Nubia

The Nubia Red Magic Mars has been announced, offering a Snapdragon 845 chipset and up to 10GB of RAM.

Nubia’s latest phone also sports capacitive shoulder keys for extra input in games.

The phone starts at ~$389, ranging all the way to ~$575 for the 10GB model.

The Nubia Red Magic was a response to the Razer Phone, landing as part of a wave of gaming phones in 2018. Unfortunately, it still used last year’s Snapdragon 835 chipset, making for a less powerful device than the competition.

Now, the Nubia Red Magic Mars has been announced by the Chinese brand (h/t: Engadget), and it has taken a major step up in horsepower. For one, we’ve got a Snapdragon 845 chipset, 6GB to 8GB of RAM, and 64GB to 128GB of fixed storage. But the company has also revealed a high-end variant with 10GB of RAM and 256GB of fixed storage.

It’s not the only phone to pack 10GB of RAM, as we’ve already seen the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 offer this much memory. I’m not sure why you’d want that much RAM right now but, if anything, it makes for an eye-catching figure.

Nubia

The Nubia Red Magic Mars takes a page out of the ROG Phone by offering shoulder triggers, but these are capacitive keys rather than ultrasonic triggers. Nevertheless, they’re a welcome addition to a gaming phone and should come in handy when playing shooters and racing games. The company is also offering an optional gamepad attachment (seen above), with a layout that looks rather similar to the left Joy-Con controller on the Nintendo Switch.

We also see several other gaming-focused features, such as a control panel to monitor system performance (e.g. CPU and GPU utilization, as well as temperature), DTS 7.1 support, and force feedback.

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Other major features include a 6-inch notchless full HD+ LCD screen, a 3,800mAh battery, an 8MP f/2.0 selfie camera, a 16MP f/1.8 rear camera, a headphone jack, and the Redmagic OS based on Android Pie. And yes, it also packs an LED strip on the back.

The Nubia Red Magic Mars has a starting price of 2,699 yuan (~$389) for the 6GB/64GB variant, while the 8GB/128GB model is pegged at 3,199 yuan (~$461). Want the 10GB/256GB version? You’ll be spending 3,999 yuan (~$575). Unfortunately, we haven’t heard any news of a release outside China, but we’ll keep you posted.

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