Nubia RedMagic 7 Pro review: The next great gaming phone no one will buy

The RedMagic 7 Pro is yet another gaming phone from Nubia. It’s got all of the gamer aesthetic you could want, from an RGB fan to sharp accents and fonts. More importantly, the RedMagic 7 Pro packs all of the horsepower you could ask for, not to mention the ultrasonic shoulder triggers and upgraded cooling system.

But it’s still a gaming phone, making the RedMagic 7 Pro a rather niche option compared to flagship devices with wider appeal. Despite its gaming prowesss, Nubia’s latest doesn’t do much else well, with its severely underwhelming cameras and annoying software. The battery life isn’t even as good as the last-gen RedMagic 6S Pro.

So what makes this phone a pro model? Read our RedMagic 7 Pro review to find out.

RedMagic 7 Pro review: Price and availability

You can get the RedMagic 7 Pro in two flavors. The Obsidian model with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage costs $799/£679/€799 while the Supernova version with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage runs $899/£759/€899. 

You can buy the RedMagic 7 Pro directly from Nubia. I received a model with 18GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, but at time of writing, Nubia did not specify this variant or its pricing.

Of course, there are other regular smartphones out there that also offer top-tier gaming experiences. The OnePlus 10 Pro also comes equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, a new cooling system, and a low latency touchscreen, with the 8GB/128GB model costing $899. There’s also the $999 iPhone 13 Pro, which gets better battery life and has stronger performance than the RedMagic 7 Pro.

RedMagic 7 Pro review: Performance

When it comes to performance, the RedMagic 7 Pro doesn’t disappoint. But then again, neither did the RedMagic 6S Pro last year. (That phone used a Snapdragon 888 Plus system-on-chip.) The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 inside the RedMagci 7 Pro, while powerful, hasn’t impressed me all that much this year, especially when compared to Apple’s A15 Bionic. 

As you can see, the RedMagic 7 Pro performed admirably in all tests, outmatching its predecessor by quite a hefty margin in the graphics area. It’s right in line with the OnePlus 10 Pro and even beats out one of the best Android phones in the 4K-1080p video transcode test.

For reference, the iPhone 13 Pro, one of the best phones you can buy, can do the transcode test in just 26 seconds. The A15 Bionic chipset also netted 70 fps in the Wild Life Unlimited benchmark, plus a 4,718 in Geekbench.

When gaming, the RedMagic 7 Pro does everything I could want. The phone can easily play supported games at 120 frames per second like Brawl Stars and Vainglory. Brawl Stars was particularly fun with its 2D arena-style combat. The high frame rate made for silky smooth gameplay and I had a blast. The RedMagic 7 Pro is a fantastic gaming device from a power standpoint.

RedMagic 7 Pro review: Display

The RedMagic 7 Pro sports a big 6.8-inch AMOLED display with an FHD+ resolution and a max refresh rate of 120Hz. The touch sampling rate comes in at a fast 960Hz. 

You’ll notice that the refresh rate is a downgrade over the 165Hz screen on the RedMagic 6S Pro or even RedMagic 7, and that it’s even below the 144Hz rate featured in other top gaming phones or flagships such as the Motorola Edge Plus (2022). That has to do with the under-display camera on the RedMagic 7 Pro, which prevents Nubia from using the same panel as before.

Thanks to that front camera, you get a true all-screen experience with the RedMagic 7 Pro. Games and videos take up the whole display, which is amazing when playing something like Call of Duty Mobile. Playing Activision’s addicting mobile shooter on this handset is incredibly fun, and the display plays a huge role in that.

If I had to lodge one complaint with the RedMagic 7 Pro’s display, it’d be with the max brightness. In our testing, the display reached a max of 589 nits. Compare that to the OnePlus 10 Pro’s 734 nits and the RedMagic 6S Pro’s 696 nits. I had trouble seeing the screen in direct sunlight, such as sitting in my home office during the afternoon. 

RedMagic 7 Pro review: Battery life

Previous RedMagic phones have been battery life champs, easily ranking among the best phone battery life winners. But that changed with the RedMagic 7, and it continues with the RedMagic 7 Pro, which failed to reach the 10-hour mark that the average smartphone can hit on our battery test. In fact, the RedMagic 7 couldn’t even beat the average smartphone when we locked its refresh rate at 60Hz.

