nubia Red Magic 8S Pro in for review

ZTE just went global with the nubia Red Magic 8S Pro and the phone will go on sale on July 27 in North America, Europe, the UK, Singapore, and Mexico.

The key difference between the China-bound model and this one is the charging - the global nubia Red Magic 8S Pro ships with a 65W charger, instead of the 80W for the Chinese market. There's also a hard plastic shell case and a red USB cable.

The global model ships with a 65W charger

The nubia Red Magi 8S Pro stays true to the square and flat design language of the series. This is the Platinum model with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. There's also an Aurora with the same spec and a Midnight that ships in 12/256GB trim.

The phone has a lovely design and build. The sides are matte metal, while the back panel has a circular brushed aluminum pattern, achieved through 3D micro-etching. It's a very clean and distinguished look that's both unlike nubia's recent boyish efforts and un-gaming-phone-esque overall. We'd say the look is a nice change of pace.

The brushed back panel and custom RGB lights

Still, fans of the whole gaming phone aesthetic needn't worry - the nubia Red Magic 8S Pro has the stalwart RGB zones on the back panel, which can be customized in 16.8 million colors and 4096 adjustable brightness, as well as the Red Magic slider that will put the phone in gaming mode, and the adaptable shoulder triggers for enhanced gaming.

Then there are the specs. You get the aforementioned 16GB of RAM, which can be expanded a further 8GB from the memory. You also get a higher-clocked Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 with a 3.36GHz peak frequency. There's also an upgraded cooling solution, which nubia calls ICE 12. The system has been reengineered to feature a new duct structure, a cooling gel, and a bigger 2068mm3 vapor chamber cooling plate over the battery. Additionally, there's a graphene layer underneath the display.

Speaking of the display, it's a 6.8-inch 120Hz AMOLED with a 1116x2480px resolution and a 1300 nit peak brightness. Touch sampling rate is a staggering 960Hz, but that's not even the most impressive thing. Notice the apparent lack of a selfie camera. The nubia Red Magic 8S Pro ships with the latest under-display camera with a 7-layer transparent system to hide the unsightly notch.

The nubia Red Magic 8S Pro will be on sale on July 27 and there's a special early bird price until August 2 - $649/€649/£579, SGD 909, MXN 14,099 for the 8/256GB model, $779/€779/£689, SGD 1,089, MXN 17,199 for the 16/512GB Platinum model, and $779/€799/£709, SGD 1,119, MXN 17,699 for the 16/512GB Aurora model.