The RedMagic 7 Pro Is a Gaming Powerhouse

In 2022, it’s easy for phones to be the center of your world. Features are embedded into your everyday life—from snapping key moments to catching up with friends to finding that next cool restaurant. But for mobile gamers, priorities (such as a display with a high refresh rate) are different. The Nubia RedMagic 7 Pro is a phone that is firmly focused on delivering for fans of handheld Android gaming. The result is plenty of benefits for gamers along with consequential drawbacks. And, interestingly, there are some wild-card positives that all can value.

First, this phone firmly delivers on its gaming hype. With a 120-Hz display and 960-Hz multitouch sampling rate, playing games on this phone is accompanied by smooth viewing and unhindered touch interactions. Power fanatics may be disappointed that this machine has opted for a lower refresh rate than on the previous model, which featured a 165-Hz panel, but rates beyond 120-Hz are rarely fully utilized.

First-person shooter fans will see the RedMagic 7 Pro soar, with COD Mobile comfortably sitting at 120 frames per second on max settings while barely getting warm to the touch. The onboard cooling system is the star here, including a pleasingly subtle fan. It's activated by toggling a red switch on the side of the phone. This switch will also take you into Nubia’s Game Space, where you can see your downloaded titles all in one place. In a more demanding title like Genshin Impact, you’ll hit its maximum 60 fps on this device in high settings, and it’ll run with nary a stutter. In our testing it did verge on uncomfortably warm after more than 15 to 20 minutes of play, even with the fan going, but performance didn’t waver.

Outside of this device’s bread and butter—exceptional mobile gaming performance—there are a number of other player-friendly additions. Most prominent are the capacitive shoulder buttons. While a physical click would provide a more satisfying interaction, moving parts just aren’t that practical on a phone. As such, touch with a pleasing level of vibration is a fair goal for gaming mobile devices to shoot for, and the RedMagic 7 Pro nails it. The two customizable buttons allow you to upgrade from onscreen controls to something more natural and traditional. These are really simple to set up through Nubia’s Game Space app, accessed by swiping from the left during games.