A new gaming smartphone hits the market: the ZTE Nubia Red Magic is here

Although most of today's mid-range smartphones can handle virtually any mobile game pretty well — and we are not even talking about flagships — there seem to be more than just raw power that mobile gaming requires. Although there is not much that the Razer Phone delivers in terms of design, the recently released Xiaomi Black Shark and the brand-new ZTE Nubia Red Magic definitely got some looks to go with their gaming-focused specs and features.

The ZTE Nubia Red Magic does not feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 top-of-the-line chipset, as it uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 instead. However, there is no cost-cutting in the memory/storage department: this handset features 8 GB of memory and 128 GB UFS 2.1 internal storage. Moving on, there is a 6-inch display with 2,160 x 1,080 pixels and decent cameras on both sides, although there is no dual camera setup to talk about. The 8 MP selfie snapper is paired with a rear-facing shooter with a 24 MP sensor and an f/1.7 aperture.

Leaving the specs bove aside, these are the attributes that make the ZTE Nubia Red Magic stand out: 

• "industry-first" RGB strip on the back with support for 16 million colors and four different lighting effects
• "all-new air convection cooling system"
• dedicated game button 
• Android 8.1 Oreo with various Nubia Red Magic OS tweaks

The ZTE Nubia Red Magic is powered by a 3,800 mAh battery that promises to deliver up to 7 hours of Arena of Valor gameplay. 

This handset for gamers should be available worldwide starting April 26 via Indiegogo for US$399, but given the recent troubles that ZTE has been going through, it might not reach key Western markets at all. In the meantime, Chinese mobile gamers will be able to grab the ZTE Nubia Red Magic starting April 25 for around US$398 in a 6 GB RAM/64 GB storage setup and around US$477 for the 8 GB RAM/128 GB storage configuration.