Red Magic 6 and Red Magic 6 Pro gaming smartphones unveiled with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, 165Hz AMOLED screen, 120W fast charging support, and more

Nubia has quietly launched two new gaming smartphones in China, the Tencent Red Magic 6 and Tencent Red Magic 6 Pro. It is quite obvious that Nubia has partnered with Tencent for the endeavour. Both phones come with several industry-leading specifications, which we'll explore in a bit. The Tencent Red Magic 6 costs CNY 3,799 (US$587) for the 8/128GB RAM/storage variant, while the Tencent Red Magic 6 Pro costs CNY 4,399 (US$680) for 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Nubia will launch both phones globally on March 16, 2021.

The Tencent Red Magic 6 and Red Magic 6 Pro come with the world's first-ever 6.8-inch FHD+ AMOLED screen that refreshes at 165Hz and has a peak brightness of 630 nits. That, coupled with its touch sampling rate of 500Hz and a multi-finger sampling rate of 360Hz makes it one of the most responsive smartphones on the market. Both phones can also dynamically adjust their screen refresh rates based on the applications in use. Nubia claims that the phone's response time can go as low as 6ms. The screen is fairly colour-accurate too, with 10-bit colour depth and 100% DCI-P3 gamut coverage.

Given that the Tencent Red Magic 6 and Red Magic 6 Pro are gaming smartphones, both feature Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipsets. Nubia claims that the built-in fan can hit speeds of up to 20,000 RPM on the RedMagic 6 Pro and 18,000 on the non-Pro variant. Both phones also use a vapour chamber cooler mechanism to help remove heat faster. Additional cooling can be achieved by an optional 'Ice Dock'. Nubia also claims that the LPDDR5 RAM in both phones has a maximum I/O bandwidth of 5,500Mbps (as opposed to 3,200Mbps). Similarly, its UFS 3.1 storage has a single-channel bandwidth of 11.6Gbps.

Another interesting feature of the Tencent Red Magic and Red Magic 6 Pro is what Nubia calls, 'RAM Boost memory compression technology.' It works by using some of the onboard memory as 'virtual' memory, theoretically allowing both phones to use 12GB of RAM as 18GB. The main difference between the two devices lies in their battery capacities. The RedMagic 6 employs a 5,000mAh cell that charges at 66W, while the RedMagic 6 Pro downgrades the capacity to 4,500mAh, but ups the charging speed to 120W. There are two dedicated 400Hz shoulder triggers, too.

Nubia hasn't specified the camera specifications of either device. We know that both the Red Magic 6 and Red Magic 6 Pro will come with three rear cameras. That shouldn't be much of a bother, considering that gaming smartphones are seldom bought for their camera performance. Nubia has also launched new accessories such as the RedMagic Watch, Gaming Adaptor, and the 65W GaNCharger alongside the phones.