RedMagic 6R Review: Two numbers you need to know $449 and SD888
Purchase Price: $499.00
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The RedMagic 6R is a gaming phone that is somewhat of a departure from what gaming phones have evolved into. Aside from a few subtle accent lines on the back glass, this looks more like a business phone than a Xiaomi Blackshark to me. What really puts the 6R on the map are the internal parts in combination with the MSRP. With the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset on this phone for $449, you’re able to get the same processor power that resides inside phones that cost twice as much. While that sounds fine and dandy on paper, significant software bugs do plague the value here. Is this a flagship killer phone for 2021 or an unusable mess? The line is much closer than you think.
It almost looks normal
On the surface (the literal surface), the RedMagic 6R looks and feels like a million bucks- well at least $800. Constructed with an aluminum frame and an outdated Gorilla Glass 3, the phone is well crafted and easy on the eyes. The edges of the back glass are slightly curved to wrap into the grooves of your palm for a better grip. It’s a little bit slippery like most glass phones are, but I’d attribute the width as my main source for gripping difficulties. I have this navy blue color Nubia calls Cosmos Black. Clearly, blue is the new black, because I see no resemblance to black here. I do like the slight two-toned color, distinguished with a diagonally patterned striped layout on the rear side where only a darker shaded camera window splits the layout. The RedMagic logo and tramp stamp are actually implemented tastefully and not an eyesore to the design. While I’m not usually a fan of these, there’s an in-display fingerprint scanner that grew on me over time thanks to its solid reliability. I appreciate the aesthetic design Nubia went with all around on the hardware here. It’s a stark contrast to previous generations of phones like the Mars, 3-series and even the 6. This is without a doubt the most normal looking phone ever manufactured under the RedMagic label.
Product Specs +
- 6.67 inch 1080x2400p Amoled display (395 ppi)
- 144 Hz Refresh Rate
- 20:9 Aspect Ratio
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G processor
- 8 GB ram/ 128 GB storage
- 4,200 mAh battery
- Android 11
Camera Specs +
Rear Cameras
- 64 MP, f/1.8, 26mm (wide), 1/1.73", 0.8µm, PDAF
- 8 MP, f/2.0, 120˚, 13mm (ultrawide), 1/4.0", 1.12µm
- 5 MP, f/2.4, (macro)
- 2 MP, f/2.4, (depth)
- 8k @30fps Video Recording
Selfie Cameras
- 16 MP front camera
Punching like a champ
This is also one of the fastest RedMagic out there thanks to the Snapdragon 888, 8 GB of Ram and 128 GB of storage. Combine that with Android 11 skinned with Red Magic OS v 4.0 and at least on paper we’re competitive with the best of the best out there in 2021. Real life performance lives up to the spec sheet hype as the RedMagic 6R doesn’t struggle with any heavy lifting. As this is tuned for gaming (as all RedMagic phones are), the playing experience is elite. I haven’t come across any mobile game where the 6R struggled with quick load times or performance restrictions. I also haven’t felt any warmth on my fingertips after playing on the phone for long periods of time. Nubia says they used a vapor chamber liquid-cooling system to assist with maintaining the heat control. I’ll be honest and tell you guys that I had to google what that meant. Whatever the case, I’ve had multiple 60+ minute gaming sessions without feeling any heating discomfort on the rear glass. Preventing overheating really is a huge benefit of these gaming phones when pitted against traditional phones. The last few phones I’ve reviewed that were non-gaming phones felt uncomfortable to hold after short gaming sessions.
Further attributing to a good gaming experience is the 20:9 aspect ratio, 6.67 inch, 1080 x 2400 p Amoled display. We’re hitting almost 400 ppi (395) so this is quite a sharp viewing experience for a phone under $500. Viewing angles are solid and the colors are respectively replicated here. Reds and other vibrant colors don’t really pop off the display, but they’re truthful to their real life tone to be a good viewing experience. It’s a good display, but nothing mind blowing. However, gravy points were obtained for this display thanks to the high refresh rate. The 6R can hit up to a 144 Hz refresh rate to really punch in that smooth transitional feel. You can really see it pay off on games that support 144 Hz (which isn’t a lot). As far as I know, there’s only a handful of phones out there that go as high as 144 Hz refresh rate. I think it’ll be awhile before all game developers support that number on their mobile apps.
