The full review of the $500 RedMagic 6R is linked here, but this article is about hosting my camera samples taken from the phone.
64 MP Wide
Initially, I wanted to say that the RedMagic 6R would have competent camera quality similar to what was seen in the Poco X3 Pro because both phones are "performance first," and camera quality would be seen as an after-thought. I was surprised that the camera quality on the Poco X3 Pro was quite good, but in odd-aspects. For the 6R, I feel more surprised because I seriously thought they were going to be the same. Nope. The camera quality on the 6R is quite good, though with some faults of course. The 64 MP sensor has better dynamic range than what I thought it was going to look like. Off the bat, it reminds me of the camera quality seen on the OnePlus 8. In all of the photos, the photos look punchy which I have come to love to see overall, and at least they are not too overly saturated as what the Poco phone did on a lot of occasions. In the second photo, you can see how the 6R has good contrast between shadows and highlights. The third photo shows how sharpness is pretty good, but it could be sharper for a 64 MP sensor. White balance is good, though a lot of the phones I review make the first photo scene have a warm look to it, and despite this, the 6R hasn't disappointed me there. In the photos with the greens and the sky, I do like how the colors were rendered out, but the greens themselves could be better. They have too much of a warmth to it.
8 MP Ultrawide Camera with 120 FOV
Yeah, I have so many problems with the ultrawide camera. Besides the quality, I absolutely HATE that the Nubia camera app treats the ultrawide camera like a hidden feature. I have a good explanation in my video, but the simplified version is that the ultrawide camera can only be used in the Pro mode. Yeah...because the ultrawide camera is only for pros that know what they're doing, right? Very stupid, like the camera app. And you can't even record video on the ultrawide camera. Go figure. Now onto camera quality. It's super questionable. The first photo has temperature and tinting issues. The second photo is strangely ok, with good dynamic range and everything! The third photo has temperature and tinting issues, but it has really bad exposure. Weird because the second photo had the sun directly shooting into the lens. I really don't know. Proud to say that the Poco X3 Pro has a better ultrawide, but with its own faults of course.
2 MP Macro
Surprisingly, these photos have a good amount of sharpness and white balance. Though the white balance could be better yeah, but it's a pass for me. I thought these photos would have more distortion, but that's not the case. Mediocre, but fine.
Portrait Mode
Portrait mode is assisted by a 2 MP depth sensor, and these photos have better edge detection than I thought it would have. How did it beat the Poco? Is it because these photos have less bokeh blur, that the gradual blur transitions are less noticeable to fail? Might be the case. Although these photos are good with good estimation, I only really like the second photo because of how it turned out overall. While the first photo isn't too different, something about it isn't right. It could be the green tinting, but I'm not sure. The photo of the ball is ok, but the colors should have been rendered better. The self-portrait is ok, but some edges aren't cut out properly. I think there would have been clipping in my glasses too. Still a nice portrait overall. Good dynamic range!
Lowlight with Main and Ultrawide
First three sets are the main camera with the first photos taken normally, and the second photos are with night mode on. The remaining sets are with the ultrawide camera, and there is no option to take night mode ultrawide photos on the Nubia camera app. Yeah. These standard night photos are pretty decent. Way better than the Poco phone. It's more similar to the OnePlus 8 in terms of dynamic range in a lot of aspects. This is especially seen with the night mode photos where it straight up looks like my night shots with the 8 in terms of sharpness and dynamic range. Though these have way better white balance. Even the 8T messed up here. Surprise-surprise. How many times is the camera really going to surprise me? I don't know. Now for the ultrawide. It's fine. I know it's not that bad, but come-on. They did the ultrawide dirty by putting it in the Pro mode. And that sensor is just restricted overall by the choices they put in the camera app. Truly sad.
This is 4K 30 FPS video taken on the main camera. It's ok. Noise reduction could be better. Still can't record on the ultrawide camera overall.
Video on the Main Camera
Well well well. Video on the main camera is actually punchy and nice. Plus dynamic range is good, even with that exposure control. You could also record in 8K, but 4K is plenty.
Super Steady Video Mode
For whatever reason, the OIS on the main camera is struggling. The changes it makes between OIS and OIS+EIS are super drastic. Of course that's for a good reason. It crops into the sensor quite a bit, but it doesn't look like anything too obstructive or anything relating to destroying your FOV perspective. I guess have EIS enabled if you are walking, but the OIS should have acted better. Even the OIS-less Poco did better. I swear my walking patterns should be the same.
16 MP Selfie Shooter
No no no. EXPOSURE! AND SKIN SOFTENING! WHY? I'm inclined to say that contrast is pretty fine on myself, but the background is just a mess. I know it can be a lot worse, but that exposure control is brutal enough. Saturation is pretty good, and it reminds me of the main camera when that's on a good mood ig. Besides exposure, that skin softening is pretty insulting in the sense that "we're going to make our gamer audience look good because they have bad acne, and we need to make them look pretty to impress those gamer daters." That was a joke, but it might as well be true. Or on a more realistic standpoint, Nubia is a sub-brand of ZTE, and ZTE is a Chinese phone manufacturer that sells phones to neighboring Asian regions where skin beauty is a culture of selfies. You pick which one makes more sense.
Zoom and High Megapixel Mode
The 64 MP sensor caps out at 10x digital zoom, and I'm pretty impressed with the results. It's a lot sharper than the 48 MP phones I reviewed which makes sense, but I like how the pole was better exposed once you zoomed in. In the other phones, the pole wasn't exactly exposed better when zoomed in, and it kept dark shadows and had a lack of contrast. Pretty cool here on the 6R.
First photo is the default 16 MP shot, and the second is with 64 MP. At a first glance, they are very very similar in terms of white balance. Usually, high megapixel shots have a different white balance than the pixel-binned photo, and the shadows can change at times. Here, the results are very similar. Because they are similar enough, I will just say that sharpness at 64 MP is very good, but help my plants because they are dying.
AI Scene Detection
Everything is shot on the main camera, and there is no AI scene detection for the ultrawide because the AI feature does not exist within the Pro mode, which is where the ultrawide camera lives. Top photos are without the mode turned on, and bottom photos are with it turned on. For the sky comparison, left is with it off, right is with it on. A lot of these photos are super saturated, especially involving the greens and other objects in your scene. The only photos I like with it turned on are the second set of photos because they look fine, and do look super saturated. My favorite photo is with the plant and the metal background because the plant looks pleasantly green, with the rocks having a nice red punch to it, and the metal back has some nice reds and blues in it that made it pop out more than the original. As for the sky comparison, yeah I like the saturated sky look. But only when it's done right, and I could say this is an example of that excellence.
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