device 55W charger. In addition, the device also has a settings menu to adjust the fan speed.

You are given two options – automatically adjusting the fan speed and maximum speed for faster and more efficient cooling. The sound coming from the fan is not too loud. Red magic UI gives you a choice between standard Android 10 navigation gestures and using the virtual keys on the screen in terms of navigation gestures.

There is a menu called “anchor AI,” the phone will monitor the CPU and GPU temperature and automatically adjust the cooling fan speed. Also, depending on the application, the software will adjust the screen refresh rate. If it is a still image or video, it will switch to 60Hz, and if it is a game, it will default to 144Hz.

Besides, AI will also learn from user behavior to detect frequently used applications, using system resources and launching them faster. The new Neo AI also monitors apps you’re not using and freezes them to save power.

Red Magic 5G is equipped with an in-screen fingerprint sensor, but it is considered insensitive when it has to be unlocked many times to be recognized by the device. The reader is also located slightly low on the screen, so it isn’t easy to use. There is a plus point: when you put it in the wrong position, the screen will light up to indicate the correct position you need to put your hand.

Game Space Mode 2.1

Game Space 2.1 version provides users with more options when playing games. You will be provided with a list of games along with a quick switch to turn on/off the rear LED lights and the cooling fan. Pulling the menu from the right opens a drawer with a few quick settings like toggling fan, enabling 144Hz screen mode, call barring, and quick screenshot.

The Game Enhancements button allows you to increase CPU and GPU performance to improve the gaming experience. However, when using this mode, the battery will be consumed more, the machine will be hotter, and the fan must rotate faster to ensure that the heat generated is not too great.

Additional settings include:

• Taking screenshots.
• Recording the screen.
• Controlling the fan.
• Customizing the LEDs.
• Summarizing what you played during the day/week.

Performance and benchmarks

Configuration and benchmarks

Red Magic 5G uses Snapdragon 865 chipset paired with a Snapdragon X55 modem for 5G connectivity. Snapdragon 865 is manufactured based on 7nm + EUV process, comes with an octa-core CPU consisting of one large Kryo 585 core clocked at 2.84GHz, three similar cores running at 2.42GHz, and 4 Kryo 585 cores clocked at 2.42GHz clocked at 1.8 GHz. The Adreno 650 GPU is used for graphics-intensive tasks.

In addition, Nubia Red Magic also has many memory options with RAM up to 16GB LPDDR5, about 1.5 times faster than LPDDR4X memory, storage memory up to 256GB UFS 3.0. The device benchmarks are running in Game Space mode without the cooling fan.

I used the CPU management app on Google Play to see how the CPU performed when handling heavy and persistent tasks. The first run was performed without the cooling fan, while the second included the cooling fan at full speed. Both tests lasted for an hour.

Even without a cooling fan, the heatsink design makes the device easy to handle tasks. No thermal throttling occurs. The software records an average of 228,610 GIPS, temperatures on all cores ranging from about 61 to about 81 degrees Celsius, the main core being the hottest.

In the case of the fan at full speed, the average efficiency is 258.144GIPS, about a 13% increase in performance over the same period. The temperature was about the same, ranging from 60 to 84 degrees Celsius. The maximum temperature recorded was only 1 degree Celsius lower than when the cooling fan was not turned on (91 versus 92 degrees Celsius). It can be seen that the software did not use the help of the fan to reduce the temperature but instead maximized the performance.

Realistic gaming performance

About the gaming experience, Red Magic did a great job. However, it’s hard to find titles that support frame rates above 60, let alone 144Hz. One of the games selected for testing is Real Racing 3 (which supports 144Hz screens). The phone can maintain 144FPS, and the FPS stability is above 90%. The game runs very smoothly; it can be seen that Red Magic 5G has created a new standard in the mobile gaming village.

Next on the list is Sky Force Reloaded – an Arcade game that supports 120Hz screens. The results are even better, with an average FPS of 120 and up to 98% FPS stability.

With the Call of Duty Mobile game, Red Magic 5G also runs very well, with FPS stability reaching 100% at 60FPS.

PUBG Mobile was tested in 2 cases at 40FPS and 60FPS; the device completely conquered both challenges without any lag.

