ZTE Nubia Red Magic Air

The ZTE Nubia Red Magic Air has a non-folding, standard-form design measuring 163.8 mm tall, 76.5 mm wide, and just 8 mm thick, with a total volume of 100.2456 cm³ and a weight of 207 g. It carries an IP54 rating, meaning it offers resistance against dust and water splashes, though it is not built to a rugged standard. The waterproof depth rating is listed at 1.5 m, rounding out a build that balances a slim profile with a modest level of environmental protection.

The ZTE Nubia Red Magic Air uses an OLED/AMOLED touchscreen measuring 6.85″ with a resolution of 1216 x 2688 px and a pixel density of 431 ppi. The panel runs at a 144Hz refresh rate and a 360Hz touch sampling rate, and it supports an Always-On Display mode. Screen protection is provided by Gorilla Glass Victus 2, while there is no secondary screen present. The display does not support HDR10, HDR10+, or Dolby Vision.

The ZTE Nubia Red Magic Air is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite, a 3 nm chipset with an 8-thread CPU configured as 2 cores at 4.32 GHz and 6 cores at 3.53 GHz, using big.LITTLE architecture with HMP and a TDP of 8.2W. The chip integrates LTE, TrustZone security, and an Adreno 830 GPU clocked at 1100 MHz with 1536 shading units, DirectX 12, OpenGL 3.2, OpenGL ES 3.2, and OpenCL 3 support across up to 2 displays. Memory consists of 16GB of DDR5 RAM running at 5300 MHz across 2 channels, with a maximum supported capacity of 24GB, a peak bandwidth of 85.1 GB/s, and ECC support, complemented by L1, L2, and L3 caches of 192 KB, 12 MB, and 8 MB respectively. Internal storage stands at 512GB, and the platform is fully 64-bit with multithreading enabled. Geekbench 6 scores are recorded at 3234 single-core and 10059 multi-core.

The rear camera system on the ZTE Nubia Red Magic Air uses a dual-lens setup with a 50 MP main sensor at f/2.2 and an 8 MP secondary lens at f/1.9, both on a CMOS sensor without back-illumination, and supported by optical image stabilization. Autofocus options include phase-detection and touch autofocus for stills as well as continuous autofocus during video recording, though laser autofocus is absent. Video recording reaches up to 4320p at 30 fps, with slow-motion capture also available, while HDR10 and Dolby Vision recording are not supported. Manual controls cover exposure, ISO, focus, and white balance, but manual shutter speed is not available; additional shooting modes include burst, panorama, and timelapse. Flash is handled by a single LED unit with no dual-tone or RGB configuration, and there is no front-facing flash. The 16 MP front camera sits at f/2.0, operates as a single lens, and is not positioned under the display; 3D capture and 360-degree panorama are not part of the camera feature set.

The ZTE Nubia Red Magic Air runs Android 16, a free and open-source platform that supports multi-user operation, on-device machine learning, offline voice recognition, and voice commands. Privacy controls are fairly broad, covering clipboard warnings, location privacy, and camera/microphone access management, along with the ability to block app tracking; however, Mail Privacy Protection, cross-site tracking blocking, and Wi-Fi password sharing are not available. Customization options include theme customization, dynamic theming, dark mode, and an extra dim mode, while notification handling is supported through both notification permissions and customizable notification settings. The OS accommodates a range of practical features such as split-screen multitasking, Picture-in-Picture, a media picker, full-page screenshots, Live Text, widgets, app offloading, child lock, sharing intents, battery health check, and the ability to play games while they are still downloading. Focus modes and Quick Start are not present, and the device does not support being used as a PC or receive direct OS updates from the vendor.

The ZTE Nubia Red Magic Air houses a 7000 mAh rechargeable, non-removable battery with a built-in level indicator. It supports fast wired charging at 80W as well as wireless charging at the same 80W speed, though reverse wireless charging is not available.

The ZTE Nubia Red Magic Air features stereo speakers but omits a 3.5 mm headphone jack and has no built-in radio. On the wireless audio side, none of the aptX codec variants — aptX, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, or aptX Lossless — are supported.

The ZTE Nubia Red Magic Air supports 5G cellular connectivity with download speeds of up to 10000 MBits/s and upload speeds of up to 3500 MBits/s, and accommodates two SIM cards. Wi-Fi covers versions 4, 5, 6, and 7 (802.11n/ac/ax/be), while Bluetooth 5.4 and NFC are also on board; there is no external memory slot, no HDMI output, no DLNA certification, and no ANT+ support. The USB connection uses a Type-C port running at USB 2.0 speeds. For sensors, the device includes a fingerprint scanner, gyroscope, accelerometer, compass, GPS with Galileo support, and an infrared sensor; a barometer, heart rate monitor, and both motion and optical tracking are absent. Biometric security is limited to the fingerprint scanner, as 3D facial recognition and an iris scanner are not present, and no stylus is included. Crash detection, emergency SOS via satellite, and a built-in projector are also not part of the feature set.

The ZTE Nubia Red Magic Air includes a video light, while its display is flat rather than curved and uses neither sapphire glass nor an e-paper panel.