nubia Red Magic 7 review

Competition

The Red Magic series that come out early in the year have a competitive edge over its rivals, which are very limited as they are. There are still very few gaming-oriented smartphones, and nubia is the first company to introduce its contender in 2022. And this is on top of the already competitive price tag. The phone starts at €629 in Europe and goes up to €799 for the beefiest version, which we have, and the semi-transparent Supernova back. One could argue that this pricing makes the device a very lucrative Snapdragon 8 Gen 1-powered option in general. If you don't mind the flashy gaming aesthetics, of course.

As we already implied, the gaming smartphone segment isn't very saturated, so we will go through the gaming-oriented options only, even if they are from a year ago.

One of the natural competitors to the Red Magic family is the Asus ROG Phone series. However, they are always significantly more expensive. The current price of a ROG Phone 5s from the H2 2021 is somewhere around €1,000 or almost twice as the Red Magic 7. Sure, Asus' option offers vastly better HRR support in games, does a better job at taking photos and videos, offers more polished software, has longer battery life and a brighter, arguably better screen as well. You will be paying a price premium for an older phone with Snapdragon 888+, but that might not matter all that much since this year's Snapdragon flagship and last year's are both perfectly capable of running the latest games with ease. And still, does all of this justify the higher price? It's up to you to decide.

Asus ROG Phone 5s • Xiaomi Black Shark 4 • ZTE nubia Red Magic 7 Pro

A more direct competitor from last year would be the Xiaomi Black Shark 4S Pro. We haven't had the chance to review it yet, but it seems like a pretty solid competitor priced at around €600. It has a pair of mechanical, pop-up shoulder triggers for that old-school, handheld console feel (if our past Black Shark 4 experience is anything to go by) and has all the bells and whistles for a gaming flagship phone. Including a blazing-fast 120W fast charger. So where's the catch? Well, this phone is hard to come by. In fact, we struggled to find any units on sale on major markets.

And perhaps you are wondering whether you should wait for the Pro model to arrive as it's scheduled for a Q2 release this year for the global market. There's still no price attached to it, but quick napkin math based on the Chinese pricing points at a price tag of €730. So what are you getting for those extra €100? Potentially a brighter display with 10-bit color reproduction, a higher resolution selfie camera, sitting under the display and a bigger 5,000 mAh battery that charges faster using a 165W-rated brick. The display is clocked at 120Hz, although that might not be such a big disadvantage given that most games we tried didn't go beyond the 120 fps mark.

Verdict

The Red Magic 7 is a niche phone, there's no denying it. It also has its strong suits like excellent performance during sustained load, charges really fast, there are a handful of helpful gaming features, pressure-sensitive shoulder triggers, fast 165Hz display and pair of loud, good-sounding speakers. The semi-transparent Supernova back is by far one of the best designs we've seen. It has a rather authentic see-through hardware look in person.

Sadly, almost all of these pros come with some sort of caveat. The Supernova back is a tad expensive, the software gaming features are nice, but the software is poorly translated, and some of the features are supported by only a couple of games, the display doesn't have an automatic boost in brightness, and battery life is disappointing. And then you have the subpar camera performance across the board.

Still, the Red Magic 7 is the only truly powerful yet relatively affordable gaming option on the market. So if you are strictly looking into gaming handsets, the Red Magic 7 is indeed a "bang for the buck" in many ways.

Pros

• Large, unobstructed and fast 165Hz OLED panel.
• The Supernova version we got looks hot.
• nubia finally delivers a fast charging solution on the global market.
• Plenty of gaming-oriented features, including pressure-sensitive shoulder triggers.
• Great-sounding and loud stereo speakers.
• Impressive thermal management during high, sustained loads, the fan helps.
• Excellent price/performance ratio.

Cons

• No Auto brightness boost.
• Subpar camera performance across the board.
• Poor battery life.
• Not many games can go above 60 fps.
• No ingress protection, no microSD card.
• The software is still plagued by awkward translation.