I’ve tested enough so‑called “gaming phones” to know when the marketing pitch doesn’t match the grind of real use. A week of living with the Red Magic 5S drove that home again: this thing absolutely flies in games, yet somehow still manages to stumble on fundamentals that should be solved problems in 2020.
It’s a phone that chases 144Hz bragging rights while making you babysit battery settings and hunt for a proper charger.
Display: A 144Hz OLED That Deserves Better Support
Let’s start with the best part: the screen. The Red Magic 5S uses a 6.65-inch AMOLED at FHD+ (1080 x 2340) with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio and, crucially, a 144Hz refresh rate plus 240Hz touch sampling.
Nubia sticks with thicker top and bottom bezels instead of punch holes or notches, and for gaming that’s the right call. You get a cleaner view and a more secure grip without accidental touches. For a device that sells itself on shooters and racers, this is the kind of practical design choice more OEMs should copy.
Color accuracy hasn’t changed from the 5G model: average dE2000 sits at 5.4 in default mode and 4.6 in Natural mode. Not colorist-grade, but more than fine for media and games.
Brightness is where the 5S story gets messy. The review unit, running pre‑production software, topped out at around 480 nits in manual mode and failed to reach the advertised 600 nits in auto. The older Red Magic 5G hit 685 nits in testing, so this looks more like a software issue than a panel downgrade, but it still means the 5S unit underperformed outdoors.
The bigger structural problem isn’t the panel itself, it’s how Nubia drives it.
144Hz All The Time: Fast and Wasteful
On most modern high-refresh Android phones, 90/120Hz is “smart” — the system drops to lower refresh rates for static screens or video to save power. Nubia’s approach on the 5S is blunt: pick 60, 90, or 144Hz in settings and the phone just stays there.
Tests with the default video player, Netflix, YouTube, Chrome, and general navigation all showed the same thing: if you set 144Hz, the display is locked at 144Hz. There’s no proper adaptive behavior tied to content.
That’s great if you’re chasing benchmarks, less great if you care about battery life. Nubia itself basically admits 90Hz is the sweet spot, and the battery tests back that up: 144Hz significantly drags endurance down, despite the 4,500 mAh cell. Drop to 60Hz and things improve a lot, but then you’ve effectively bought a 144Hz phone you’re encouraged not to run at 144Hz.
Nubia’s own “neo AI” blurb even claims the phone can adjust screen refresh rate based on app type — down to 60Hz for static/video, up to 144Hz for games. In practice, that logic doesn’t apply system-wide. You get manual refresh rate presets, and if you’re not willing to micromanage them, you pay in battery.
Battery and Charging: Capacity Fine, Decisions Not
The Red Magic 5S sticks with a 4,500 mAh battery, already a downgrade from the older Red Magic 3 series with 5,000 mAh. Nubia’s justification is thinner, lighter hardware and more room for cooling. Fair argument for a gaming phone, but then you need smart power management to compensate. You don’t get that here.
Run it at 144Hz and the endurance is underwhelming. Switch to 90Hz and you finally get that balance between smoothness and survivability. At 60Hz, you’re in decent territory, but again, that defeats the point of paying for 144Hz in the first place.
Charging is another split personality story. Outside China, the phone ships with an 18W charger that takes the battery from 0 to only 33% in 30 minutes. That’s mid‑range at best and flat-out lazy for a gaming phone.
The China-bundled 55W “Neo Charge” brick is what the hardware actually deserves. In testing, it pushed the phone from 0 to 87% in 30 minutes and hit 100% in 39 minutes. That’s legitimately impressive and faster than key rivals in the same tests:
- Red Magic 5S (55W): 87% in 30 minutes, 0–100% in 0:39h
- Asus ROG Phone 3: 43% in 30 minutes, 0–100% in 1:50h
- Red Magic 3s: 35% in 30 minutes
The problem is simple: if you’re not in China, that experience costs extra. For a device marketed around performance, forcing users to pay again to unlock the charging specs you brag about is a bad look.
The internal cooling fan can be used during charging to keep thermals in check and prevent throttling, but with the basic 18W brick the benefit is basically theoretical.
Audio, Cooling, and Gaming Features: Where It Actually Shines
On the gaming fundamentals, the 5S does its homework. You get stereo speakers, with the earpiece handling the left channel. They’re among the loudest measured so far, even beating the ROG Phone 3 on loudness. The ROG wins on clarity, but the Red Magic 5S counters with a fuller, slightly bass‑heavier sound.
