Just a month after ZTE spinoff Nubia launched a US$540 5G gaming phone with a super smooth 144Hz refresh rate, the company has returned with a new model for China that offers both of these features for US$200 less.
The new Nubia Play 5G has a 6.65-inch AMOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate, just like the Nubia Red Magic 5G. Refresh rate measures how fast a phone’s screen updates the image each second, while touch sampling rate tracks how often the touchscreen responds to your gesture. The higher the rates are, the smoother images will look on your display. If you want to wait, though, gaming phones from other brands later this year are also expected to catch up with Nubia.
To keep the price at just 2,699 yuan (US$380), the Nubia Play 5G runs on a mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G chip -- a step down from Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 865 that the Red Magic uses. Also missing is the Red Magic’s special cooling system that includes an internal fan.