Gaming phones with built-in cooling fans are becoming more affordable. Earlier this year we saw the launch of the RedMagic 11 Air, which comes equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, a fan and a 6.85” 144Hz display, priced at €500.
Now we’re at MWC where Nubia unveiled the Nubia Neo 5 GT, which will be available globally for a price of €400 (note that the first region to get this phone is Southeast Asia).
Nubia Neo 5 GT is the first in its category with a built-in cooling fan
Yes, the GT has a class-first built-in cooling fan. The fan is connected to a combination of a vapor chamber and graphite sheet heat spreader (29,508 mm²). But it’s what’s underneath that matters and here we have an issue.
Our eyebrows were raised when we heard about the chipset – it’s just the Dimensity 7400. It already seems underpowered for the €400 price bracket, but how much could it benefit from active cooling, anyway?
Nubia Neo 5 GT is powered by Dimensity 7400
We wouldn’t be so harsh if we couldn’t get the Snapdragon 8 Elite for just €100 more. And we can, the related RedMagic 11 Air offers exactly that. For what it’s worth, the Neo 5 GT we handled has 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM (6,400Mbps) and 512GB of storage.
The rest of the Nubia Neo 5 GT lives up to expectations – it has a 6.8″ OLED display with a 1,224 x 2,720px resolution and a 144Hz refresh rate. It has rounded corners instead of being rectangular, and the selfie camera uses a punch hole instead. Plus, it’s pretty close to the Air Display. And it has a pair of shoulder triggers (550Hz sampling rate) Is also.
Nubia Neo 5 GT has a 6.8″ 144Hz OLED display
The Neo is powered by a 6,210mAh battery, a dual-cell design that supports 80W fast charging. This is smaller than the 7,000mAh battery inside the RedMagic 11 Air, but that may be due to the chipset requiring less power. We also appreciate the flat design, as many phones tend to wobble when placed on a table.
The Nubia team has built the phone with good ingress protection – it’s IP64 for most of it except the air duct, which has an IP5X rating. No surprise here, you can’t make an air duct dust proof. Still, IPX4 splash resistance is the most relevant specification here.
Flat design with 6,210mAh battery inside
The team also did a good job of making it look like a gaming phone. There’s a little RGB lighting on the back, including a dangerous-looking eye and the GT logo. We also liked the little window that shows a chip at the bottom (even if that chip is probably just decoration).
RGB is practically a must-have on gaming devices
We still think that instead of spending money on RGB lighting, Nubia should have found a better chipset for the Neo 5 GT. Right now it looks like its cousin, the RedMagic 11 Air, will eat its lunch.