Nubia unveils the Red Magic 3: a smartphone that can shoot 8K video
Chinese phone maker Nubia has unveiled its latest gaming phone, and while it packs the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor that will power the majority of 2019’s flagships, it certainly has a few interesting tweaks to set it apart from the pack.
First of all, despite the familiar processor, Nubia has decided to go all out and included a cooling fan inside the phone. The little fan can spin up to 14,000rpm and has an IP55 rating to prevent dust getting in. It should be good for 30,000 hours of continuous use, and Nubia says that combined with the heat pipe, heat transfer performance is five times’ better than traditional phone cooling methods.
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Elsewhere, it’s the camera that’s the most interesting thing – unusually for a gaming phone. The 48-megapixel f/1.7 main camera is supported by a 16-megapixel f/2.0 affair, which sounds decent enough, despite the lack of optical image stabilisation. But the headline feature here is that the camera can record 8K video. No idea how you’d watch all those precious 8K home videos, but it’s there for when the technology catches up, I guess. The camera can also apparently capture super-slow-motion video at 1920fps, though Nubia hasn’t revealed at what resolution this slow footage will be saved at.
As it’s a gaming phone, you can expect gaudy RGB lighting, customisable capacitive shoulder triggers and a higher refresh rate on the FHD+ 6.65-inch screen than you get with most handsets: 90Hz. One other interesting thing: the company mentioned a bunch of attachable accessories using the phone’s pogo pins: a 5G radio add-on and a LAN connector dock.
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The Nubia Red Magic 3 will be coming to the UK in May. No work on prices outside of China yet, but if they’re even remotely close conversions, then this will be one to keep an eye one. The version with 64GB storage and 6GB RAM goes for 2899 yuan (~£333) while the model with 256GB of storage and 12GB Ram sells at 4299 yuan (~£492).
Is this the phone you’ve been waiting for? Let us know on Twitter: @TrustedReviews.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
