nubia Red Magic 7 review

Standard triple-camera combo with 64MP main camera

For yet another year, nubia hasn't changed a thing to its camera setup, so we can only hope for a better ISP coming with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 since the handset doesn't impress with its camera performance in the first place.

However, we did notice a small change in the main camera. The Red Magic 6 used a 64MP, 1/1.72", 0.8µm sensor paired with f/1.8 aperture, but this year, the sensor size is significantly smaller at 1/1.97" and the pixel size has decreased to 0.7µm. So here's another reason to hope for a better ISP.

For the ultrawide snaps, we have a common 8MP sensor with 1.12µm pixels and is 1/4.0" in size. The aperture is f/2.0. And the macro camera is 2MP with fixed focus.

The front uses the same sensor as the ultrawide camera but has a standard wide lens with f/2.0 aperture. A bit underwhelming given that all competitors use a bit bigger selfie cameras.

Camera menus

The camera menu is business as usual. Camera modes switch with a simple swipe left and right in a carousel formation. The additional settings menu is placed in the upper-right corner of the viewfinder, and the dedicated Pro mode offers quite a bit of settings to tinker with.

Default camera app

Two things we found interesting. When shooting macro, you get a small magnifier, which you can move around the viewfinder, but more importantly - it has focus peaking. It allows you to hit the right focusing distance instead of guessing. We found this feature to be particularly useful since there's no autofocus support. We wished more OEMs doing non-AF macro cameras to do this.

We only wish that the macro camera gets a toggle of its own. Interestingly, the Pro mode works not only with the main camera but also with the ultrawide and macro.

Daylight samples

Main camera

The main camera's processing is almost the same as last year's Red Magic 6 and 6s series. It's sort of satisfactory, but we were expecting more in a way. The new Red Magic also tends to go for a darker exposure, although the dynamic range is wide enough to resolve plenty of detail in the shadows. The higher contrast in all photos makes the color look a tad juicier than real life. Some may like the look, some may not, it's for you to decide.

16MP daylight samples

The good about the samples, however, is the sharpness and detail. They both seem pretty adequate, and we can no longer see the sharpening halos we noticed in the previous Red Magic phone. Noise is kept under wraps even in more challenging indoor conditions, but sharpness drops dramatically indoors.

16MP daylight samples

2x zoom

Тhe 2x zoom samples are nothing to write home about. There's a significant drop in sharpness compared to the standard photos, detail is often smeared away, and there's noticeable color fringing on bright-colored surfaces and around highlights.

2x zoom daylight samples

Ultrawide camera

The ultrawide camera offers unsatisfactory image quality, even for a phone that doesn't specialize in photography. The ultrawide shots have a narrow dynamic range, color fringing, lack detail, look soft, and are washed out. The darker exposure and higher contrast can be noticed here as well.

Ultrawide daylight samples

Macro camera

The macro camera lacks autofocus, which makes things a bit more challenging when shooting objects from up close, but nubia has come up with a neat way to tackle this with its camera software. There's a magnifying lens that zooms in on the subject and focus peaking that helps you choose the right focusing distance.

Macro samples

Now, when it comes to the actual photos - they seem on par with the course. Don't expect much detail from a 2MP snapper, but sharpness is good, and colors might come out a bit bland, but they are also pretty close to real-life. We would have appreciated even slightly exaggerated colors for macros even. Lighting conditions have to be optimal too, due to the small sensor size and rather narrow f/2.4 aperture.

Low-light samples

Main camera

We low-key expected at least a little improvement in the low-light scenario over the last generation, but all we see is a slightly darker exposure, which balances out the clipped highlights from before. Colors are punchier, although the general softness and the lack of fine detail plague the nighttime samples. At least there's not too much noise.

Low-light main camera samples

The Night mode makes a significant improvement in sharpness, detail, highlight management and overall dynamic range. The light sources look way better, and it appears that the software goes for a slightly warmer color temperature. The Night mode definitely looks better, so we suggest using it when the light drops.

Night mode main camera samples

2x zoom

Using the 2x zoom mode after dark isn't the best idea. Photos look soft, with limited dynamic range, noisy and pale. The Night mode doesn't help much with either.

Low-light 2x zoom: Normal • Night mode

Ultrawide camera

There's no Night mode for the ultrawide camera but we doubt it would be able to fix anything. The images are extremely soft, noisy and are underexposed.

Low-light ultrawide samples

Once you are done with the real-life examples, take a look at our Photo compare tool for some pixel-peeping and see how the nubia Red Magic 7 fares against the competition.

ZTE nubia Red Magic 7 vs. Red Magic 6 and the Asus ROG Phone 5 in our Photo compare tool

Portraits

While we liked last year's portraits, this year, the Red Magic 7 can't get a "satisfactory" score even. Even with good light, the subject appears soft, with pale skin, and the faux bokeh effect is rough around the edges.

Portrait samples

Selfies

The 8MP sensor is rather limiting, so as a result, images are rather soft and lack detail. The colors are a bit washed out, and there's hardly any fine detail to spot. As before, we noticed that most of our selfie samples turned out quite blurry. Speaking of blur, there's a dedicated Portrait selfie mode, but this one didn't work on our unit.

Selfies

Video recording

Just like every flagship phone in the last couple of years, the Red Magic 7 supports up to 8K video recording and even 4K HDR videos too. EIS is also supported on up to 2160p@30fps videos. Let's start with the 4320p video first.

This year's Red Magic 7 goes for a slightly warmer color temperature and adds a little bit more color to its videos. A step in the right direction from last year. In terms of sharpness, however, it looks all of the same, and in case you have an 8K TV to enjoy the content, the 4320p video mode might come in handy. We noticed some clipped highlights in the distance, but to be fair, the conditions were a bit tricky, so overall, the handset did a decent job of balancing the highlights and shadows.

There's a noticeable drop in sharpness when recording 4K videos, which is expected, but the overall rendition doesn't change.

Here's the 4K HDR video in case you have the proper TV to check it out. There['s little to no difference between the non-HDR and the HDR-enabled video.

We tested the video stabilization in 2160p@30fps and it looks good with no jello effect.

Here's a non-stabilized video with wider field of view for reference.

Once you are done with the real-life scenarios, take a look at our video compare tool to see how the nubia Red Magic 7 stacks against the other phones we've reviewed.

2160p: ZTE nubia Red Magic 7 vs. Red Magic 6 and the Asus ROG Phone 5 in our Video compare tool