Red Magic 5G goes official w/ 144Hz display, Snapdragon 865, colorful designs

Ben Schoon | Mar 13 2020 - 9:08 am PT

High refresh-rate displays have been arriving en masse over the past several months and we’re expecting many more in 2020. Today, Nubia has announced its latest gaming smartphone, the Red Magic 5G, as one of the first smartphones with a 144Hz display.

The Red Magic 5G is just the latest in a line of gaming smartphones from Nubia that, frankly, are pretty great! With this 2020 model, we’re looking at updated specs, a refreshed design, and more, but the clear highlight is that display.

Front and center is a 6.65-inch FHD+ AMOLED display that supports a 144Hz refresh rate. That’s even faster than the 120Hz displays packed on the Galaxy S20 and Oppo Find X2 and refreshes 144 times per second, just like popular gaming monitors. That’s backed up by a 240Hz touch sampling rate, too. Those combined should provide a stellar gaming experience, but also a great general experience for just using the phone.

As implied by the name, too, the Red Magic 5G supports 5G connectivity thanks to its Snapdragon 865 chipset. That chip also delivers some upgrades for performance, too. Paired with it you’ll find either 8GB, 12GB, or 16GB of RAM and either 128GB or 256GB of UFS 3.0 storage. Together, all of those should make a speedy smartphone. It ought to last a while, too, with a 4,500 mAh battery under the hood that charges at up to 55W over USB-C.

In the camera department, the Red Magic 5G delivers a 64MP primary sensor, 8MP ultrawide, and 2MP macro shooter. The back of the phone also has a capacitive fingerprint sensor and, since it’s a gaming phone, RGB lighting effects. Also helping the gaming experience are some shoulder buttons which, while not physical buttons, feature a 300Hz sampling rate to minimize latency as much as possible.

Rounding things out there’s Android 10 with Red Magic OS on top, a headphone jack, Wi-Fi 6, and three colors. There’s a black model, but also the stunning “Mars Red” and “Cyber Neon” variants too.

Sales in China for the Red Magic 5G start next week with prices ranging from CNY3,799 ($540) to CNY4,999 ($712). There’s also a transparent model that costs just a bit more. There should be news on a global launch for this device in the coming weeks.