Nubia RedMagic 8 Professional

Verdict

The RedMagic 8 Professional is a strong gaming telephone with top-notch gaming efficiency. You get stellar {hardware} bundled in a lovely and durable chassis. The battery life is nice, and the telephone is ready to maintain gaming efficiency over longer periods. The digicam efficiency is common, the software program has a number of bugs, and the software program replace promise is weak, however general, it is a good telephone for those who wish to recreation on the go.

Introduction

Gaming telephones have come to change into a mainstream smartphone class lately. Nubia sub-brand RedMagic has been alongside for the trip, making some fairly good gaming telephones. The RedMagic 8 Professional is the most recent within the lineup and packs in some spectacular {hardware}.

The RedMagic 8 Professional is accessible worldwide with on-line shops within the UK, US and EU shoppers, in addition to a world retailer that serves different international locations around the globe. It begins at $649/£579 for the 12GB/256GB Matte opaque again mannequin and $799/£709 for the 16GB/512GB mannequin, out there in Void black clear again and Titanium white/silver clear again finishes. I had the 16GB/512GB Titanium mannequin in for evaluate.

It competes with the section chief that’s the Asus ROG Telephone 7 Final, boasting top-of-the-line specs and gaming-centric software program. Whereas the RedMagic 8 Professional completely nails the {hardware}, and the software program seems good on paper, this telephone has a number of quirks which will hinder the general expertise for some.

Design and Display

• 120Hz AMOLED with 1,300 nits peak brightness
• Aluminium construct with Gorilla Glass 5
• No official water and dirt resistance ranking

On the design entrance, the RedMagic 8 Professional is a completely gorgeous telephone. The Titanium model I had was a sight to behold, and it does the clear again very nicely. The RGB lighting can be tastefully carried out and doesn’t overpower the remainder of the design. Throughout my testing utilizing this telephone as my each day driver, I had a number of of us ask me about which telephone I used to be utilizing. So in order for you an attention-catching gadget, this positively suits the invoice. 

The useful design, nevertheless, is a special story. The flat edges of the telephone are beautiful. Little doubt. Nonetheless, for a gaming telephone, they make little or no sense ergonomically. Whereas not tremendous uncomfortable whereas gaming, I discovered them worse than the curved edges I’ve used on different telephones.

There’s additionally a cooling fan that appears fairly cool and is definitely useful in decreasing temperatures whereas charging and gaming. Nonetheless, it provides a large ache level to the telephone. The fan comes with consumption and exhaust vents, and with no mesh over the vents, quite a lot of mud and different particles find yourself underneath the again glass panel of the telephone, turning into practically not possible to scrub. Not solely that, but it surely additionally finally ends up compromising the telephone’s sealing. Meaning no IP ranking (and even the unofficial confidence of getting a sealed telephone.)

The display on the RedMagic 8 Professional is great. You get a 6.8-inch 1116 x 2480 AMOLED display. It has a refresh charge of 120Hz and a 960Hz contact sampling charge. You get a peak brightness determine of 1,300 nits. The show is seamless, with very tiny bezels and an under-display entrance digicam, which suggests no punch-hole or notch.

The colors are nice, the display will get vivid sufficient for use outdoor, and the Gorilla Glass 5 safety is sweet to have. The display is simply FHD+ in decision, however that’s loads good for a gaming telephone, and the 400ppi pixel density won’t go away you wanting extra except you’re very choosy about your screens.

Digital camera

• Triple-camera setup
• Common digicam efficiency
• Below-display entrance digicam

The RedMagic 8 Professional has respectable cameras on board, however as with most gaming telephones, it’s clear that the cameras aren’t the main focus of this telephone. In truth, they’re fairly common. You get a 50MP important digicam, an 8MP ultrawide, and a 2MP macro lens on the rear. On the entrance, you get a 16MP under-display digicam.

The principle 50MP digicam produces respectable pictures, however the colors aren’t all the time correct, and the digicam isn’t nice at capturing movement. For those who seize a picture in a well-lit surroundings with uniform lighting, you get punchy colors. Nonetheless, throw in a mixture of blended lighting, and you may see the colors start to lose accuracy. The portrait mode is fairly good, although, and nailed the sting detection as a rule.

The ultrawide digicam isn’t all that nice, nevertheless. It does get the framing proper, however the 8MP decision isn’t adequate for 2023, particularly if you happen to incessantly take large pictures. It doesn’t have autofocus, both. The Macro mode is fairly strong, although, and takes some good closeup pictures, but it surely’s largely a gimmick used to bump up the digicam rely.

The selfie digicam is the most important compromise on this telephone, nevertheless. Because of the under-display digicam placement, you’ll get washed-out and barely blurry selfies, with processing compensating. I do know under-display cameras aren’t fairly there but, so RedMagic doesn’t take the blame right here. I believe it’s a strong trade-off to present a notch-free show, particularly for the reason that level of this telephone is immersion whereas gaming.

The low-light efficiency of the cameras can be common. The low-light pictures captured by the principle digicam can look fairly good generally, however different occasions they give the impression of being blown out and overprocessed. The ultrawide evening mode was not nice, and the decrease decision confirmed its shortcomings. Low-light selfies had been the worst results of all, with the dearth of sunshine resulting in inadequate processing to appropriate the under-display digicam output.

