ZTE nubia Red Magic Review

2018 has been a year of gaming smartphone arrivals as gaming phones are popping up at a steady pace. More competition is always good as it pushes companies to try harder to win market and now after Razer Phone and Xiaomi Black Shark, Chinese manufacturer ZTE has come up with its own gaming smartphone, ZTE nubia Red Magic. It is designed to be a phone that speaks out its gaming status with a cutting-edge gamer design. Price much lower than its competitors, ZTE seems to have planned this phone for those smartphone gaming users who want to get what Razer Phone provides at a much affordable price point. Question remains, as gaming phones have a small life cycle and they have somewhat struggled in mainstream market till now, will ZTE's own gaming device be able to conquer market and gamer's hearts? Let's find out.

ZTE nubia Red Magic is smartphone equivalent of dual personalities. Phone differs greatly in how it looks from front and back. At front, most of area is dominated by large display having slim bezels around edges and minimal bezels at top and bottom of display. There's an earpiece at top and a front facing selfie camera situated at top left of device which is pretty standard for most phones. Phone's frame and back is made of aluminum which blends seemingly with front glass panel.

Once you flip the phone, things go completely different. Back of phone steadily rises towards center, sloping upwards from edges into a prism shape. There's a single lens camera at top middle enclosed in a hexagon shaped module with an LED flash above it. There's a fingerprint scanner below in a pretty unique diamond like hexagon shape, first that I have ever seen in this form factor. According to company, ZTE nubia Red Magic Phone went through hundreds of design iterations, with special attention going towards making this phone ergonomically comfortable during long-play sessions.

The uniquely designed back panel is not the most eye-catching thing on this phone, however. One of phone's wow factors waits at top of raised ridge. Gamer culture is apparently obsessed with RGB lighting, and that is why you will find, an RGB strip extending along phone's back, running below fingerprint sensor and camera lens. This strip can output 16 million different colors, and comes with four different lighting modes so users can customize their phone's look. There's some nubia branding on bottom right of the phone and a Red Magic logo at bottom prism. One downside to this design is that phone does not stay still on a flat surface so using it while it's on a table, for example, would be a challenge.

At right side of phone is where you will find a power button and volume keys and a red compete button which is used to enter a special gaming mode. Left side is kept clean and on top of device, you will find beloved 3.5 mm headphone jack. At bottom, there's only a USB Type-C port as speakers on this phone at back on both sides of bottom prism.

Overall, it is one of the most uniquely designed smartphone that I have ever seen. It is a testament that smartphone designs are not stale yet and that companies can still push towards a unique design blend to satisfy customers.

ZTE's gaming phablet dishes out an 18:9 aspect ratio, with super minimal bezels, giving users the Full View experience while playing games. Phone has a 6-inch FHD+ LTPS IPS LCD panel with a resolution of 1080 x 2160p and pixel density of 402 ppi. There's also a Dinorex T2X-1 glass at front, offering scratch and shock resistant as well. Furthermore, FHD+ display brings game to life as it's sharp and brighter than ordinary LCD displays. Screen also stretches up to 78.5% screen to body ratio and has low temperature polysilicon.

Despite boasting of an LCD IPS panel instead of fan favorite AMOLED screens, ZTE nubia Red Magic manages to produce stunning visuals. Colors are highly accurate, and levels are perfectly balanced. There is a wide color gamut, and screen feels great to use while normal usage as well as while gaming. However, users might find one major issue with this display and that is brightness level. Yes, it is usable under sun, but I would have still preferred a slightly brighter panel. Nonetheless, display still works better than most LCD panels and makes ZTE nubia Red Magic more appealing.

A major disappointing factor about ZTE nubia Red Magic's display is that it's still a normal 60 hertz display, while competitor Razer Phone boasts a 120 Hertz display. This might not be an issue for some users but hardcore gamers care a lot about display and refresh rate as a better refresh rate means smooth gaming and less lag time, especially while playing online.

Overall, it's a decent display, with good detail and accurate colors. There are other phones available with better displays but with gaming smartphones, you get some and you lose some.

A gaming smartphone needs to have some solid specification and that is what ZTE nubia Red Magic comes packing with. Phone is powered by Snapdragon 835 processor and Adreno 540 GPU, coupled with either 6 GB of RAM and 64 GB onboard storage or 8 GB RAM with 128 GB of UFS 2.1 onboard storage. There's no MicroSD card slot available so if you'd want to have more storage, you'd be out of luck.