Inside, Nubia leans hard into cooling. There’s a copper heat pipe tied to the SoC, a dedicated cooling fan with intake on one frame side and exhaust on the other, plus multi-layer graphite, thermal gel, and an aluminum plate between the back glass and the motherboard to spread heat.
In sustained CPU torture tests, the Red Magic 5S kept performance to about 93% of peak after nearly an hour with the fan and Game Enhancement toggles on. That’s what you actually want in a gaming phone: not just high peak scores, but the ability to hold them.
Real-world gaming confirms it. The Snapdragon 865 (still the same non‑Plus chip from the Red Magic 5G) with Adreno 650 GPU, up to 16GB LPDDR5 RAM, and up to 256GB UFS 3.1 storage has no trouble chewing through Google Play’s catalog.
The bigger issue is software ecosystem, not silicon. There just aren’t that many Android titles that cross 60fps, let alone 120 or 144. Nubia’s own tests highlighted:
- 144Hz: Dead Trigger 2, Bullet Force, Into the Dead
- 120Hz: Real Racing 3, Sky Force Reloaded
- 60Hz caps: Call of Duty Mobile, PUBG Mobile in most modes
Frame stability was excellent across the board, and reports from GameBench show the 5S sustaining even 90fps in the Chinese PUBG Mobile build — a first in their testing.
The shoulder triggers are another genuinely valuable addition. Map aim and shoot to the triggers and you free up your thumbs for movement and camera control, with better accuracy and quicker reaction times. You also get haptic feedback and adjustable actuation pressure so the triggers don’t fire accidentally.
Game Space 2.1 ties everything together. Flip the hardware switch and you get a dedicated launcher with:
- Fan and 144Hz toggles
- Call blocking and quick screenshot tools
- Per‑game shoulder trigger mapping via on‑screen overlay
- Macro/combination execution buttons for games that need repeated input
- CPU/GPU boost controls and stats on your playtime
It’s one of the more complete gaming modes in the Android space — when the translations don’t get in the way.
Software: Stock-ish, Fast, and Still Rough Around the Edges
Redmagic 3.0 UI on top of Android 10 doesn’t try to completely reskin Android. The quick settings feel close to stock, aside from some green highlights, and the settings app adds colorful icons for easier scanning. Animations are a bit faster than on the older 5G, and general navigation feels snappier.
The battery menu finally lets you show percentage again, which shouldn’t be “news” in 2020 but here we are. There’s a flexible Always-on display with different clock styles, graphics, and even short clips or GIFs. Navigation options cover Android 10 gestures, a swipe-up scheme, or traditional software buttons.
On paper, there’s a lot of clever behavior in the “neo AI” section: it claims to
- Adjust refresh rate based on app type (60Hz for static/video, 144Hz for games)
- Learn which games you play most and pre‑optimize loading
- Clean up memory at night
- Freeze rarely used apps to save power
The problem: this doesn’t line up with what testers actually saw. The display stuck to whatever fixed refresh rate was set, instead of dynamically shifting for video or static content. Either the implementation is incomplete, tied only to specific scenarios, or the UI explanation is overselling the current behavior.
Translations can also be awkward or confusing in places, and some features feel half‑baked. The “Small Window” mode, for instance, is supposed to scale apps into floating windows, which would be great mid‑game. In reality, most system and Google apps simply failed to work with it.
The in‑display fingerprint reader, on the other hand, has been meaningfully tuned. It’s not the fastest in the industry, but reliability is considerably better than before. The sensor lights up the target area as soon as you move the phone, and you can combine it with double‑tap‑to‑wake or raise‑to‑wake for smoother unlocks. Crucially, you can also just place your finger on the right spot to wake and unlock — something not all optical readers support.
Accessories and Cooling Extras: Ice Dock Misses the Point
Nubia also pushes an external “Ice Dock” cooler as a way to push sustained performance even harder. In stress tests with the dock, the software didn’t detect any thermal throttling at all, and the back of the phone near the chipset stayed noticeably cooler.
The problem is execution. You can’t run the Ice Dock without plugging it into a charger. The dock’s USB‑C bridge cable is short enough that it forces you to clamp the cooler around the battery area, not directly over the SoC region near the camera — which is exactly where you want the heat pulled from.
The clip design means the dock will always cover either the power button or the volume rocker depending on placement. And because the dock is flat while the phone’s back is curved, contact between the two surfaces is sub‑optimal, again limiting cooling efficiency.
