Nubia RedMagic 8 Professional

Verdict

The RedMagic 8 Professional is a stable gaming cellphone with top-notch gaming efficiency. You get stellar {hardware} bundled in a gorgeous and durable chassis. The battery life is nice, and the cellphone is ready to maintain gaming efficiency over longer classes. The digital camera efficiency is common, the software program has a couple of bugs, and the software program replace promise is weak, however general, this can be a good cellphone for those who wish to sport on the go.

Introduction

Gaming telephones have come to turn out to be a mainstream smartphone class lately. Nubia sub-brand RedMagic has been alongside for the journey, 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 on the market worldwide with on-line shops within the UK, US and EU customers, in addition to a world retailer that serves different nations 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 assessment.

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 appears good on paper, this cellphone has a couple of quirks that 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 mud resistance ranking

On the design entrance, the RedMagic 8 Professional is a fully gorgeous cellphone. The Titanium model I had was a sight to behold, and it does the clear again very properly. The RGB lighting can be tastefully accomplished and doesn’t overpower the remainder of the design. Throughout my testing utilizing this cellphone as my day by day driver, I had a number of people ask me about which cellphone I used to be utilizing. So if you’d like an attention-catching gadget, this positively matches the invoice. 

The useful design, nevertheless, is a unique story. The flat edges of the cellphone are beautiful. Little question. Nonetheless, for a gaming cellphone, 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 an enormous ache level to the cellphone. The fan comes with consumption and exhaust vents, and with no mesh over the vents, a number of mud and different particles find yourself beneath the again glass panel of the cellphone, changing into almost inconceivable to wash. Not solely that, but it surely additionally finally ends up compromising the cellphone’s sealing. Meaning no IP ranking (and even the unofficial confidence of getting a sealed cellphone.)

The display on the RedMagic 8 Professional is superb. 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 digital camera, which implies 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 barely FHD+ in decision, however that’s a lot good for a gaming cellphone, and the 400ppi pixel density is not going to go away you wanting extra except you’re very choosy about your screens.

Digital camera

• Triple-camera setup
• Common digital camera efficiency
• Beneath-display entrance digital camera

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

The principle 50MP digital camera produces first rate photographs, however the colors aren’t at all times correct, and the digital camera isn’t nice at capturing movement. Should you seize a picture in a well-lit setting 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 digital camera isn’t all that nice, nevertheless. It does get the framing proper, however the 8MP decision isn’t ok for 2023, particularly in the event you ceaselessly take huge photographs. It doesn’t have autofocus, both. The Macro mode is fairly stable, although, and takes some good closeup photographs, but it surely’s largely a gimmick used to bump up the digital camera rely.

The selfie digital camera is the largest compromise on this cellphone, nevertheless. Because of the under-display digital camera placement, you’re going to 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 feel it’s a stable trade-off to present a notch-free show, particularly for the reason that level of this cellphone is immersion whereas gaming.

The low-light efficiency of the cameras can be common. The low-light photographs captured by the principle digital camera can look fairly good typically, however different instances 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 right the under-display digital camera output.

All-in-all, the digital camera efficiency landed on common at greatest. Nonetheless, for a gaming-focused cellphone that has stable {hardware} in any other case, this one will get a move.

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 actually the place it stands out, particularly on the entry-level worth of £579/$649. Beneath the hood is a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, which is the perfect smartphone chip you may get in an Android cellphone 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 price £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 stable efficiency on provide. The 20-minute stress check sustained efficiency returned a GPU stability determine of 92.4%. That’s mark that this cellphone can do lengthy gaming classes with out lacking a beat.

Each sport I threw at this cellphone — Fortnite, Genshin Affect, and lighter titles like Conflict of Clans, did very properly. The sustained efficiency was additionally fairly stable, and I didn’t really feel the cellphone decelerate or stutter even an hour into the gameplay. RedMagic has nailed the fundamentals of a gaming cellphone — 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 completely mandatory, is a pleasant addition. You possibly can set the sport mode to be opened by way of an icon within the launcher as a substitute 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 cellphone can be stellar. The audio system are loud and crisp and create a pleasant immersion once you’re gaming. The earpiece sound high quality was additionally excellent. A shock addition is the headphone jack, which is particularly nice for a gaming cellphone like this one.

The software program is that this cellphone’s Achilles’ heel. On one hand, this cellphone clearly has well-tuned software program that may output constant gaming efficiency. However, in the event you 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 flawed — I’m no Android purist. Nonetheless, the apps RedMagic has bundled to exchange the inventory Android apps don’t work as properly. The cellphone app, for instance, would simply refuse to indicate a number of my contacts when searched and scrolled via. Nonetheless, if I dialled the quantity manually, the contact identify would pop up on the decision display. 

Apps as basic because the cellphone app actually shouldn’t have dangerous bugs like these. Moreover, once I tried to exchange the Telephone app with Google’s Telephone app, it wouldn’t at all times work as properly. 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 cellphone can be relatively buggy at instances, 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 prepared to present the software program points a move due to how good the cellphone is in any other case. Nonetheless, the dearth of a concrete software program replace promise is a bit disheartening. RedMagic has mentioned the cellphone will get at the very least one software program replace and general updates for one and a half to 2 years, which is an enchancment over older fashions that acquired 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 properly. You get an enormous 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 same old end-of-the-day routine. Typically that might be whereas the cellphone nonetheless had about 15-20% cost left.

Throughout my testing, I used the RedMagic 8 Professional as my day by day driver. My workload often consists of a number of texting and social media, together with a number of Telegram, Twitter, and Instagram, internet searching utilizing Google Chrome, e-mail utilizing Gmail, and a few cellphone calls now and again. I threw in a good bit of gaming now and again since this can be a gaming cellphone first, and the cellphone held up properly. The battery benchmarks are pretty much as good as you’d count on.

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 steadiness. It charged the cellphone shortly sufficient, with the fan kicking in robotically to cut back the warmth. The battery life and charging on this cellphone didn’t go away any room for complaints.

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