Red Magic 7 Gaming Smartphone Review: Beauty and the Beast

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The overall design philosophy of the Red Magic 7 remains in line with previous iterations but that still makes it one pretty phone. This time around it comes in three flavors and each will appeal mostly to tech lovers, geeks, and gamers but hey, that’s exactly for whom this phone is made. A feature that’s most “in your face” here is the sizeable 6.8″ AMOLED display with a 2400 x 1080 resolution and a pixel density of 388 PPI. In terms of sheer image quality, the screen still looks fantastic despite having lower pixel density and max brightness when compared to some other flagship phones.

What’s more, the screen is probably the fastest on the market in terms of performance with a 165 Hz refresh rate and the 720 Hz touch-sampling rate when using several fingers. The latter makes gaming a more responsive affair and makes every input noticeably snappier than what you might be used to from a non-gaming phone. The same goes for what’s under the hood as the Red Magic 7 is among the first flagships to be equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 CPU. Along with that, there’s the Adreno 730 GPU, 256 GB UFS type storage, and for the Supernova transparent model, a whopping 18 GB of LPDDR5 RAM. 

But, such beefy hardware would be for naught if it wasn’t for the trademark Nubia cooling system which is even better on the Red Magic 7. The cooling fan pumps out even more hot air thanks to the exhaust on the back and the new materials, the VC heatsink, and the thermal conductivity gel greatly increase heat dissipation. All of it combined means you’ll barely get any throttling during longer play sessions with the heat on the frame starting to accumulate only after an hour or so of uninterrupted gameplay. 

Now as for the battery, compared to the 6S Pro’s 5050, the Red Magic 7 bumps things down to 4500 mAh and this is highly felt in its day-to-day use. Whereas the 6S Pro could handle almost 6 hours of uninterrupted gameplay or a day and a half of mixed, regular usage, The Red Magic 7 will need to be charged daily. Luckily, what it lacks in longevity, it more than makes up for in charging speed with the supplied 65W charger taking it from 0 to 95% in just around 30 minutes.

The camera has never been a priority in any of the previous Red Magic phones and that didn’t change with the Red Magic 7. You once again have the 64 MP primary shooter, an 8 MP ultrawide, a 2 MP macro camera, and an 8 MP selfie snapper. Like the 6S Pro, all the cameras can and will deliver good-looking photos in daylight or otherwise good lighting conditions but don’t expect much more. As far as video goes, the Red Magic 7 supports up to 8K video recording but I found it’s better to bump things down to 4K which offers both HDR and EIS while still providing a ton of detail. 

The Red Magic 7 has the Android 12 with the Red Magic OS 5.0 sitting on top. The basic experience remains unchanged when compared to previous versions of the OS. It’s the basic Android setup with an app drawer and a notification bar with quick toggles along with some distinctly Red Magic visual stuff that follows the entire gamer aesthetic like really striking wallpapers, themes, and an always-on display with a ton of videos, gifs, and images. Along with that, there’s a whole host of gaming features but if you want to find out more details about that and the rest of the features of Red Magic 7, check out our full video review.