The Nubia Red Magic 3 Review: A 90Hz Gaming Phone With Active Cooling

Camera - Low Light Evaluation

We’ve had the Reno 10x in camera comparisons in previous articles, but as mentioned in the introduction of the device, Oppo was able to update its software over the last few months. The one area where there has been significant advancements in is in terms of low-light photograph and an apparent new night mode.

Previously, the original Night mode on the Reno was a dedicated mode one had to select to use. In newer firmware updates, the Reno now will automatically select a new kind of night mode in lower light conditions, and this is characterised by the camera app doing three quick shutter animations and sounds. We’ll see how this has changed, and how the new mode compares against the competition.

[ Red Magic 3 ] - [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ Xperia 1 ] - [ P30 Pro ] - [ Mi9 ] 
[ G8 ] - [ Reno 10x ] -  [ BlackShark 2 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]

In the first shot, we see the RM3 perform significantly better than the Mi9 or BS2. The phone is able to capture a lot more light than aforementioned competitors and is able to do this without major issues in terms of detail loss. It’s certainly not competitive against other phones with OIS and better camera sensors, but it’s able to hold on its own and produces an at least useable shot.

[ Red Magic 3 ] - [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ Xperia 1 ] - [ P30 Pro ] - [ Mi9 ]
[ G8 ] - [ Reno 10x ] -  [ BlackShark 2 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]

We generally see the same results in the next scene. The RM3 doesn’t do well with the very fine details such as the road texture, but larger details still remain discernible, unlike the fuzzy mess on the Xiaomi phones.

[ Red Magic 3 ] - [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ Xperia 1 ] - [ P30 Pro ] - [ Mi9 ] 
[ G8 ] - [ Reno 10x ] [ BlackShark 2 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]

The RM3 here does again a quite surprisingly passable job of capturing the scene, it doesn’t do too well in terms of textures but man does it absolutely destroy the Mi9 and BS2 in an apples-to-apples comparison between the same hardware configurations.

[ Red Magic 3 ] - [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ Xperia 1 ] - [ P30 Pro ] - [ Mi9 ] 
[ G8 ] - [ Reno 10x ] -  [ BlackShark 2 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]

Going lower in light, we’re starting to hit the limits of the sensor and without any dedicated computational photography night mode, the phone isn’t able to produce useable pictures anymore.

[ Red Magic 3 ] - [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ Xperia 1 ] - [ P30 Pro ] - [ Mi9 ]
[ G8 ] - [ Reno 10x ] [ BlackShark 2 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]

In this dimly lit indoor shot, the phone’s barely able to pick up much of the scene.

Low-light Conclusion - Passably Bad

The bar were low for the RM3’s low-light performance as I didn’t have any expectations after having reviewed other phones with the same sensor and a lack of OIS. Surprisingly enough, it was able to massively outperform the Xiaomi phones in low-light even though they all share almost identical hardware, pointing out just how important software algorithms are.

While the RM3 does produce passable pictures in all but the most extreme low-light pictures, it’s still overall quite behind other flagship devices which employ OIS, better sensors, or have computational photography magic backing them up.