Shooting for the leaderboards
Speaking of games that support the higher refresh rate, first person shooter games benefit from the higher refresh rate, as do they benefit from utilizing the two should trigger buttons. If you’ve used any gaming phone before, this isn’t new information at all. A left and right shoulder trigger perform with a 400 Hz touch sampling and 8.3 ms latency. You can program the two capacitive buttons anywhere on the screen through the proprietary Game Space program. I don’t utilize the triggers for a majority of the games I play as they’re quite touch oriented in too many different positions. While the buttons can be used creatively to be utilized in all games, they’re best combined with racing games and shooting games. I don’t really have much to say about the triggers or the RedMagic Game Space, which is a gaming enhancement menu that you can pull out to adjust settings. We’ve seen these gaming modes so frequently now from just about every brand that there isn’t much that stands out.
Supporting all of these positive things on the 6R is a gigantic 4200 mAh battery that lasts far and beyond what an average user can squeeze out in a full day. A gaming phone requires not only longevity but also efficiency, which we have here, as I averaged 5+ hours of screen on time between 14-16 hours everyday. Those are excellent numbers that I’m more than happy to live with. This helped alleviate some of the inconveniences from not having wireless charging on here. Although in my opinion, wireless charging should be a standard feature across the smartphone landscape in 2021, I do feel as though RedMagic has packed enough quality features to warrant an excuse not to have Qi charging at the $499 MSRP
At completely random times, the Red Magic 6R would lock up and restart automatically.
Probabilistic Issue
While the RedMagic 6R certainly has a lot of flagship killer DNA in it, all of that potentially gets washed away if the phone doesn’t work correctly. I’ve been encountering a very annoying issue with the phone that according to Nubia in one of their system update logs is classified as “probabilistic black screen display problem.” At completely random times, the Red Magic 6R would lock up and restart automatically. Sometimes, it would get stuck at the boot screen and cut to a dead black screen for extended periods of time. I’ve had one stuck for 5 whole minutes on a black screen in the middle of the workday. There were no trends that triggered this to happen as far as I could tell during my review period of over the span of more than a month. Nubia sent out an update that supposedly fixed the problem in early August. While the update did indeed decrease the frequency at which this issue occurred, I re-encountered it once again just before writing this review. It’s an annoying little software bug that literally hampers and anchors the usage of the device.
Shot on RedMagic 6R
Thoughts on the Camera
That issue along with the mediocre camera results, make the RedMagic 6R a bit more difficult to recommend than I originally hoped when first unboxing it. While the four camera setup isn’t horrible, they’re just not very memorable. We have the standard affair with a 64 MP f/1.8 wide lens, an 8 MP f/2.0 ultrawide, a 5 MP f/2.4 macro and a 2 MP f/2.4 sensor for depth, completing the camera team on the rear. One thing of note that not every phone has the capability to do is shoot at 8k 30 FPS which the RedMagic 6R does allow. It’s a little bit of overkill and silly to include here on this specific phone. In some ideal instances, the 6R rewards you with clear and sharp images. Even then, they aren’t the cleanest of detail we’ve ever seen, especially when framing objects with a variety of characteristics.
Focus and exposure are also weak points on this camera. When in auto-mode, the 6R pumps up the ISO more often than I would have manually done so in order to compensate for low-light situations. This of course adds grain and further removes detail from the shots. It’s a pretty bad low-light camera in regards to the operation of the AI. Landscape shots with natural lighting aren't all that much better either. Colors are a tad bit washed out and unnatural with a bit more reliance on over-processing to compensate. Although this is a gaming phone and not much is expected out of it when it comes to camera performance, there’s still plenty of room for improvement just to bring it up to an average rating.
Is it still a flagship killer?
So at the end of the day, would I recommend the RedMagic 6R to the general masses? Can this fill the shoes OnePlus abandoned years ago? The answer to that is yes. This is a phone that does a lot more good than it does bad. It gets the important stuff right and there’s a reason why they’re important. The highest end processing power available on Android, together with strong battery life, for under $500 makes this as enticing of an offer as any other flagship killer phone ever made. There’s nothing much we can do about the camera experience, but the “probabilistic black screen display problem” has already seen a software improvement. I don’t see why Nubia can’t eliminate it completely with further updates and refinement of their OS skin. Ultimately, I still believe that the value here is too good to pass up from a value per dollar perspective. You don’t need to be a gamer to appreciate good value.
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Alex
Caught in between the conundrum of his fascination with retro and the future, Alex has a very unique taste in technology. Never one to follow trends like his millennial peers yet constantly desiring to get ahead of the curve, he sees technology like he does his other love: comic books. Always looking for the best value or a hidden gem, his collector mindset reflects on some of his favorite gadgets: the Moto X (2015), HTC U11 and the Google Pixelbook. If there’s a good tech deal out there, Alex is on the hunt!