Nubia's RedMagic 6S Pro gaming phone is here with a 165Hz display, RGB lighting, and more

[nanoguy]

Why it matters: The Nubia RedMagic 6 series has already broken two smartphone records with a monstrous 18-gigabytes of RAM and a 165Hz screen with a 360Hz touch sampling rate. Its successor is here to take things up a notch, with improvements in performance, touch responsiveness, as well as a new active cooling system and under-display fingerprint sensor that's harder to fool.

After Asus landed its ROG Phone 5 on the market earlier this year, now it's time for ZTE's Nubia sub-brand to come up with a gaming flagship phone. That device is the RedMagic 6S Pro, and while it doesn't stray too far from the design of the original RedMagic 6, it does come with refinements and new tricks up its sleeve.

At the heart of the new RedMagic 6S Pro is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 888+ 5G Mobile Platform, which is more than an overclocked Snapdragon 888 thanks to the integration of a new AI engine that offers 20 percent more performance. The chipset is paired with up to 16 gigabytes of LPDDR5 RAM and 256 gigabytes of UFS 3.1 storage.

However, that's not what makes this phone stand out among the myriad of Android phones available today. One of the unique features is a new ICE 7.0 cooling system that makes use of phase change materials to absorb heat quickly and slowly release it over time. It does this with the help of a small fan that also has RGB lighting if you choose to get a Red Magic 6S Pro with a transparent back.

The 6.8-inch AMOLED display can reach a brightness of up to 700 nits and supports the full DCI-P3 color gamut. It's the same 165Hz panel found on the RedMagic 6 Pro that's capable of 120Hz, 90Hz, and 60Hz modes, but this time the touch digitizer has a sampling rate of 720Hz -- double that of the the previous flagship phone.

Nubia has kept the two shoulder triggers that run at a 450Hz touch sampling rate and have a response time of 2.2 milliseconds. There's now a new trigger on the back of the phone, which you can configure custom actions using RedMagic's tools. As of writing, the only games that support shoulder triggers natively are Genshin Impact and LoL: Wild Rift, while only Real Racing, Vainglory, and Dead Trigger 2 can run at the display's full 165Hz refresh rate.

An interesting new trick on the new phone is that the under-display fingerprint reader can also measure your heart rate. However, it's not for health monitoring purposes -- the idea is to make it harder to fool the sensor, which is a welcome improvement.

Otherwise, the rest of the features are a carbon copy of what was available on the 6 Pro. The rear camera module features a 64-megapixel main shooter and a depth sensor, while the front camera has a more than adequate 6-megapixel sensor. The international 6S Pro model has a 5,050 mAh battery that can be fully charged in a little over an hour, while the Chinese model has a smaller, 4,500 mAh unit. If you need faster charging, Nubia also sells a 66-watt charger separately.

For those of you hanging on to wired headphones, there's a 3.5 mm audio jack on the top, and the USB-C port on the bottom supports Display Port for hooking up to an external display.

If you're interested in Nubia's latest gaming phone, you won't have to break the bank to get one. There are three configurations with 12 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage for $599/€599/£519, 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage for $699/€699/£609, and a transparent 'Ghost' model for RGB fans that will go for $729/€729/£629.

All three models will come with Android 11-based RedMagic OS 4.0 out-of-the-box, and will start shipping on September 27. There's also a giveaway that you can enter here for a chance to win a top-end configuration along with a Gamesir controller.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/91127-nubia-redmagic-6s-pro-gaming-phone-here-165hz.html

 

[Sausagemeat]

18GB of RAM in a phone is ridiculous in a time when chip and supply shortages are rife. My iPhone 11 Pro Max has 4GB and I bet it’s faster. Android is broken if it needs that much RAM.

 

[Hollow]

18GB of RAM in a phone is ridiculous in a time when chip and supply shortages are rife. My iPhone 11 Pro Max has 4GB and I bet it’s faster. Android is broken if it needs that much RAM.

Well, it's cpu/gpu performance for gaming is a lot better than last iPhone.
It might not go underwater but you can plug a jack, also it has a screen with good refresh rate and two extra triggers.
This is clearly a phone intended for gaming and you are comparing to a multipurpose phone twice the price. WTF?

 

[Sausagemeat]

Well, it's cpu/gpu performance for gaming is a lot better than last iPhone.
It might not go underwater but you can plug a jack, also it has a screen with good refresh rate and two extra triggers.
This is clearly a phone intended for gaming and you are comparing to a multipurpose phone twice the price. WTF?

It’s slower than the latest iPhone chipset actually by quite a margin. And as all the iPhone chipsets are the same in a given year for all models. You can buy a regular iPhone 12 for roughly the same price as the is.

