The nubia brand just announced its gaming smartphone Red Magic 8 Pro. It is actually two different phones – Red Magic 8 Pro with a 6,000 mAh battery and 80W fast charging, and Red Magic 8 Pro+ with a smaller 5,000 mAh battery but 165W faster charging.
The Plus version also comes with more RAM and storage options, but nubia kept the overall set of features and design the same – both the Pro and the Pro+ share the same chipset, cameras, footprint, and software.
The two nubia Red Magic 8 Pro devices come with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset. It is coupled by a Red Magic R2 chip for better gaming effects, such as improved sound details, colors, touch sensitivity, and haptic vibration feedback.
The screen is a 6.8†AMOLED with Full HD+ resolution, 120 Hz refresh rate and up to 960 Hz touch sampling rate. Just like the predecessor Red Magic 7 Pro, the 16 MP selfie camera is underneath the display, so there is no punch-hole design of any sort.
Speaking of cameras, there are three on the back. The primary shooter has a 50 MP Samsung ISOCELL GN5 sensor that is 1/1.57†in size and has 1.0μm pixels. There are also an 8 MP ultra-wide-angle cam and a 2 MP macro sensor, but the shooting experience is not that important for a gaming handset.
What is more crucial is gaming performance, and we can’t have a mighty phone without proper cooling. The nubia Red Magic 8 Pro versions have ICE 11.0 set of cooling features, including multiple layers of graphite sheets, and a 3D vapor chamber with 2,068 cu.mm. volume.
The fan on the side now runs at 20,000 rpm, and now a graphite sheet is protecting the whole screen – a big improvement in the world of gaming smartphones.
Nubia also improved the phone’s design for better connectivity with nine separate antennas around the body. There is a 3.5 mm audio jack on the top and a USB-C port for charging on the bottom.
Two shoulder keys on the top (actually on the right side) bring support for 520 Hz touch sampling, and there is once again a hard trigger for the gaming mode.
The nubia Red Magic 8 Pro and its 6,000 mAh battery has an 8C design (eight different cells for heat management). It comes with an 80W charger in the retail box which should provide 0 to 100% in 35 minutes. It is also the biggest battery ever in a Red Magic smartphone.
Then we have the Red Magic 8 Pro+. In order to provide 165W fast charging, the fastest in a Red Magic smartphone, nubia shrank the battery to 5,000 mAh to make room for the appropriate hardware that takes care of power distribution, safety management, and overall protection.
The 165W charger is a GaN adapter with USB-C, and we highly doubt this variant will escape China as it needs to go through rigorous safety checks in order to be certified around the world.
ZTE nubia Red Magic 8 Pro and Pro+ with Black and Transparent panels
The nubia Red Magic 8 Pro is up for pre-order/reservation, starting from CNY3,999. It is available in Black color with three memory combinations – 8/128 GB, 8/256 GB, and 12/256 GB. The latter is also said to arrive with a Transparent back, but it is not available for purchase right now.
The nubia Red Magic 8 Pro+ also has three memory variants – 12/256 GB, 16/512 GB, and 16/1 TB. Prices begin from CNY5,199 for the Black version, although each of them will eventually be available with a transparent back for CNY200 extra.
The first sale is scheduled for December 28 at 10 AM local time. The phone is available on nubia’s own online store and JD.com.
Source (in Chinese)