Nubia has been prolific with its phone releases in recent years. In 2019 alone, we saw the Z20 and X, while it added to its lineup of gaming handsets with the Red Magic 3 and 3S.
The company looks like it will continue its aggressive update cycle in 2020, with a 5G-enabled Red Magic phone set to hit the market. While some manufacturers use the 5G branding to repackage an older model, it looks like Nubia’s effort will show some serious upgrades over the Red Magic 3S.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Nubia Red Magic 5G.
When is the Red Magic 5G coming out?
As with many phones scheduled for an early 2020 launch, it’s likely that the Red Magic 5G will be launched at MWC in late February, and go on sale a few weeks later.
That is by no means guaranteed though, and we may be waiting until Q2 at the earliest.
How much will the Red Magic 5G cost?
Considering the potential new features and addition of 5G capability, we’d expect a fairly significant price increase.
The Red Magic 3S cost either £419 or £529 depending on the model you chose, but we’d expect it to be firmly in flagship territory and the most expensive phone Nubia has ever made.
What are we expecting to see with the Red Magic 5G?
If the latest rumours are to be believed, we could be in for a treat with the Red Magic 5G. XDA-Developers and GSMArena are both reporting that the phone could support 80W fast charging. This would make it the fast charging standard available on paper, higher than the Realme X2 Pro’s 65W power source.
However, recent comments from Nubia President Ni Fei suggest the options may even stretch to 100W, also it seems battery capacity may decline as a result. It remains to be seen whether consumers would be happy to compromise slightly in order to experience truly staggering charging speeds.
Assuming the phone at least retains the 5000mAh battery of the 3S, this could make for truly staggering battery performance.
The other big enhancement could come in the form of a 144Hz display. No commercially available mobile device has been released above 120Hz ( Razer Phone 2) thus far, so this would be a huge statement of intent.
The Red Magic should be making the move to the Snapdragon 865, Qualcomm’s flagship chipset for 2020. As a gaming phone, the GPU may also see a boost to handle this increased demand.
Cameras were an area where the Red Magic 3S was slightly underwhelming, so we’d hope for some upgrades in this area. It already had a high megapixel count, so we would expect these improvements to mostly be on the software side.
The bezels on previous models were thicker than most modern handsets, but we’d be happy to compromise slightly on design to ensure it retains the stellar gaming performance.
We’ll update this article as soon as we know more.
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Author: Anyron Copeman, Senior Staff Writer
As the resident expert on Windows, Senior Staff Writer Anyron’s main focus is PCs and laptops. Much of the rest of his time is split between smartphones, tablets and audio, with a particular focus on Android devices.