ZTE nubia Red Magic 3 smartphone - advantages and disadvantages

On April 28, the 3rd model of the Red Magic game line from Nubia was presented in China. Red Magic 3 became the world's first smartphone with a pumped-over cooling system in the form of a built-in fan.

The review provides a detailed description of the smartphone, technical characteristics, as well as advantages and disadvantages.

Information about the companies "ZTE" and "Nubia"

ZTE is a huge corporation founded in China in 1985. The company develops and manufactures smartphones, fixed terminals and telecommunications equipment. The development is aimed at the following network industries:

• optical networks;
• data transmission;
• smart grids;
• mobile communications;
• next generation networks (multiservice).

ZTE has 19 R&D centers located in different countries, employing more than 30,000 specialists.

In 2012, ZTE founded a subsidiary company Nubia. The goal of the company was to create elite class equipment at a reasonable price. In addition to smartphones, Nubia also produces headphones, cases, power banks and other smartphone accessories.

Since 2017, Nubia has become an independent company: ZTE owns only 49.9% of the shares. Rumor has it that ZTE has thus secured itself against possible losses due to problems with America, and in fact Nubia remains a subsidiary company.

ZTE Nubia Red Magic 3 Review

Main characteristics table

Device complete set

The buyer will receive the device in a beautiful matte black box with a red company logo. Inside is:

• phone in a protective film;
• charger in a separate small box;
• metal key to open the SIM card slot;
• Smartphone manual.

Design

ZTE Nubia Red Magic 3 is made in a beautiful daring style, which cannot but draw attention to itself. The buyer can choose a smartphone in one of four colors: black, bright red, camouflage or red and blue.

The Red Magic 3 is built with a solid metal construction with gently rounded corners. The back of the case has a slight relief, in the middle of which there is an LED strip with RGB backlighting. The backlight color can always be changed in the settings.At the top is a rear camera and a dual-color LED flash. Below them is a grill for the intake of cold air and a fingerprint scanner. During the game, the fingerprint scanner works as an additional button. There are also two decorative V-shaped inserts and a company logo.

On the right side, there are volume control buttons, power buttons, a vent for exhausting hot air and two touch buttons for active games that play the role of a gamepad. On the left side there is a SIM card slot, a Game Space 2.0 power button and a magnetic connector for connecting a docking station.

The Game Space 2.0 utility will help you get quick access to your library of games, adjust the fan speed, control the temperature, incoming notifications and other useful settings.

A microphone and a 3.5 mm headphone jack are integrated on the top. USB Type-C port, a second spoken microphone are located on the bottom edge. At the top of the screen is the camera, as well as proximity and lighting sensors. Large stereo speakers are located on the stripes below and above.

Display

Red Magic 3 received a capacitive AMOLED display with a diagonal of 6.65 inches. The 108.6 cm2 screen has an 80.5% body-to-body ratio. The number of pixels per inch is 388, and the resolution is 1080x2340.

The display covers 100% DCI-P3 color space, allowing you to view videos and photos in high quality. The screen contrast is 100,000: 1 and the brightness is 430 nit. DC Dimming technology will help to reduce the effect of flickering at low brightness values.

The screen refresh rate reaches 90 Hz. If desired, the indicators can be reduced to 60 Hz. The refresh rate of the touch layer is 240 Hz and the response time is 4 ms.

Cooling system

The main highlight of this gaming smartphone is its high level of overheating protection, which ensures stable performance.

The first level of protection is provided by the ICE liquid cooling system, which includes a heat pipe with an evaporation chamber. The second, the main one, is a built-in centrifugal fan, the number of revolutions of which is 14,000 per minute. It would seem that such a powerful fan can drain the battery in a very short period of time, but no. Thanks to the use of a brushless motor and a light weight of 1 g of fiber made of light nanomaterial, the fan consumes only 1% of the battery charge in 1 hour.

There is no need to worry about the life of the fan. Manufacturers claim that the presence of hydrodynamic bearings will provide 30,000 hours of operation. That is, under the condition of active work for 3 hours every day, the cooler will last 27 years. And for the safety of work and protection from dust and moisture, IP55 protection and an isolated chamber, in which the fan itself is located, is responsible.

