Update (3/4/20 @ 10:00 AM ET): The Red Magic 5G will be available with a transparent back to show off the cooling fan.
Several companies have gone ahead with their announcements that were supposed to take place at Mobile World Congress this week. Nubia isn't one of them, as they originally planned to announce the Red Magic 5G this week but have postponed the launch until a future, unspecified date. Just yesterday we caught our first glimpse at the design of the device from its TENAA listing. Now, thanks to GameBench publishing its performance tests, we're getting our first live look at the device today.
We already knew a number of things about the Red Magic 5G. Nubia themselves announced the device would have a 144Hz display, up to 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM (likely from Samsung), support for 80W wired fast charging, and, of course, 5G (sub-6GHz) connectivity. Nubia also confirmed the device would be powered by the Snapdragon 865 SoC. GameBench confirms a number of these specifications in their blog post.
Key Specs:
- Android Version: 10
- Red Magic OS Version: 3.0
- Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 (865+X55M) with Adreno 650 GPU
- RAM: 12GB
- Storage: 256GB
- Cooling: Active
- Battery: 5,000mAh
The design of the Red Magic 5G is very much that of a gaming phone. The back of the device features an aggressive "X" pattern with a red lit-up Red Magic logo across the middle. The frame is metallic blue and we can see one red button. We can also see the vents for active cooling and what appear to be connector pins for an accessory. GameBench says they were able to get over 5 hours of playtime on a charge while playing Real Racing 3 at 144fps. This is thanks to the big 5,000 mAh battery.
GameBench performed their testing with a pre-release version of the Red Magic 5G. This is the first handset they've benchmarked that delivers a stable frame rate of 144fps. They were able to record a median frame rate of 144fps with Real Racing 3, earning it their badge of Ultra-144. GameBench also tested PUBG Mobile and Arena of Valor (though they were the Chinese versions of both games).
PUBG Mobile and Arena of Valor don't yet support 144fps, but they still performed very well on the Red Magic 5G. In PUBG Mobile, the team recorded a median frame rate of 90fps while in Arena of Valor, they recorded a median frame rate of 60fps. In the case of Arena of Valor, it was a perfect 60fps. Check out the chart below to see how all three games fared.
Source: GameBench
Update: Transparent Edition
Nubia CEO, Ni Fei, has posted a short video of the Red Magic 5G with a fully transparent back. This is not a fake decal of the internals as you can actually see the cooling fan spinning, which is pretty neat. The Red Magic 5G is said to have a new and improved active cooling fan that can go up to 15,000 RPM. Nubia has also redesigned the air ducts and radiators with more ventilation and heat exchange capacity. It's likely this "Transparent Edition" will cost a little more than the standard colors. We will know more when the device is unveiled on March 12th.