nubia Red Magic 7 review

Redmagic 5.0 on top of Android 12

The Redmagic 5.0 software isn't very different from the older Redmagic 4.0 iteration. The aesthetics are very familiar if you've used Red Magic's UI before. But coming from vanilla Android, you'll have to get used to the different quick toggles in the notification shade and the completely revamped iconography in the general Settings menu.

Unfortunately, the awkward translations haven't been fixed, or some of the new features haven't been translated properly, making the software experience feel "beta".

Home screen, notification shade, app drawer, settings menu

That was the bad, so now let's get to the good, starting with the Android 12-intrinsic features. The so-called Privacy Dashboard has been included in nubia's most recent software, but to our surprise, it didn't show up in the Settings' search. Anyway, the Privacy Dashboard works like Digital Wellbeing, but it's about permissions and information about how often apps are accessing your user data. One of the standout features is the ability to give an approximate location to some apps instead of your exact location.

Privacy dashboard and location access

For a more in-depth look at Android 12, we suggest reading our full Android 12 review.

We are happy to report that nubia has added a quick shortcut to App info in the context menu when holding down on an app on the Home screen. This option wasn't available before and was pretty annoying.

Redmagic UI allows you to shrink apps into small, interactive windows. Of course, not all apps support the feature and you have to open the notification shade and tap on the Free Window toggle while an app is in the foreground. You can't resize the app's window - you can only move it around the screen. It makes for easy multi-tasking, yet you always have to open the notification shade to enter that mode every time. And you can't put more than one app into a small window.

Free Window

ZTE's phones have always had special attention to their Always-on display functionality. The Red Magic 6 doesn't fall behind in this regard as well as it has tons of customizable clock styles and presets for you to choose from. You can even set looping, cool-looking GIFs and videos. Naturally, this would consume more power.

Always-on display settings

Speaking of customization, there are a couple of beautiful (or flashy, depending on your preference) themes that change the wallpaper, lock screen and icons. All of the preset themes have one in common - they are in line with the phone's gaming aesthetics.

Themes and wallpapers

Entertainment toolbox, which is essentially the same as Samsung's Edge Panel, is here to stay after being implemented with version 4.0 of the OS. Sliding your finger from the right edge of the display opens up the toolbox (sadly, it can't be moved and its place is fixed). You can assign quick tasks or open up certain apps but three of those tasks are non-removable - a screenshot tool, screen recorder and GIF creator.

Entertainment toolbox, heart rate measurement

The fingerprint reader works as well as ever. It's fast, reliable and accurate. The new addition this time around is the built-in heart rate functionality. You can measure your heart rate by pressing down on the fingerprint scanner. To our surprise, it's somewhat accurate. We put it against the Samsung Galaxy Watch4 Classic and the deviation was no more than 3 bpm. However, consecutive testing suggests that the heart rate measurements are largely inconsistent, especially if you are not in a resting position.

Game space and other gaming features

The new Game space has been vastly improved along with the in-game overlay. The latter can now display CPU and GPU frequency and you can now monitor your real-time FPS as well. The better integration with some messaging apps, including Discord, is much appreciated. There's quick access to the ones supported (WhatsApp, Facebook and Telegram are on the list) and opens up a small window, which you can move around, open in full-screen or resize.

The sidebar now seems more refined and you can scroll the quick toggles. They were quite limited last time we used Game Space.

In-game overlay and sidebar

Some additional Game Space features and settings can be found in the Game Space Center by tapping on the icon in the upper-right corner. A quick summary of how much and which games you've played recently is available, control network settings, customize barrage messages (pretty neat feature to read your texts while in-game).

Game Space

A new set of features that appear to be supported in almost all games can be found in the Power Base menu at the bottom of the Game Space's home screen. A wide selection of plugins. One of them adds a customized crosshair in shooters and even zooms in on the crosshair. A handy countdown for your enemy's cooldowns on certain spells and skills is also available. We can definitely see some of those features giving you some competitive advantage.

In-game plugins

An under-the-hood gaming-related feature is the so-called Smart game that intelligently controls the phone's temperature by ramping up the cooling fan when needed and also analyzes the game's capabilities to match an adequate refresh rate. It doesn't say that it's doing a proper variable refresh rate. It just chooses between the standard 60, 90, 120 and 165Hz steps that the display offers.

Under-the-hood optimizations

This feature is still called Touch Choreographer, going by nubia's press release, and it says it has been improved even further. The display's refresh rate is adjusted dynamically and in real-time, but we are still not convinced that it can make incremental steps by 1 or 10Hz. It probably just chooses the most appropriate refresh rate from the existing HRR steps. All in all, nubia claims that the new Touch Choreographer should improve frame stability by up to 50%.

Shoulder triggers

But by far, the best gaming feature would be the shoulder triggers. Even more responsive than before (the difference is rather negligible, though), they provide a really nice experience for racing and first-person shooter games. It's so much better to have some physical keys for certain controls during gaming. The software lets you map certain controls to the triggers and adjust the pressure sensitivity to avoid mistouches.