nubia Red Magic 7S Pro review

Redmagic 5.5 and Android 12

The handset runs on a Redmagic 5.5 OS based on Android 12, and as the marginal bump in the version number suggests, it's not a generational upgrade we are looking at here. It's a marginal update that has more under-the-hood changes. For instance, nubia claims about a 10% increase in RAM performance as well as 30% gain in read/write speeds, which translates to faster app installation. One of the most important new features, however, is the Redmagic Studio. It allows you to stream any game from the phone's screen to an external one or even play it on a PC. More on that later.

From a UI perspective, nothing has changed. It's still the heavily-customized ROM with the occasional weird translations. It's far from what you can call vanilla Android, so you will have to get used to the different icons, settings menus, quick toggles in the notification shade, etc.

Home screen, recent apps, notification shade, Settings menu

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 multitasking, 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 and themes

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 the preset themes have one in common - they are in line with the phone's gaming aesthetics.

Entertainment toolbox

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.

Fingerprint reader as a heart rate monitor

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.

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 (a pretty neat feature to read your texts while in-game). You can even tweak performance settings and even adjust the sensitivity of the display.

Sidebar and additional game and display settings, barrage messages

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.

Game space plugin library

As we mentioned previously, the new Redmagic Studio is perhaps the biggest addition to the gaming-oriented features. It's a lot like Asus ROG Phone's feature that allows you to stream the handset screen to an external source, even a PC with a keyboard and mouse. This ultimately gives you an unfair advantage when playing competitive mobile online games using a keyboard and mouse. So it would depend on who you ask, but we'd still consider it a pretty cool feature to have.

Redmagic studio on PC

Interestingly, the screencast works over Wi-Fi or USB cable connected directly to the PC. The whole pairing process with the desktop app is seamless and extremely easy. You can set up different mapping profiles for all the games you play, and the keyboard/mouse input is pretty solid.

Redmagic studio on PC

Of course, we took it for a spin. It requires you to install the so-called Redmagic Studio app on your Windows PC and connect the handset using a USB cable. The streaming feature works in all menus of the phone and apps, not just games. So it may come in handy for more than just gaming. The gestures and keyboard typing feel native.

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 chooses between the standard 60, 90 and 120 steps the display offers.

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%.

But by far, the best gaming feature would have to be the shoulder triggers. Even more responsive than before (at least on paper), they provide a really nice experience for racing and first-person shooter games. The software lets you map certain controls to the triggers and adjust the pressure sensitivity to avoid mistouches.