Nubia Redmagic 10 Pro Review: Value for Gamers

If it’s a game Your priority for a smartphone, the Nubia Redmagic 10 Pro is aimed squarely at you. This massive mobile gaming beast combines impressive performance with a large high-definition display and enough endurance to keep you gaming for days. It even has an internal fan to keep cool, programmable buttons and highly customizable gaming software. All this comes at a relatively affordable starting price of $649 (£579) for the 12GB RAM and 256GB storage model if you buy directly from Nubia.

There is always a catch aggressively priced phones. Assuming you don’t mind a bulky, angular design that isn’t very pocket-friendly, you can get away with slightly confusing software, inconsistent camera performance, or a lack of wireless charging. But keep in mind that hardware like the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset here is generally only available in more expensive phones.

The player is stylish

I tested the transparent RedMagic 10 Pro, which Nubia calls Moonlight, and it’s an industrial design with a thick metal bezel that gives you a glimpse of some of the internals and RGB lighting that come to life when you’re gaming. There are vents on both sides of the frame with a visible fan designed to keep the processor cool. This can be useful for longer gaming sessions, but it does make some noise and you can sometimes feel the hot air coming out.

Nubia has included customizable capacitive touch shoulder triggers on the top edges when you hold the Redmagic 10 Pro in landscape orientation, and a brightly textured red key that launches the game center app by default. The rectangular profile and circular power button remind me of Sony’s old Xperia design, but it’s a bigger phone and might be difficult to fish out of a jeans pocket. I’m talking about 6.5 inches long and 3 inches wide.

The Redmagic 10 Pro is smooth and super slippery, and has slipped off tables, chairs, and my feet several times over the past few weeks. Surprisingly, the Gorilla Glass finish has not been damaged so far, but I fear for its long-term survival. It’s probably best to use the clear case that comes in the box. Limited water resistance is expected with fan vents, and it won’t survive a submersion.

It’s worth noting that the entry-level Nubia Redmagic 10 Pro is only available in opaque black or white (Shadow or Lightspeed), and you’ll have to shell out more for the transparent models ($799), though you get up to 16 specs you do GB RAM and 512 GB storage. If you’re after a sci-fi gamer aesthetic, reach for the transparent model.

Make me super

It’s a big bummer, but the size of the Redmagic 10 Pro gives gamers two important advantages. First, there’s the unbroken, almost bezel-less 6.85-inch AMOLED display, which is simply beautiful. At 2,688 x 1,216 pixels, it has a slightly odd resolution. 144-Hz refresh rateand brightness peaks up to 2000 nits. Ideal for playing games, watching movies or browsing the web. At the bottom there is a fairly sensitive fingerprint sensor and at the top there is a front camera under the screen.

Another advantage of going big is the battery. The Redmagic 10 Pro has a large 7050 mAh battery that can last for days between charges, and even stretch to several days of heavy use. Now, you don’t get any wireless charging, but there’s a red USB-C cable and an 80-watt charger in the box, and you can top up the battery in about 40 minutes from empty.

Nubia has been a big success on the performance front as well. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite can power any of the latest models mobile games and is supported by fast RAM (LPDDR5X) and storage (UFS 4.1). I played the mix Diablo Immortal, Around the world in 80 daysand Asphalt 8 I ran it for several hours on the Redmagic 10 Pro and never broke a sweat, although the fan noise can be distracting when you’re working with this processor. Benchmark results were excellent across the board, and you’ll struggle to get this level anywhere else without spending much more.

Trade-offs and Cons

Perhaps the main compromise here is the camera. You can get decent shots with plenty of detail in good lighting with the main 50-megapixel shooter, though it’s prone to over-saturated, unnatural colors and can struggle with very bright areas. Its decent sensor size and aperture allow for low-light shots, and it has optical image stabilization, although I found that moving subjects often looked blurry. Unfortunately, the 50-megapixel ultra-wide screen doesn’t match up well (there are significant color differences) and produces softer, noisier shots.

The 2 megapixel macro lens is useless. The 16-megapixel selfie camera below the display is good for the odd selfie, but you need decent light or you can expect a lot of noise. While I’m not a fan of Nubia’s processing, there’s a Pro mode if you like running different effects and filters in the camera app, and the portrait mode sometimes blurs the edges of objects when trying to apply that bokeh. turbidity.

Nubia’s Red Magic OS is much improved compared to previous versions, but I would prefer Android 15. Nubia’s Android skin is loud and downright unpleasant. Everything is huge and you have to click to understand. There’s too much useless bloatware, so I’d recommend cleaning up and switching to the Google bundle where possible. Thankfully, it’s mostly possible, and you’ll also find Google Gemini on the plane.

One useful software feature that stands out is Nubia’s Gaming Space, where you can tweak and customize all sorts of settings to get the look and feel you want for the hardware, create configurations for different games, and access an impressive library of plug-ins. . Although the extra buttons are handy, I preferred to pair the Redmagic 10 Pro with a mobile game controller.

One of the biggest downsides to the Redmagic 10 Pro is Nubia’s disappointing update commitment: You’ll only get one Android version update, two Redmagic OS updates, and three years of security updates, which is far short of the norm.

If gaming isn’t your thing, you can find some more comprehensive options in our section The best Android phones guide. Nubia is the most obvious competitor for the Redmagic 10 Pro Asus ROG Phone 9and has superior software, a better display, wireless charging, and an IP68 rating, but starts at $1,000. Finally, for the price, the Nubia Redmagic 10 Pro is probably the best value display and performance combo gamers can get right now.