Nubia RedMagic 8 Pro Review: A Worthy Gaming Phone

Video games are now not just for fun and relaxation, some games are competitive and have their own tournaments and competitions. To improve your gaming experience or achieve your in-game goals easier try a gaming phone. One of them is Nubia RedMagic 8 pro, gaming phone with active cooler.

Playing games, is one of the activities that many people often do, whether it's to fill their spare time or just to relieve stress and fatigue. Games are made to test the player’s skill, stimulate their cognitive and provide them with enjoyable experiences or just for entertainment. Games can be physical like card and board games, or digital like video games. Video games are interactive digital games which can be played solo (single player) or multiplayer. It offers various genre such as action, adventure, sports, role-playing, simulation, strategy, with various gameplay objectives such as solving puzzles, defeating enemies, racing, and many more.

Now playing video games is not only using consoles or PCs, but also available on smartphones. Some games on the smartphone are competitive, even some of them have their own e-sport tournaments or competitions, where skilled players face off against one another, either solo or team. To support such needs, then comes the gaming phone. Gaming phone is a smartphone which specifically designed for playing video games. It usually has flagship SoC (System on Chip), large amount of RAM, powerful graphics processing capabilities, and various gimmick to support gaming activities.

There are various gaming lines from well-known brands on the market, one of them is Nubia's RedMagic. This subsidiary of ZTE corporation, released their new gaming phone at the end of 2022, more precisely on December 26th which was named RedMagic 8 Pro. This gaming phone is priced at a relatively affordable price compared to its competitors, priced at $649 for Matte Variants (black finish with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage) and $799 for Void Variants (transparent finish with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage). The sales package of both variants is the same, you'll find the phone itself, 65W GaN power adapter, a red USB-C to USB-C cable, a SIM ejector pin, and a small box containing the case.

In terms of design, the changes in RedMagic 8 Pro from the previous version are quite significant. Now the design is simpler and more boxy-like, but still stylish and has various lines, text, and lights as the typical gaming phone. A boxy design like this, will makes various gaming accessories compatible and easy to attach, such as coolers and gamepads. This gaming phone has a weight of 228g and dimensions 164.5 x 77 x 9.47 mm. Thing that you will notice quickly, there is no front camera hole, because it has an under-display camera. One aspect that has been retained from the previous generation is the presence of the active cooler, a fan with adjustable RGB lights. This is a unique feature that no other gaming phone has. In terms of build quality, this gaming phone consists of a glass front and back panel with aluminum frame.

Speaking of gaming phones, specifications are definitely the main point. Both variants of RedMagic 8 Pro equipped with the fastest SoC of Qualcomm so far, which is snapdragon 8 gen 2, LPDDR5X of RAM, UFS 4.0 storage (no microSD card slot), and 6000 mAh dual-cell battery with 65W GaN fast-charging. This gaming phone has a 120Hz AMOLED display, with an FHD+ resolution, 10bit colors, 1440Hz PMW dimming, and a 1300nits peak brightness which is jointly created by RedMagic and BOE. The display offers excellent color, great sunlight visibility, and slim bezels and under-display camera which will increase the comfort of gaming.

Another aspect of supporting gaming is vibration and audio. Haptic feedback on this phone was always firm, but not too hard, felt immersive and enjoyable. The phone still has a 3.5mm headphone jack and is equipped with dual (stereo) speakers that also works with DTS:X. The speakers sound great, and offer excellent performance. On software side, it has excellent software, offer a pretty light and less bloatware, fluid and stock-like android (RedMagic OS v6.0, based on Android 13), but limited customizability compared to other gaming phone and needs some improvements. The software also offer a good battery management, battery life can last for a full day even if used to play games.

Gaming phones are of course rich in features that make them worthy to be called gaming phones. Some of the gaming features on this cellphone are:

• Game space. Its function to adjust various settings, such as game controls, refresh rate, and fan speed of your game. It also has its own switch to turn on/off game space, sadly you can’t re-map the button.
• Trigger button. 2 additional buttons that are very useful and can be set or re-map its function via game space. Very suitable for fps games. Unfortunately, there is only a touch sensor, no swipe sensors or pressure level like its competitor, Asus.
• Game overlay. Now the game overlay display CPU and GPU frequency in a better alignment, and easier to access almost all the plug-ins in it, such as hunt mode, scout mode, 4D Vibrate for FPS Games.
• Better active cooler. The RGB fans, or they called it the active cooling will never make the phone heated up to an uncomfortable level. It has a very low power consumption, even though it can spin at 20,000 RPM, and does not significantly strain the battery.
• Display output support. With a new app called REDMAGIC Studio, user can connect their phones to monitors and TVs wirelessly, or via USB-C. Its also supports key mapping with PC’s keyboard and mouse (feels like cheating for fps games).

The camera, an aspect that is not really important for a gaming phone, is also taken care of here, which is quite an upgrade from the previous version. RedMagic 8 pro come with triple camera setup: Main: 50-megapixel, f/1.88(Samsung GN5), Wide (13mm): 8MP, f/2.2, Macro: 2MP, f2.4 and 16MP 2nd gen under-display-camera. The Main camera work great both day and night, portraits also good, but the ultrawide often lack detail, focus, and sharpness. Selfie camera also not so great, but still usable.

Short thought, Nubia RedMagic 8 Pro is an excellent phone. It's worth the price for the performance value. Stylish design but still maintain the gaming element. Rich of gaming features which will improve your gaming experience, although there is no resistance to water and dust. Good battery and camera for daily use. This phone will suit people that play competitive games on phone, need a smooth and high-performance phone, want a better gaming experience on a phone, need a phone with big battery, and didn’t take a lot of photos.

image source : https://global.redmagic.gg/