The good news: the dock works with other phones, so if you’re desperate to tame a hot device, you might get some value. The bad news: on the phone it was supposedly built for, it feels like a first‑gen accessory that needs a redesign.
Performance: 865 Instead of 865+, But Does It Matter?
When this device landed, most late‑2020 flagships were already shipping Snapdragon 865+. Nubia stuck with the regular Snapdragon 865. On paper, that’s a miss in a spec war. In practice, the differences are small, and the benchmarks reflect that.
The 7nm+ Snapdragon 865 uses an octa‑core CPU with:
- 1x Kryo 585 at 2.84GHz
- 3x Kryo 585 at 2.42GHz
- 4x Kryo 585 at 1.8GHz
Combined with Adreno 650, the Red Magic 5S hangs right with other 2020 flagships:
- GeekBench 5 multi-core: 3386 (slightly above OnePlus 8 Pro and ROG Phone 3)
- GeekBench 5 single-core: 927 (just behind ROG Phone 3 at 975)
- AnTuTu 8: 557,210 (behind ROG Phone 3 and OnePlus 8 Pro, ahead of Galaxy S20+ and P40 Pro)
- 3DMark SSE OpenGL 1440p: 7,545 (very close to ROG Phone 3)
- 3DMark SSE Vulkan 1440p: 6,678 (ahead of many rivals)
GPU tests like GFXBench 3.1 Car Scene hit 48fps, matching ROG Phone 3 on‑screen and outpacing most other competitors.
So yes, on a spec sheet the missing “+” looks like a cut. In real use, this is still top-tier in both burst and sustained loads. If anything holds the phone back, it’s software ecosystem and battery tuning, not raw silicon.
Competition and Missed Opportunities
When the original Red Magic 5G launched, the value argument was strong: true 144Hz OLED, aggressive pricing, and serious gaming hardware at a time when rivals were either more expensive or less capable.
By the time the 5S showed up about five months later, the field had moved. Asus dropped the ROG Phone 3 with its own 144Hz OLED, Snapdragon 865+, bigger battery, more adaptive refresh behavior, and a deeper accessory ecosystem. Lenovo’s Legion Duel followed with 144Hz AMOLED, Snapdragon 865+, a 5,000 mAh battery, and up to 90W charging.
On the non‑camera front, Asus broadly outruns Nubia on polish and ecosystem, while Lenovo (judging from its Chinese pricing) threatens from the same price band with stronger charging and battery hardware.
Black Shark 3 Pro hovers around the same price bracket as the Red Magic 5S (around €600 vs the 5S’ €579 starting point, depending on region) and trades blows differently:
- Black Shark 3 Pro: larger 7.1-inch display, higher resolution, larger battery, faster charging out of the box, likely better cameras
- Red Magic 5S: 144Hz OLED vs 90Hz, strong price/performance, great speakers, shoulder triggers, and sustained performance
The most awkward part is that Nubia didn’t use the 5S refresh to fix the obvious issues from the 5G. Camera quality is still described as unreliable, software translations still feel unfinished, adaptive refresh still isn’t really adaptive, and the global package still omits the fast charger.
So you’re left with a phone that delivers hard on gaming but ignores a lot of the lifestyle and usability gaps that matter once you lock the screen.
Verdict: Great Gamer, Flawed Daily Driver
The Red Magic 5S nails several things enthusiasts actually care about:
- One of the best 144Hz gaming OLEDs available
- Loud, satisfying stereo speakers
- Excellent sustained Snapdragon 865 performance
- Useful shoulder triggers and a well-realized Game Space 2.1
- Serious internal cooling and an attractive price/performance ratio
But the trade‑offs are non‑trivial:
- Not enough Android games to truly exploit 144Hz
- Disappointing battery life at 144Hz, with no real adaptive mode
- Underwhelming out‑of‑box charging outside China (18W only)
- Camera performance still behind rivals
- Software polish and translations that remain inconsistent
For a strictly gaming-focused buyer on a tight budget, the 5S still has a case: you’re getting high-refresh hardware, serious performance, and strong audio for less money than trendier gaming phones.
For everyone else — especially if you care about cameras, battery, or long-term software quality — this feels like a mid-cycle tweak that didn’t fix the right problems.
If you’re tempted, the smartest move is to wait and compare with what Lenovo’s Legion Duel does in your market, and weigh whether Asus’ ROG Phone 3 is worth the extra cash where it’s sold.
Stay tuned to IntoDroid for more Android updates.