RedMagic 6 review: A good gaming phone but probably not for you

In case you are into cellular gaming, 2021 is a wonderful 12 months as a result of prior to now couple weeks three gaming telephones have been launched. The Asus ROG Cellphone 5 made a splash with its every part and a kitchen sink method to options and specs. On Thursday, Lenovo launched the Legion Cellphone Duel 2 which has an normal design even for a gaming cellphone. And now there’s Nubia RedMagic 6 and its first-of-a-kind 165Hz excessive refresh price display. With so many choices, what units the RedMagic aside is its unimaginable worth. A $599 price ticket, £509 which converts roughly to AU$790, a big battery, prime of the road Android efficiency, and a heaping quantity of customizable sport settings solely add to its attraction. However past players, the attraction of the RedMagic 6 is proscribed.

Most telephones, together with the iPhone 12, have a 60Hz show. The RedMagic’s 165Hz display appears to be like extremely easy. There are literally lots of video games that assist 165fps, however there are lots of mainstream titles that do not. It is arduous to explain the distinction between a 120Hz display like on the Galaxy S21 Extremely, a 144Hz show like on the ROG Cellphone 5 and the RedMagic’s 165Hz panel. However in comparison with a 60Hz show, the RedMagic 6 is sort of a top notch seat in your eyes.

The display helps 10-bit colours and has a 500Hz single contact price, a 360Hz multi-touch price which makes gameplay really feel responsive. Once I performed video games like PUBG or Beat Road, on display presses and faucets felt extra correct.

On the left facet of the cellphone is a purple button that appears like a silent mode change, nevertheless it’s not. If you slide it over, the RedMagic 6 comes alive. The change places you into the Recreation House. Consider it like a library, a management room and an enviornment for taking part in video games. You may select titles, management the lighting and inside fan all whereas muting notifications and different non-gaming distractions.

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Throughout sport play, Recreation House controls will be accessed with only a easy finger slide. For instance, if a sport wasn’t truly hitting 165fps, I may decrease the body price with out exiting the sport. The Recreation House management panel additionally has shortcuts for display brightness, mapping sport controls, creating macros for repetitive enter, recording gameplay and extra. There may be even a 4D vibration mode which works sort of like a PlayStation or Xbox controller albeit not as nuanced.

On the facet of the cellphone are two contact delicate areas that can be utilized as shoulder buttons for video games. The form of the cellphone’s corners make them simple to search out. Button faucets felt assured and I hardly ever made errors. A part of which may even be that the facet inputs have a 400Hz refresh price.

The RedMagic 6 has a built-in fan. It took some time to get used to a cellphone sounding like my laptop computer with a number of tabs open in Chrome. Fortunately, fan pace will be adjusted. And if one fan is not sufficient, you should purchase the Twin-Core Ice Dock accent which provides two extra. The outside dual-fan unit clips onto the again of the cellphone including extra airflow and much more noise.

Throughout lengthy bouts of gaming, the RedMagic 6 by no means acquired too scorching to carry. The inner fan together with the cellphone’s liquid and graphite cooling methods made it one of the comfy telephones to play video games on by way of temperature. 

Powering the cellphone is a 5,050mAh battery that made it by way of a day no downside. Although it comes with a 30W charger, the RedMagic 6 helps 66W quick charging. I’m within the means of operating extra in depth battery assessments and can replace this evaluation with the outcomes.

The RedMagic 6 has a Snapdragon 888 processor and my evaluation unit had 12GB of RAM. There’s a RedMagic 6 Professional mannequin that comes with 16GB of RAM. In efficiency assessments, the RedMagic 6 scored on the prime of the 2021 class of Android telephones together with the Asus ROG Cellphone 5. That stated, the iPhone 12 Professional nonetheless scored larger than each.

The RedMagic 6 has a headphone jack, assist for 5G, WiFi 6E, NFC and it runs on Android 11. My evaluation unit has “Tencent Video games” written on the again, however the precise US mannequin will not. And if all you probably did was sport, then this $599 cellphone is price each penny. However outdoors of gaming there are some downsides.

The RedMagic 6 has a foremost 64-megapixel digicam, an 8-megapixel ultrawide digicam and a 2-megapixel bokeh digicam for depth. The principle digicam takes first rate pictures and may even report HDR10 movies. However accessing the ultrawide digicam is difficult. In Picture mode, there is not a button to modify to the ultrawide digicam. It’s a must to go into Professional mode with the intention to use it. It is bizarre and hopefully will be mounted with a software program replace. 

As spectacular because the display is, it is usually fairly dim. In a vibrant room or open air, it may be arduous to see it clearly. The RedMagic 6 is heavy and makes one-handed sport play practically unimaginable. It does not have an IP-rating for mud or water resistance, it lacks wi-fi charging. And I am not the largest fan of the RedMagic OS.

The Twin-Core Ice Dock is difficult to arrange. A USB-C cable is used to attach it to the cellphone. The directions say to pair it to the cellphone through Bluetooth. I attempted many instances to do that, however may solely get the Ice Dock to work utilizing the cable. And who desires to sport with a cable hooked up to the underside of the cellphone and to an exterior clip-on fan?

I’m not the target market for the RedMagic 6. Cell players are. And till Asus and Lenovo announce an official US value for his or her gaming telephones, the RedMagic 6 represents a superb worth for the value.