Hands on with the nubia Neo 5 GT: it has a fan and RGB, but what is this chipset?

Gaming phones with built-in cooling fans are becoming more and more affordable. Earlier this year we saw the launch of the RedMagic 11 Air, which is equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, a fan and a 6.85” 144Hz display, all at a price of €500.

Now we’re at the MWC where nubia unveiled the nubia Neo 5 GT, which will be available globally at a price of €400 (note that the first region to get this phone is Southeast Asia).

The nubia Neo 5 GT is the first in its class with a built-in cooling fan

Yes, the GT has the first built-in cooling fan in its class. The fan is attached to a combination of a vapor chamber and graphite sheet heat spreader (29,508mm²). But it’s what is underneath that counts and here we have an issue.

Our eyebrows shot up when we heard about the chipset – it’s just a Dimensity 7400. That already feels underpowered for the €400 price class, but how much can it benefit from active cooling, anyway?

The nubia Neo 5 GT is powered by the Dimensity 7400

We wouldn’t be so harsh if we couldn’t get a Snapdragon 8 Elite for just €100 more. And we can, the related RedMagic 11 Air offers just that. For what it’s worth, the Neo 5 GT we handled features 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM (6,400Mbps) and 512GB storage.

The rest of the nubia Neo 5 GT lives up to expectations – it has a 6.8” OLED display with 1,224 x 2,720px resolution and 144Hz refresh rate. It has rounded corners instead of being rectangular and the selfie camera uses a punch hole instead. Other than that, it’s close enough to the Air display. And it has a pair of shoulder triggers (550Hz sampling rate) too.

The 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 maybe the chipset needs less power. We also appreciate the flat design, too many phones wobble when placed on a table.

The nubia team built the phone with good ingress protection – it’s IP64 for most of it, except for the air duct, which has an IP5X rating. No surprises here, you can’t make an air duct dust tight. Still, the IPX4 splash resistance is the most relevant spec here.

Flat design with a 6,210mAh battery inside

The team also did a good job of making this look like a gaming phone. There is a bit of RGB lighting on the back, including a menacing-looking eye and GT logo. We also liked the little window that shows a chip underneath (even if that chip is most likely just decoration).

RGB is practically a must-have on a gaming device

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.