Sure the refresh rate and triggers are important. But the fact is any iPhone is faster and does so with less than 1/4 of the RAM.

Android is garbage, even Google is trying to move away from it. Budget iPhones are now humiliating Android flagships.

 

[Hardware Geek]

Considering the chip shortage, the price for the specs is excellent. RGB is unnecessary but expected in a gaming phone, but nice to see that's optional.

 

[Hollow]

It’s slower than the latest iPhone chipset actually by quite a margin. And as all the iPhone chipsets are the same in a given year for all models. You can buy a regular iPhone 12 for roughly the same price as the is.

Sure the refresh rate and triggers are important. But the fact is any iPhone is faster and does so with less than 1/4 of the RAM.

Android is garbage, even Google is trying to move away from it. Budget iPhones are now humiliating Android flagships.

Troll?
Android apps run on Android runtime which is close to JVM, it means that apps are high level and don't control ressources.
Apple control their hardware so they can run native, iOS developers can control the ressources and native apps needs less ressources in general.
Android can run on close to any hardware, iOS can't. You'll never find iOS in your car for this specific reason. They are not created for the same purpose.
Android is doing well being a system you can install anywhere, you'll find it in your car, in Oculus quest 2 etc...
iPhone might be faster than Android in a lot of cases and with proper optimisations but it can't run emulators and half of android games and apps, it is not affordable for the biggest part of the population, it is not customizable, it has poor repairability and when you can repair it's not cheap, you lose your guaranty easily even with normal use, you can't add storage, it doesn't have a jack, you can't use usb-c.
They are not made for the same purpose, without Android you wouldn't have gaming phones, and yes usually gaming phones perform better at gaming thanks to the extra performance and ergonomy.

 

[Geralt]

It's very cheap. I was expecting its price to be thousands of dollars. Good product.

 

[Sausagemeat]

Troll?
Android apps run on Android runtime which is close to JVM, it means that apps are high level and don't control ressources.
Apple control their hardware so they can run native, iOS developers can control the ressources and native apps needs less ressources in general.
Android can run on close to any hardware, iOS can't. You'll never find iOS in your car for this specific reason. They are not created for the same purpose.
Android is doing well being a system you can install anywhere, you'll find it in your car, in Oculus quest 2 etc...
iPhone might be faster than Android in a lot of cases and with proper optimisations but it can't run emulators and half of android games and apps, it is not affordable for the biggest part of the population, it is not customizable, it has poor repairability and when you can repair it's not cheap, you lose your guaranty easily even with normal use, you can't add storage, it doesn't have a jack, you can't use usb-c.
They are not made for the same purpose, without Android you wouldn't have gaming phones, and yes usually gaming phones perform better at gaming thanks to the extra performance and ergonomy.

Not troll at all just saying it as it is. Also you are incorrect on a lot of things, you can run emulators on iOS once it’s jaikbroken, which is practically identical to rooting an Android device.

iPhones actually also have better repair ability and resale than almost all Android phones as they are very common. Try getting a random Android device fixed in a phone shop but that same phone shop will almost certainly fix iPhones.

Not having a headphone jack id an advantage. Headphone jacks are like floppy drives, they are obsolete and I pity anyone still rocking a cable in this age of wireless.

But your last point is accurate, these Android phones will be better for gaming. But in the west at least gaming phones are not very popular and are often just used as regular phones.

It is absolutely fair to compare them as a potential buyer could use either. Personally I think you’d be mad to pick this gaming phone over an iPhone 12. But hey there are lot of Apple hater sheep out there.

 

[yRaz]

18GB of RAM in a phone is ridiculous in a time when chip and supply shortages are rife. My iPhone 11 Pro Max has 4GB and I bet it’s faster. Android is broken if it needs that much RAM.

It's a GAMING phone. While I think gaming phones are for people who love micro transactions, if you want to game on a phone you're going to need more ram than to take selfies.

 

[Sausagemeat]

It's a GAMING phone. While I think gaming phones are for people who love micro transactions, if you want to game on a phone you're going to need more ram than to take selfies.

No you don’t. No game uses 18GB of RAM, or even close to half that. The reason that Android devices have so much RAM is because the OS can’t page the data in the same way that iOS or Windows can (both use different methods). Meaning you need to keep all programmes that are running in active memory.

Apples memory management algorithm in iOS is one of their best kept secrets. Combined with fast memory controllers It allows them to push out 4GB phones that can keep up to speed and even beat Android devices with 16GB. Of course Apple charge the same as Android phones and pocket the savings for themselves. But Android devices are using huge amounts of silicon to cover their poorly made OS and users are paying for that.

The 18GB model exists because people will pay more than what the extra memory costs the manufacturer to add. It’s literally a marketing gimmick. I mean nobody needs 18GB of RAM in a device with such a small screen.