Nubia’s Red Magic 3 Is A Mobile Monster

Damien McFerran 30/04/2019 – 8:37am

8K video recording and an internal fan

Gaming phones are suddenly a big deal again, but we're not talking about Xperia Play successors here – this new generation of portable gaming platforms look (pretty much) like any other phone, but the key difference is the power contained within and the focus on responsive displays and super-quick 'gaming modes'.

Chinese firm Nubia is joining the likes of Black Shark with its latest handset, the Red Magic 3. Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset, it runs Android 9 and comes with up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. There's also a roomy 5,000mAh battery with quick charging capabilities.

However, the big selling point here is the inclusion of an internal fan to keep the device cool when it's pushing those pixels. The fan is apparently waterproof (it comes with an IP55 rating) and can spin up to 14,000 rpm without making too much noise. It also packs a liquid cooling solution via a copper heat pipe, which – according to Nubia – means the phone's heat transfer performance is five times better than "conventional" cooling methods, and that means more game time.

Elsewhere, the Red Magic 3 boasts capacitive shoulder triggers and an RGB LED strip on the back. There's also a physical switch for turning on the Red Magic Game Space 2.0 dashboard, which holds all of your gaming-related settings. The Black Shark 2 we reviewed recently has a similar hardware switch, allowing quick access to the gaming side of the hardware.

The 6.65-inch FHD+ AMOLED display comes with HDR support and a 90Hz refresh rate, the latter being vital during intense games. The phone's stereo speakers have support for DTS:X surround sound, and amazingly a 3.5mm headphone jack has made the cut, so you won't have to deal with laggy wireless connections during gameplay.

And that's not all; the phone's pogo pins promise some modular fun, with a 5G add-on already confirmed, as well as that all-important LAN dock (we told you this was a serious gaming phone).

The Red Magic 3 launches in China on May 3rd, and will start from 2,899 yuan ($430) for the base 6GB RAM and 64GB storage model. US, Canada, UK and Europe will get the device later in the month, but we've no word on pricing yet.