Other games like Mortal Kombat, Gear Club, Modern Combat 5, Shadow of Death, Hungry Dragon, Need For Speed No Limit, and Shadowgun Legends were similar.

Regarding the temperature when playing, the Red Magic 5G warms up slightly when playing heavy games continuously, which is understandable. Still, thanks to the cooling fan system, you can completely maintain the temperature not too high and not cause any harm much influence during gameplay.

where can you get a Nubia Red Magic 5G online

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Camera

Not only focusing on configuration for gaming, but Red Magic 5G also has a much-upgraded camera system compared to its predecessor. Set up three cameras on the back, including a 64MP main camera, f/1.8 aperture, 1/1.72-inch sensor size, 0.8µm pixel size, 8MP wide-angle lens, f/2.3, and macro lens, f/ 2.5. Meanwhile, the selfie camera has an 8MP resolution with an f/2.0 aperture.

There are many camera modes and effects in the camera app, including macro mode and toggles for 3x, 5x, and 10x zoom. There’s also a Pro mode, which lets you adjust shutter speed, white balance, ISO, manual focus, and exposure.

Daytime photo

Red Magic 5G is slightly upgraded compared to its predecessor in photography quality. Daylight photos are still noisy in certain areas, not too sharp overall but still quite soft. In most cases, the resulting image has fairly vibrant colors, a good amount of detail, and a wide dynamic range.

With scene detection AI technology, colors are adjusted more eye-catching.

The camera app offers quick switching for 3x, 5x, and 10x zoom. Unfortunately, even the 3x zoom image looks lacking in detail and unnatural.

The zoom image is noticeably improved in color when AI is turned on, but the detail does not change.

Coming to the 8MP ultra-wide lens, the image is quite sharp thanks to the software and looks a bit better than most 8MP ultra-wide cameras on the market.

Low light conditions

The disadvantages of the main camera are even more obvious when shooting in low light conditions; the photos are generally quite soft, but with noise and not enough details. However, colors look quite natural; neon light is well reproduced, dynamic range is good even without using night mode.

In Night Mode, the image is more detailed, brighter, and the colors are more eye-catching.

The ultra-wide camera does not have a night mode, so the photos produced are heavily grainy, with little detail.

Macro Shooting

The main problem with macro cameras is the lack of autofocus; the slightest movement like a leaf or an insect can cause blur. To improve this, Nubia has added a magnifying glass and a red outline on the subject to help you focus more. You can move the magnifying glass around the viewfinder.

So, if you’re patient enough, you can still create beautiful, detailed macro photos, albeit with a bit of noise at times.

Take a portrait

Portrait shots look good with plenty of detail, sharpness, natural-looking skin tones, and, well, decent dynamic range. However, edge detection is not appreciated, the subject looks a bit rough against the background, and the software creates too much tolerance between the background and the subject.

Selfie

The front 8MP camera delivers surprisingly sharp and detailed selfies. The subject’s skin color is captured faithfully.

Video

Like most of today’s Snapdragon 865-equipped flagships, the Nubia Red Magic 5G is also capable of 8K video recording. While competitors can do 8K footage at 24fps, the Red Magic 5G can go up to 30fps.

At 4K resolution, 4K video quality is decent with accurate colors; dynamic range is decent but nothing special.

1080p video is also not much different; the color treatment is identical to 4K but less detail.

8K footage looked sharper than 4K and was surprisingly smooth with a good level of detail, but there was a bit of burnout.

The Red Magic 5G also offers EIS electronic image stabilization for 4K videos and looks relatively stable. Even when going fast, the footage is still free of jerks and shakes.

Ending

One of the biggest advantages of the Red Magic 5G over its competitors is its 144Hz display. So far, no other phone on the market can achieve this refresh rate. That helps genuine gamers prioritize choosing this phone over other 120Hz flagship models. Unfortunately, there’s still not much content supporting this refresh rate.

In addition, the design of this smartphone is quite eye-catching, and the software also has many interesting customizations to support better gaming. Powerful hardware, stable performance, good heat dissipation will make Red Magic 5G the first choice for gamers.