ZTE nubia Red Magic 5S Specifications and Price

ZTE‘s subsidiary, Nubia announced its first-ever 5G-enabled gaming smartphone, the Red Magic 5G, in March earlier this year. It was a feature-rich smartphone with a 144Hz display, Snapdragon 865 chipset, 64MP cameras, and more. And Today, the Chinese giant has launched its successor, called nubia Red Magic 5S with major upgrades on the thermal front.

The nubia Red Magic 5S is powered by the Snapdragon 865 just like its predecessor. With the announcement of the Snapdragon 865+ chipset earlier this month, the phone was expected to have the latest overclocked chipset onboard but that was not the case.

So, the chipset remains unchanged but there is a minor upgrade on the storage front. Nubia Red Magic 5S packs up to 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 built-in storage – as opposed to UFS 3.0 storage aboard the Red Magic 5G. Another small change is the increased touch response rate for the Dual-IC shoulder buttons. They’re baked on the right edge and now have a 320Hz touch response rate.

The biggest upgrade aboard the Red Magic 5S is the new ICE 4.0 three-dimensional heat dissipation system. The physical fan continues to be one of the core components of the cooling system. The device includes a 15000rpm, 1-gram fan that sucks in cool air from one edge and hot air exits from the other edge.

Nubia has included a silver-plated heat sink in the middle of the back panel of the Red Magic 5S. The RGB Red Magic branding is gone and is replaced with silver, which offers better thermal conductivity. In addition, there are also liquid cooling tubes, high thermal conductivity copper foil, thermal gel, multilayer heat dissipation graphite, and L-shaped liquid cooling tubes

The rest of the hardware remains pretty much the same. You have a 6.65-inch Full-HD+ AMOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate, 240Hz touch sampling rate, and 100% DCI-P3 color gamut support. The triple rear camera has a 64MP Sony IMX686 primary camera, along with an 8MP ultra-wide sensor, and a 2MP macro sensor.

There’s also a 4,500mAh battery with 55W NeoCharge fast-charging tech onboard. It also supports pogo pins on the left edge to dock accessories, dual-mode 5G, Wi-Fi 6, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and more. It runs Android 10-based Red Magic OS out-of-the-box.

ZTE nubia Red Magic 5S Specifications

Network Properties

• 2G bands: GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 – SIM 1 & SIM 2
• CDMA 800 & TD-SCDMA
• 3G bands: HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
• CDMA2000 1xEV-DO
• 4G bands: LTE (unspecified)
• 5G bands: SA/NSA
• Speed: HSPA 42.2/5.76 Mbps, LTE-A, 5G 7.5 Gbps DL

Launch

• Announced: 2020, July 28
• Status: Exp. release 2020, August 01

Design

• Dimensions: 168.6 x 78 x 9.8 mm (6.64 x 3.07 x 0.39 in)
• Weight: 218 g (7.69 oz)
• Build: Glass front (Gorilla Glass), glass back, aluminum frame
• Colors: Silver, Blue/Red
• SIM: Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)
• RGB light panel (on the back)
• Pressure sensitive zones (300Hz touch-sensing)
• Built-in cooling fan

Display

• Type: AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
• Size: 6.65 inches, 108.6 cm2 (~82.5% screen-to-body ratio)
• Resolution: 1080 x 2340 pixels, 19.5:9 ratio (~388 ppi density)
• Protection: Corning Gorilla Glass
• 144Hz refresh rate

Operating System

• Android 10, Redmagic 3.0

Hardware

• Chipset: Qualcomm SM8250 Snapdragon 865 (7 nm+)
• CPU: Octa-core (1×2.84 GHz Kryo 585 & 3×2.42 GHz Kryo 585 & 4×1.8 GHz Kryo 585)
• GPU: Adreno 650
• Storage: 128GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 12GB RAM, 256GB 16GB RAM
• Memory Card slot: No
• UFS 3.1

Cameras

• Main Camera: Triple
  • 64 MP, f/1.8, 26mm (wide), 1/1.72″, 0.8µm, PDAF
  • 8 MP, f/2.0, 13mm (ultrawide), 1.12µm
  • 2 MP, (macro)
• Features: LED flash, HDR, panorama
• Video: 8K@15fps, 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/120/240fps
• Selfie Camera: Single – 8 MP, f/2.0, (wide), 1.12µm
• Features: HDR
• Video: 1080p@30fps

Multimedia

• Radio: No
• Loudspeaker: Yes, with stereo speakers
• Audio 3.5mm jack: Yes
• 32-bit/384kHz audio

Connectivity

• WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot
• Bluetooth: 5.1, A2DP, aptX, LE
• GPS: Yes, with dual-band A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS, GALILEO
• NFC: Yes
• USB: 3.0, Type-C 1.0 reversible connector, USB On-The-Go; accessory connector

Features

• Sensors: Fingerprint (under display, optical), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass

Battery

• Battery Type & Capacity: Non-removable Li-Po 4500 mAh battery
• Charging: Fast charging 55W, 56% in 15 min, 100% in 40 min (advertised)

Models: NX659J

ZTE nubia Red Magic 5S Price and Availability

The nubia Red Magic 5S will be available in a dual-tone blue and red colorway as well as silver.

• 8GB + 128GB version goes for CNY 3,799 ($542)
• 12GB + 256GB version goes for CNY 4,399 ($628)
• 16GB + 256GB version goes for CNY 4,999 ($715)

It will go on sale from August 1 in China while global availability will follow in September.