The Tom’s Guide battery life involves a phone continually surfing the web over 5G with its display set to 150 nits. As you can see, the RedMagic 7 Pro fell well short of the OnePlus 10 Pro by 2.5 hours in this benchmark. 

Also look at the RedMagic 6S Pro, which went nearly 3.5 hours longer at 165Hz. At least the RedMagic 7 Pro’s 5,000 mAh battery recharges at a blisteringly fast rate, filling up completely in just 30 minutes. And for those of you keeping score at home, Nubia did include a 65W charger with its phone.

RedMagic 7 Pro review: Cameras, software, and other features

Those interested in gaming phones will likely focus on the performance and display of the RedMagic 7 Pro, but there are other elements to this phone. Here’s a look at some of the other factors and how they measured up in our RedMagic 7 Pro review.

Camera: I think you can safely dismiss the RedMagic 7 Pro’s camera capabilities, but that’s not something you’d probably consider when evaluating gaming handsets. The latest RedMagic uses a 64MP main sensor with 8MP ultrawide and 2MP macro cameras. 

The most unique thing here is the 16MP under-display front camera, which surprisingly impressed my colleague Richard Priday, even if I found the selfies I took on it to be a bit overexposed and fuzzy.

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Looking at the images in the above gallery, the RedMagic 7 Pro’s cameras suffer from overexposure in most outdoor settings. You can especially see this in the photo of the pink flowers. Inside, some of the book spines look blown out. 

In fact, the ultrawide shot captured by the RedMagic 7 Pro is the best of the bunch, even with the sunlight right in the lens. Possibly as a result, that ultrawide image suffers from poor clarity and some blurriness. And then the night mode example shows how far the RedMagic 7 Pro is from other flagships — the image is dim and noisy.

Software: You get Android 12 with the RedMagic 7 Pro, which is great. The skin on top, RedMagic OS 5, hasn’t gotten any better since the last time I looked at it. It improved many of the English translation errors and typos from the RedMagic 6S Pro and RedMagic 6, but it’s still full to the brim with harsh “gamer” aesthetic design choices. 

From tacky themes to some widgets that look out of place with the rest of the system, I’m not a fan of RedMagic OS. However, it does perform well. Animations and transitions are smooth and I didn’t notice any hangups. The software does include some nifty features like Game Space, a handy suite of utilities for measuring and maximizing gaming performance.

Gaming features: One key element that sets apart the RedMagic 7 Pro from previous Nubia gaming phones is the Red Core 1 chip. This coprocessor helps handle more menial tasks to free up processing power for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. The Red Core 1 takes care of audio, RGB lighting, and haptic feedback. While the performance gains it offers might be trivial, I think the Red Core 1 is a great example of a phone maker adding something unique and useful instead of using off-the-shelf parts.

As with other gaming phones these days, the RedMagic 7 Pro sports ultrasonic shoulder triggers with a 500Hz touch sampling rate — that comes out to a roughly 8 ms response time. I doubted shoulder triggers initially when I was first introduced to them last year, but the more I use them, the more I like them. In games like Call of Duty Mobile, it makes playing sans a controller a lot more bearable.

Cooling also takes a front seat with the RedMagic 7 Pro with a nine-layer system that dissipates heat from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. (This chip has thus far struggled with heat, and therefore throttling, problems.) There’s also a tiny 20,000 RPM fan with RGB effects (Supernova model only) to add some active cooling.

RedMagic 7 Pro review: Verdict

Gaming phones remain niche products. When most of the big name flagships also play games well, the average person has little reason to look to the likes of the RedMagic 7 Pro. That doesn’t make it a bad phone nor does it mean we should write off the product category altogether. 

If you want a gaming phone, then look no further than the RedMagic 7 Pro. It’s got all the power you could want, plus some great features. Even the under-display camera is a nice addition, since it frees up more screen space for maximum gaming.

At $799, the RedMagic 7 Pro is one mean beast. But if you care about your phone also providing the best photography or software experience, then this isn’t the handset for you.