All-in-all, the digicam efficiency landed on common at finest. Nonetheless, for a gaming-focused telephone that has strong {hardware} in any other case, this one will get a go.

Efficiency and software program

• RedMagic OS 6 primarily based on Android 13
• Wonderful gaming efficiency
• Just one main software program replace promised

The {hardware} on the RedMagic 8 Professional is admittedly the place it stands out, particularly on the entry-level worth of £579/$649. Below the hood is a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, which is the very best smartphone chip you may get in an Android telephone proper now. You get storage choices of 128, 256, or 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage and LPDDR5X RAM choices of 12- or 16GB.

The RedMagic 8 Professional performs very well, too. The benchmark numbers are up there with telephones that value £100s extra, and it’s no shock, given the {hardware} on provide. The benchmark numbers are spectacular, although it does fall shy of the astonishing energy of the pricier ROG Telephone 7 Final.

The 3DMark Wild Life benchmark additionally mirrored the strong efficiency on provide. The 20-minute stress take a look at sustained efficiency returned a GPU stability determine of 92.4%. That’s a superb mark that this telephone can do lengthy gaming periods with out lacking a beat.

Each recreation I threw at this telephone — Fortnite, Genshin Impression, and lighter titles like Conflict of Clans, did very nicely. The sustained efficiency was additionally fairly strong, and I didn’t really feel the telephone decelerate or stutter even an hour into the gameplay. RedMagic has nailed the fundamentals of a gaming telephone — the gaming. Fortnite ran at Epic high quality at 60FPS, with just about no body drops. 

The cooling system, regardless of the one aforementioned design flaw, works wonders for the efficiency, letting the 8 Gen 2 obtain some nice ranges of efficiency. The triggers are nice, and the sport mode change, though not solely essential, is a pleasant addition. You’ll be able to set the sport mode to be opened through an icon within the launcher as an alternative of the change. Nonetheless, the dearth of an choice to remap the change to be a mute change is a large missed alternative.

The audio efficiency on this telephone can be stellar. The audio system are loud and crisp and create a pleasant immersion while you’re gaming. The earpiece sound high quality was additionally superb. A shock addition is the headphone jack, which is particularly nice for a gaming telephone like this one.

The software program is that this telephone’s Achilles’ heel. On one hand, this telephone clearly has well-tuned software program that may output constant gaming efficiency. Then again, if you happen to look previous the gaming facet, the software program falls brief. My points needed to do with how far RedMagic’s OS strays from what we name inventory Android.

Don’t get me improper — I’m no Android purist. Nonetheless, the apps RedMagic has bundled to interchange the inventory Android apps don’t work as nicely. The telephone app, for instance, would simply refuse to point out quite a lot of my contacts when searched and scrolled by way of. Nonetheless, if I dialled the quantity manually, the contact identify would pop up on the decision display. 

Apps as elementary because the telephone app actually shouldn’t have unhealthy bugs like these. Moreover, after I tried to interchange the Telephone app with Google’s Telephone app, it wouldn’t all the time work as nicely. RedMagic wants to enhance its personal apps and make it even simpler to make use of replacements if wanted. Moreover, the auto brightness on this telephone can be somewhat buggy at occasions, which is one other primary characteristic that shouldn’t have bugs.

There are a number of small points, like improper translations, spelling errors in UI, and uneven customization choices. If I’m not being nitpicky, nevertheless, I’d say it’s a survivable software program expertise. I simply want it was higher, and I hope RedMagic can repair these points with future updates. 

I’m largely keen to present the software program points a go due to how good the telephone is in any other case. Nonetheless, the dearth of a concrete software program replace promise is a bit disheartening. RedMagic has mentioned the telephone will get not less than one software program replace and general updates for one and a half to 2 years, which is an enchancment over older fashions that bought no actual long-term help, but it surely nonetheless isn’t nice.

Battery life

• All-day battery life
• 65W quick wired charging
• Fan cooling whereas charging

The RedMagic 8 Professional delivers on battery life as nicely. You get a large 6,000 mAh battery, which may simply final you all day. In my testing, I not often discovered myself reaching for the charger apart from the standard end-of-the-day routine. Typically that might be whereas the telephone nonetheless had about 15-20% cost left.

Throughout my testing, I used the RedMagic 8 Professional as my each day driver. My workload normally consists of quite a lot of texting and social media, together with quite a lot of Telegram, Twitter, and Instagram, net looking utilizing Google Chrome, e-mail utilizing Gmail, and a few telephone calls every so often. I threw in a good bit of gaming every so often since it is a gaming telephone first, and the telephone held up nicely. The battery benchmarks are pretty much as good as you’d anticipate.

The RedMagic 8 Professional additionally comes with a quick charger within the field. The 65W wired charging isn’t the quickest available on the market, but it surely’s a superb stability. It charged the telephone rapidly sufficient, with the fan kicking in mechanically to cut back the warmth. The battery life and charging on this telephone didn’t go away any room for complaints.

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