While the ZTE nubia Red Magic 3 came out in May, its
successor was just announced. The new Red Magic 3S offers more up to date specs
with the Snapdragon 855+ at the helm alongside faster storage and a liquid
cooling and fan solution. Visually, the only design difference is the reshaped
air intake grill around the back which now comes in a Y-shaped form.
Upfront, we have the same 6.65-inch FHD+ AMOLED
display with a 90Hz refresh rate and 19.5:9 aspect ratio. There’s also dual
front firing speakers and a 16MP selfie cam. Going around the back we have a
single 48MP F/1.7 Sony IMX586 sensor, an LED flash and the oddly shaped
hexagonal fingerprint reader. The phone is still capable of shooting 8K video
at 15fps.
Above the reader, we have the newly designed air
vent. Nubia boasts they managed to greatly improve the cooling solution on the
3S with a combined liquid cooling tube and fan solution. According to the
company, this new combo should result in noticeably better cooling management
and can reduce the CPU core temperature by up to 18°C. The sides of the phone
also feature the touch-sensitive shoulder triggers which can be remapped in
certain games.
The biggest change comes under the hood with the new
Snapdragon 855+ SoC paired with 8/12 GB RAM and up to 256 GB UFS 3.0 storage.
The battery capacity remains at 5,000 mAh with the same 27W fast charging
support. The software front is covered by RedMagic OS 2.1 on top of Android
Pie.
The Red Magic 3S is already up for reservations
while official sales scheduled for September 9 in China. Pricing starts at CNY
2,999 (US$ 419) for the 8/128GB version while the top spec’d model will go for CNY
3,799 (US$ 531) and packs 12GB RAM and 256GB of storage. The global launch is
scheduled for October.
