This story was originally published 2020/08/29
6:00am PDTon Aug 29, 2020 and last updated 2020/09/11
6:59am PDTon Sep 11, 2020. 

• Update
  Two weeks later

Gaming phones are a newer niche for Android devices, and Nubia is one of the companies running headlong into this fledgling field. This past May, we took a look at the Red Magic 5, and we did not come away impressed thanks to numerous bugs and compromises. Now that the Red Magic 5S is here, and we can say for certain that features like internal cooling and a high refresh rate come at a cost: the Red Magic 5S is good for gaming but not much else.

The Red Magic 5 isn't a complete wash—its gaming-centric features and performance help to even out the device's lack of polish.