The Nubia Red Magic Mars is a smartphone aimed at gamers, with liquid and air cooling, shoulder buttons, an LED light strip on the back, and and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, among other features.
With a starting price of less than $400, it’s also a surprisingly affordable device. There’s just one catch:Â when the phone went on sale late last year, it was only available in China.
Now Nubia is getting ready to change that. The company has announced that the Red Magic Mars will be available in Europe and North America starting January 31st, with prices starting at $399.
The entry-level model features 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, but Nubia also offers 10GB/128GB and 10GB/256GB versions. US pricing for those variants hasn’t been announced yet.
The phone has 6 inch, 2160 x 1080 pixel IPS display, a 3,800 mAh battery, 16MP rear and 8MP front cameras, and a physical button that toggles a gaming mode meant to optimize performance while you play.
via Android Police
These specs and features are actually quite good at that price. If they can offer even basic customer service this phone will be a steal. I’m probably gonna pick one up and do a YouTube review early next month.
I know I can’t stand the sight of the unusual 2:1 aspect ratio. It’s too thin. For anyone who watches lots of videos, where the common format is 16:9… also too thin. Still wondering why manufacturers have embraced this. Is it a gaming thing? Do gamers actually prefer this aspect ratio? Because if not… it really doesn’t suit any category of user.
I always just figured that manufacturers were trying to create larger phones but compromising for people who prefer smaller phones. These people can’t be happy with the larger size anyway. So we’re still left with a reluctance acceptance of (yet) another trend that nobody has asked for.
For doing everything else but watching videos, 18:9 is generally preferred because it provides more screen space without becoming too wide to hold comfortably. Gamers are also usually happy enough with wider screens when held in landscape mode since they can see more on screen.
So, basically, aside from video, which is no worse than on a 16:9 phone, there are advantages to the new aspect ratio.
As for overall size, well, if people were clamoring for smaller phones, at least one of the major manufacturers would be falling over themselves to provide them, but the demand just doesn’t seem to be there in numbers making it worth their while.
Gamers prefer 21:9 (not 19.5:9 or 18:9) over the industry standard 16:9 because it gives you more vision laterally and that usually means extra Field of View.
It makes it feel a little more immersive, because our vision is somewhat similar. However the biggest reason is to get a Competitive Edge over others, basically seeing them and reacting before they see you.
On a pocketable device like a phone, the screen is already so small, that the extra width doesn’t matter that much. However, elongating it does cause the device to increase in size….and hence, it’s Screen to Body ratio actually increases for most media (black bars/letterboxing).
And add an unsightly notch which isn’t symmetrical… and you have a device that not only looks worse, but is larger, and functionally worse. So in my professional opinion, the upcoming SONY XZ4 is the better solution: Slim bezels, No notches, Front-firing stereo loudspeakers, and a 21:9 aspect ratio. Because at least there’s content for 21:9 ratio, not as much as 4:3, and even less than 16:9….but it’s the 3rd most popular aspect ratio and much better solution than the weird aspect ratios like 19.5:9 (eg iPhone X).
I’m guessing you meant $399 in the title. Otherwise it’s probably out of most people’s budgets.