How the fan works

Cold air enters through the grill on the back of the smartphone. And already hot air comes out through the ventilation hole on the right side edge. The fan works quite quietly: based on the load on the chipset, a special algorithm adjusts the rotation speed.

Camera

The resolution of the main camera Sony IMX586 is 48 MP. The matrix size is ½ ", the aperture is f / 1.7, the angle of view is 80.32 degrees, and the pixel size is 0.8.

The camera with LED flash takes great pictures at night, thanks to the technology that combines 4 pixels into 1 large, 1.6 micron size. It should be noted that then the resolution of the camera is reduced and is 12 megapixels.

Among the features of the camera, it is necessary to highlight the following functionality:

• Shooting video in 8K resolution;
• Slow motion recording at 1920 frames per second;
• Phase focusing 0.1 second.

The front camera with a resolution of 16 megapixels has a pixel size of 2 microns, an angle of view of 80 degrees and an aperture of f2. The camera features fixed focus, face beauty mode, and face detection.

Performance: processor, software and memory

In Red Magic 3, they installed the high-performance and nimble Snapdragon 855, which is already familiar for all top models, with a 7 nm technical process.The processor has 8 Kryo 485 cores operating at frequencies: one at 2.84 GHz, three at 2.42 GHz and four at 1.8 GHz. The Adreno 640 video chip is responsible for high-quality graphics.

The smartphone runs on the Android 9.0 Pie system with the proprietary Redmagic 2.0 shell, which optimizes the device for the game as much as possible and has additional features.

Depending on the version of the smartphone, the amount of LPDDR4x RAM is 6, 8 or 12 GB, and the built-in memory is UFS 2.1, 128 or 256 GB.

Autonomy

The device has a non-removable Li-Po 5000 mAh battery. This capacity will provide:

• 8 hours of non-stop play;
• 9 hours of video viewing;
• 13.5 hours of web surfing.

Nubia ditched wireless charging, so the Red Magic 3 charges from the mains via USB. An important factor is the availability of the 27W fast charging function. After charging the battery for 10 minutes, the gamer will provide himself with an hour of play.

Sound

Responsible for the sound are stereo speakers with 3D sound and support for DTS: X technology, which will ensure not only the pleasure of listening to music, but also high-quality sound while playing.

The microphone system provides maximum noise cancellation during the game, and the 4D Smart Shock system provides an active vibration feedback during the game for the most immersive gaming experience.

Communication standards and wireless connections

The novelty supports 2G, 3G and 4G networks and modern communication technologies GSM, CDMA, HSPA (with a speed of 42.2 / 5.76 Mbit / s), EVDO and LTE (7 CA).

Wireless interfaces:

• Bluetooth 5.0 Wi-fi (802.11 a / b / n / ac).
• Navigation system: A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS.

Winning the rating of quality smartphones according to AnTuTu and Master Lu

In the benchmarks AnTuTu and Master Lu accept the best popular models for testing, among which ZTE Nubia Red Magic 3 became the absolute winner, gaining the maximum number of points: 437,534 and 470,574 points.

How much does the ZTE Nubia Red Magic 3 cost?

Depending on the amount of memory, the cost will be as follows:

• $ 430 for a model with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage.
• $ 475 will cost a model with 6 GB of RAM, 128 GB of internal memory.
• $ 520 must be paid for 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage.
• $ 640 for the top model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

• beautiful design;
• LED strip, color changeable;
• additional game button in the form of a fingerprint scanner;
• additional touch buttons for games;
• providing quick access to settings and optimizing the gameplay using the utility
• Game Space 2.0;
• DC Dimming technology, to reduce display flicker;
• high screen refresh rate;
• high level of overheating protection with liquid cooling system and centrifugal
• fan;
• protection against moisture and dust IP55;
• proprietary shell Redmagic 2.0;
• large battery capacity;
• fast charging function;
• high-quality sound with DTS: X technology.

• lack of a gamepad;
• weak camera.

Conclusion

The ZTE Nubia Red Magic 3 is a high quality gaming smartphone at an affordable price. A high level of performance, protection against overheating, as well as additional utilities and functions will ensure a high level of comfort while playing.