CPU is perhaps one area that ZTE nubia Red Magic Phone could let us down, it is packing last generation's Snapdragon 835. While Snapdragon 835 is still a powerful chip, we are living in a post-Snapdragon 845 world, and it is weird to see a phone that sells itself on high gaming capabilities not show up with latest hardware. With that said, ZTE nubia Red Magic says it prefers more stable nature of Snapdragon 835, and that it strikes a perfect balance between power consumption, raw power, and temperature. It also claims to have tailored Snapdragon 835's hardware to reduce power consumption by 40-percent. The 8-cores of processor here run at an impressive clock speed of 2.35GHz with 16nm process technology.

Running high-intensity games can make a phone hot, but there's no need to worry about overheating, as ZTE nubia Red Magic has equipped its phone with an air convection cooling system that takes heat away from phone using a series of heat-conductive materials, multiple layers of graphite, and cooling vents that funnel heat away from phone. Prism-shaped back also helps to take heat away from phone's components, a larger surface area giving a larger area for heat to escape, and that results in a phone that ZTE nubia Red Magic claims has a peak temperature of 10 degrees less than that of an Apple iPhone X.

During my gaming test, I realized that despite packing in a processor from last year, ZTE nubia Red Magic is no couch-potato. I threw a ton of apps and games at this device, and this device was able to handle them like magic. Let's not even get into normal day to day activities such as social networking apps and calls and stuff, since they are a mere cakewalk for this device. Moving on to more demanding applications such as fan favorite PUBG, phone was able to run this game easily at highest settings with no lags whatsoever. Then there were other titles such as Shadow Fight 3, PES 2018, Asphalt 8, but phone was able to handle them all with ease. Also, thanks to humongous 8GB RAM, I had complete freedom to switch back and forth between these games without having to clear my memory.

Considering call quality, there was hardly anything to complain about with ZTE nubia Red Magic. Calls sounded clear on both sides as phone brings very good noise cancellation. Additionally, speakers on this thing are pretty loud as well and are good for loudspeaker calls as well as decent media consumption. I've had a weird experience with most Chinese devices out there, experience call drops from out of nowhere. Thankfully, I experienced no such issues with ZTE nubia Red Magic. For connectivity, ZTE nubia Red Magic sports a dual SIM tray, which supports 2 nano-SIM cards.

As for benchmarks, Snapdragon 835 is old but still a flagship processor. ZTE nubia Red Magic scored a massive 2,16,280 on AnTuTu Benchmark and attained a multi-core score of 6,638 on GeekBench. While ZTE nubia Red Magic does not have liquid cooling technology of Xiaomi Black Shark, it does come with company's own GameBoost technology, which apart from just boosting overall game performance, also helps in keeping overall temperatures down.

Phone also features DTS-HD 32-bit/384kHz audio for better audio experience while gaming, USB Type-C for faster data transfer and charging. For speakers, there are two at back which sound pretty loud, but definitely aren't the best ones available in market. In summary, ZTE has packed a hardware package which hits the sweet spot for mobile gamers yet isn't too expensive that'll raise phone's cost in market.

ZTE nubia Red Magic comes with a large 3800 mAh battery which is capable of delivering 7 hours of Arena of Valor according to ZTE. In my testing, I was able to push through an entire day of heavy usage, which involved playing a lot of PUBG, checking my emails, adding loads of stories on Instagram, watching videos on YouTube, and listening to some music on SoundCloud.

Furthermore, ZTE nubia Red Magic comes with a USB Type-C port with support for fast charging. In my experience, it took me a little above an hour to completely charge device, which is pretty great. There's no wireless charging available on this phone but with Game Boost option, you can optimize this device to deliver you stellar performance without consuming a lot of battery. Even with heat conduction, battery stays fairly cool as compared to Xiaomi Black Shark and this has been possible due to ZTE's superior air cooling technology which appears to work better than liquid cooling on Xiaomi's device.

Battery wise, this is arguably the best gaming smartphone which is available in market right now.

ZTE nubia Red Magic comes equipped with a single 24 MP rear camera setup with an f/1.7 aperture. Thanks to its high aperture, phone promises great low-light performance. However, in my testing of device, camera quality is decent at best, and nothing to boast about.

