Gadgetory

The Nubia Red Magic 3 is probably the coolest gaming phone we've seen so far this year from a hardware perspective. Yeah, it had the normal flashy LED lights and high refresh rate display, but this gaming smartphone has an internal active cooling system with a built in fan. This is the first time we've ever seen a fan inside a smartphone. Today we'll see what that fan looks like from the inside, and we'll analyze the blowing bits to see if it actually does anything...or if it's just for decoration. Let's get started. [Intro] There are 2 tiny t2 screws down here at the bottom of the phone, one on either side of the USB-C charging port. I'll link the toolkit I used down in the video description. There is no water resistance on the Red Magic 3, so that will make things a bit easier. No heat gun required. All I need is a thin metal pry tool that'll slip between the plastic lip of the screen and metal housing, then the back metal panel is just friction fit to the screen. Little plastic tabs holding it in place all the way down the sides in the bottom. This is why we could hear it pop out of place during the bend test. Before I can open up the phone all the way though, there is a small ribbon for the gaming port that needs to be unplugged, then another ribbon off to the left side of the phone for the rear fan and LED lights. The second ribbon is a Phillips head screw holding down a metal bracket over top of the Lego style ribbon connector. The internal fan of the Nubia Red Magic 3 is still attached to the back panel with 4 silver screws. It gets it's power and communication from 4 soldered wires. Then there is a surprising amount of adhesive holding the whole thing in place. Once the fan has popped off the back, we can see that the fan unit resides off to the side of the phone right next to the exit vent. And the center intact hole on the back is situated above a very shallow channel. The fan spins, sucks the air through that back grill down through the shallow channel, and spits it out the side vent of the phone. But what heat is it dissipating? In computers, fans are situated above the processor. Inside the Red Magic 3 it's kind of the same thing in principle. This thermal foam sits above the processor and the motherboard, then the fan channel rests on top of that thermal foam. So as the shallow channel heats up, the moving air flow through the phone cools it back down. Nubia claims the fans can cool the phone guts as much as 16 degrees under heavy load. The channel did look and feel like plastic initially, which would be dumb since plastic isn't very good at dissipating heat. But my razor blade reveals that the airflow heat dissipation channel is indeed made from metal. So quite honestly, the fan is here for a reason, and from the inside, it looks like it's actually doing it's job of cooling down the phone, and it's not just a gimmick. Thumbs up for that. The center LED light bar inside the back panel is hidden underneath a large black sticker, and kind of has the same design we saw inside of the Black Shark 2, where the LEDs are off at an angle, shining into some murky plastic as a diffuser. This explains why the lights have a more subtle glow to them. And just like in the Black Shark 2, the LEDs can't be seen very well in well-lit environments. I think if a company is going to add RGB LEDs to their phone, they should go all out with transparent plastic and none of this subtle diffused stuff. Gaming computers are flashy. Gaming cellphones should be as well. The battery connector is under this long metal plate with its two screws. Then I can unplug the battery like a little Lego. Unfortunately, this impressively large battery inside the Red Magic 3 has no magic pull tabs. And there's no easy way to remove it. The adhesive below the battery is extremely strong. This is unsafe and dangerous to anyone trying to repair to recycle their phone in the future. And like I said during the LG G8 teardown, because of this permanent battery installation, if you're trying to decide between buying this phone and another phone, choose that other phone. Permanent battery adhesive is bad. It almost ripped the protective layer off of this 5,000 milliamp hour battery as I removed it. And companies should stop doing this. This top earpiece speaker comes out of the phone next, with it's 3 screws holding it onto the motherboard. This little guy doubles as one of the dual front firing stereo speakers. There is no water resistance in this phone. Nubia has placed a white circular water damage indicator next to the headphone jack opening, so if water does come in, it'll turn that sticker pink. Three screws hold down the motherboard to the phone screen. Then I can unclip the gold charging port extension ribbon and the screen display ribbon cable, along with the black wire off to the right side. Then the whole motherboard can lift gently out of the frame, revealing an incredible amount of pink thermal paste on the back of the motherboard. It's like a completely chewed up Double Bubble back here...or a freak frosting factory explosion. Or, last one, someone dropped a cupcake in the phone and forgot to clean it up. The rear facing 48 megapixel camera does not have optical image stabilization. Let's scrape off some of this strawberry pudding and see what kind of cooling system we are working with under the square copper plate. It looks like just a standard heat pipe, but it's routed under the screen, which means we won't be able to see how long it is or where it goes. I'll come back to this in a second. Down at the bottom of the phone we have the other stereo speaker hidden below 7 screws. When that's lifted, we can see a normal smaller coin style vibrator motor soldered onto the charging port board and the black USB-C charging port, with another white water damage indicator here at the bottom. The bottom speaker has a bit of black mesh over the opening, but does indeed have a small slit, which lets the sound port out to the front of the phone. It's small, but still counts. Now, normally I would reassemble the phone at this point, but since is a gaming phone and the heat pipe is important, I think we should see what it looks like. It is hidden under the screen though, which unfortunately means...[cracking]. I do normally try to keep my phone's in working condition during these tear downs, so this is probably the last time I'll try to reveal an under screen heat pipe. Screens are so brittle and fragile, removing them is usually fatal to the display. Whether the glass cracks or the AMOLED part cracks, the outcome is usually pretty bleak. Peeling back the glass panel reveals that the AMOLED is once again not glued to the glass. This time around the AMOLED is a more brittle crispy glass style panel, and not the paperish bendy one we saw on the OnePlus 7 Pro. It does look super cool though. The heat pipe is positioned lengthwise down the body of the phone, and is about half as long as the phone itself. Not too shabby. Nubia has made a pretty awesome device. High in specs, cool hardware, and an awesome internal fan. If they manage to add pull tabs or an easy removal system to the battery, I'd be happy to recommend this to everyone. What do you think? Should I continue breaking phones open to see the heat pipe? Or are you good with just knowing it exists and then reassembling the phone in one piece. Let me know down in the comments. Hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. And come hang out with me on Instagram and Twitter. Thanks a ton for watching and I'll see you around.