Both the Xiaomi Black Shark 2 and the Red Magic 3 gaming smartphones run on the Snapdragon 855 SoC.
The Red Magic has a bigger battery and Black Shark has two rear cameras.
Black Shark starts from Rs 39,999, and the Red Magic starts at Rs 35,999.
With the rise of mobile gaming, India is now becoming the new war zone for OEMs battling it out to grab the players and get them interested in dedicated gaming smartphones. Xiaomi-backed Black Shark 2 recently launched in the country, and now, so has Nubia's Red Magic 3. The Black Shark 2 starts at a price of Rs 39,999 and is already available for purchase via Flipkart. Nubia Red Magic 3, on the other hand, costs a minimum of Rs 35,999 and will be available starting June 27 on Flipkart. As always, Digit is here to help you quickly go through the specs of these phones and see how the two new Chinese gaming smartphones stack up against each other on paper.
Display and Design
The Black Shark 2 features a 6.39-inch AMOLED display with 1080 x 2340 pixel resolution and 19.5:9 aspect ratio. The display has 60Hz refresh rate and the phone is equipped with an in-display fingerprint sensor. In comparison, the Nubia Red Magic 3 comes equipped with a 6.65-inch FHD+ HDR AMOLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate. The phone’s display sports a 19.5:9 aspect ratio and comes with HDR support. There is a hexagon-shaped rear-mounted fingerprint sensor.
Performance
Both the phones are powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 mobile platform, and feature different cooling techniques under the hood. The Black Shark 2 features Liquid Cooling 3, which is claimed to be the world’s first “direct touch multilayer liquid cooling system”. It is touted to lower the CPU’s temperature by up to 14-degrees during intense gaming sessions. The Red Magic 3 is also equipped with liquid cooling tech as well as an active fan cooling system that is said to consume really low power (about one percent) when running continuously for an hour. The fan’s speed is also adjustable and is touted to reach a max speed of 14000 rpm.
Memory and Storage
In India, the Black Shark 2 comes in two variants: The 6GB RAM + 128GB storage variant and the 12GB RAM + 256GB storage model. There is no 8GB variant. In comparison, the Red Magic 3 comes with a minimum of 8GB RAM and 128GB storage. It's top variant features 12GB RAM and 256GB storage.
Camera
In terms of optics, the Black Shark 2 features a dual-rear camera setup. It consists of a 48MP Quad Bayer sensor with 0.8µm pixels and a lens with f/1.75 aperture. The secondary camera sports 2x telephoto lens and a 12MP sensor with 1.0µm pixels. The camera is capable of shooting 2160p videos at 30fps, 1080p videos at 30fps and 720p videos at 120fps. The Red Magic 3, however, lags behind with just a single 48MP rear-camera that utilises the Sony IMX586 sensor. It is paired with an f/1.7 aperture lens and the sensor has a pixel pitch of 0.8μm. It is capable of shooting 4320p videos at 15fps and 2160p videos at 30/60fps. On the front, the Black Shark 2 ships with a 20MP sensor with 0.9µm pixels and a lens with f/2.0 aperture. In comparison, the Nubia Red Magic 3 a 16MP shooter with f/2.0 lens.
Battery and other features
The Black Shark 2 sports a 4,000 mAh battery, which comes with 27W fast charging support. It also has stereo front-facing speakers with DTS:X sound support and is said to feature 3D sound technology as well. It also gets additional features like a “Ludicrous Mode” that is said to enable one to play games by utilising 100 percent of the CPU.
Further, its display sports a pressure-sensitive system that enables gamers to map the buttons located on the flanking corners of the screen. When one presses down on these buttons or the part of the screen harder than usual, they can trigger these actions. The company claims that the phone’s display has been optimised for gaming and is capable of delivering reduced screen flicker at low brightness, improved colour accuracy and low touch latency of 43.5ms.
The Nubia Red Magic 3 is backed by a 5000mAh battery that supports 27W fast charging. Further, it comes equipped with a software dashboard called “Red Magic Game Space 2.0”, which enables shortcuts to quick-launch games and tweaks the fan speed. It is also equipped with two touch-enabled shoulder trigger buttons. These can be customised and mapped as per user's requirements.
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Sourabh Kulesh
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