Camera on ZTE nubia Red Magic manages to capture and reproduce color-accurate images in proper daylight. There is a sufficient amount of detail to them and barely any noise or graininess. Photos are not saturated as many of cameras out there tend to create, so you might want to add a filter before posting these snaps to your social media. There is no portrait mode on this device, which was sort of expected, and I'm not really complaining. On the other hand, Camera App comes with plenty of useful modes to capture images and videos, such as Multi-Exposure, Light Drawing, Time Lapse, and many more. However, do keep in mind that overall quality of image or video does take a minor toll in these modes. There's also a Pro mode for people who like to tune settings manually, which is going to give better results depending on different scenarios.

In low-light, camera did struggle, despite having an f/1.7 aperture. There is just bare minimum amount of light existing and most of the images are quite soft. I don't quite understand the deal with most Chinese phones out there, and their love for soft images and ZTE nubia Red Magic is just one of those.

As for front camera, ZTE nubia Red Magic comes with an 8 MP shooter with an f/2.0 aperture that manages to disappoint even more. Even in decent lighting, results produced are super soft, and noise is quite evident. Also, there is no portrait mode available on front camera, which could be a disappointment to some.

You can shoot videos up to 4K at 30 fps and videos are pretty much like photos too. To be fair, gaming smartphones are all about performance and gaming tech, not for photography enthusiast. Still, ZTE nubia Red Magic performs better in camera department than its competitor Xiaomi Black Shark and that for this phone at a lower price point is a win.

ZTE nubia Red Magic ships with Android 8.1 Oreo with ZTE's own Red Magic OS on top. Frankly speaking, I just don't like this custom Android skin that nubia has put together. Notification menu is very badly designed, and settings menu is a hassle to go through. Whole UI screams of iOS doppelganger but ends up resulting in a poor experience. UI does come with its own themes as well, though I reckon you will find anything to suit your interests.

Also, RGB strip on the back can be enabled only once you toggle Compete button on right side of the device. Now, while playing a game, it is great, since it boosts your game and also enables the RGB strip. Sadly though, you cannot have that strip on while operating device otherwise, since you will be constantly notified of "Compete button is on" every 10 seconds and it's super annoying.

Other most important software feature includes Performance boost which clears out memory and enables you to play games at overclocked speeds. This is a great feature to have, especially on a gaming smartphone. Other than that, you can change your icons via theme selection. Overall, it's nothing new or refreshing, just the same old Chinese UI mimicking iOS.

ZTE nubia Red Magic is available in market now for $399. Phone is available in 2 colors: Red and Black, and comes with two storage options (6GB/64GB or 8GB/128GB). At $399, ZTE nubia Red Magic appears to be a bang for buck device. Despite featuring an older flagship processor, device is a beast in terms of performance. Camera performance is decent, but then again, it is a gaming smartphone, and that is something that the device can handle easily. Xiaomi Black Shark, which is the device's direct competitor, comes at $448 and offers a better processor and liquid cooling as well. However, if you're living outside of China, buying that device can be quite a hassle.

It is a gaming smartphone, which comes in a great shell that is ergonomically designed for the best user experience. It feels super premium, and the design is just great. Performance? It is even better as Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 paired with 6/8GB of RAM makes this device feel super snappy and can handle pretty much anything you throw at it. Furthermore, ZTE's gaming smartphone does have its own unique features. It comes with industry-first RGB strip on back with support for 16 million colors and four different lighting effects. You get an all-new air convection cooling system which keeps this phone cooler than Xiaomi Black Shark and with a dedicated game button, you get pumped up gaming performance.

It, however, does not come without its drawback. Phone still uses a Snapdragon 835 instead of Snapdragon 845 processor even in 2018. This could be a major hit when new gaming titles come that require a better processor. Camera is still mediocre and UI can get very frustrating as Xiaomi Black Shark definitely has a better UI than ZTE nubia Red Magic.

In the end, I would say that Xiaomi Black Shark offers better specs overall, with a newer processor and higher benchmark scores. However, for its price, ZTE nubia Red Magic delivers the best performance for buck and you won't find a better gaming phone at this price. Install a custom launcher, and you will be all set to go with ZTE's new gaming smartphone.