Nubia Red Magic 3 with 90Hz display, Snapdragon 855, 48MP rear camera, internal fan launched in China

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At an event in China, Nubia has unveiled the next addition to its growing portfolio of gaming smartphones. Meet the Nubia Red Magic 3, a phone that takes gaming smartphones to the next level by introducing an active cooling setup inside of the phone.

Specification Nubia Red Magic 3 Display 6.65″ FHD+ AMOLED display with refresh rate of 90Hz, 19.5:9;

Support for DC Dimming, HDR SoC Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 RAM and Storage 6GB LPDDR4 + 64GB UFS 2.1;

6GB + 128GB;

8GB + 128GB;

12GB + 256GB Battery 5,000 mAh with 30W fast charging support 3.5mm Headphone Jack Yes Rear Camera 48MP Sony IMX 586, f/1.7, 1.6μm pixels Front Camera 16MP, f/2.0 Extras IP55 dust and water resistance;

Internal fan for active cooling;

Two shoulder buttons plus button support with rear fingerprint sensor;

Stereo front facing speakers Network GSM: 850MHz/1900MHz

WCDMA: 850MHz/1900MHz/1700

CDMA: BC0/BC1

LTE Band: 2/4/5/7/12/17/25/26/30/41/66 Android Version Android 9 Pie with Nubia’s software additions

The Nubia Red Magic 3 is a beastly gaming smartphone with specialized hardware that we haven’t seen in a commercial Android smartphone before. The main highlight of the device is the fact that it is a gaming smartphone first and foremost, and it is rather proud about it. The phone features a design language which is similar to previous Nubia Red Magic gaming smartphones like the Red Magic Mars. The phone features an active cooling system with a moving fan inside of the device, which is loud enough to hear when you do decide to turn it on. Nubia claims that the fan has “ultra-low” power consumption wherein it can work continuously for 1 hour and consume less than 1% of power. The device can also adjust the speed of the fan (with a claimed max speed of 14,000 rpm) according to its need to give you the best combination of cooling and fan noise. Despite the active fan system, the Red Magic 3 manages to retain an IP55 rating for dust and water resistance.

Other hardware features revolve around the gaming theme. The phone features a 6.65″ FHD+ 19.5:9 AMOLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate, and support for features like DC Dimming and HDR. The front of the phone also houses the stereo speaker setup. The back of the device includes a RGB lighting strip, which users can customize with over 16.8 Million color choices. The phone also features two touch-sensitive shoulder buttons along the right edge of the device. Those, along with the rear fingerprint scanner, can be mapped to different on-screen actions, giving you three hardware buttons to use for gameplay. The phone also features a physical switch key to toggle the “Red Magic Game Space 2.0” feature that gives you quick access to game-focused functionality such as toggling the internal fan, monitoring temperature and load of the device and screen recording. Nubia’s promotional video (mirrored above) also features accessories such as a dock and a gamepad add-on, but we could not locate further information regarding the same.

A gaming smartphone is incomplete without serious firepower under the hood, and the Red Magic 3 relies on the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC. The phone has various RAM and storage options, going all the way up to 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. It is unknown if the device supports expandable storage. For the battery, the phone features a big 5,000 mAh battery with support for 30W fast charging, 27W USB PD and Quick Charge 4.0 compatibility. Nubia’s Weibo page does not mention the USB port configuration of the device, but we expect it to be USB Type-C.

For the camera, the Red Magic 3 features a 48MP Sony IMX586 sensor on the back, and no other rear camera. But with specs ike f/1.7 aperture, 80° lens and 1.6μm pixel size, the hardware sounds good on paper. Camera performance is highly dependant on the software, so it remains to be seen how well the hardware can actually perform. The front camera of the device is a 16MP snapper.

The Red Magic 3 also comes with Android 9 Pie in a comparatively stock-like experience but with a few additions from Nubia.

The Nubia Red Magic 3 comes in four colors: Black, Red, Camouflage and Blue and Red gradient. The Black color variant will be available in 6GB+64GB configuration for CNY 2,899 (~$430) and 6GB+128GB configuration for CNY 3,199 (~$475). The Red color variant will be available in 8GB+128GB configuration for CNY 3,499 (~$520). The Camouflage color variant and the Blue and Red gradient color variant will be available in 12GB+256GB configuration for CNY 4,299 (~$640). The device will go on sale in China from May 3 onwards.

Global availability is unknown at this stage, but since the Red Magic Mars was available in US, Canada and Europe for as low as $399, we can expect this device to also be made available in global markets outside of China.