I often call into question what just is a flagship phone . Some would argue that a top - grade silicon is the first necessary . Others go for a more holistic approach path that involves a fast screen and big television camera detector .
The boundaries , however , vary wildly , calculate on the brand you ’re chasing . Then there are mavericks like Red Magic , which play in the outlier category of “ gaming phones . ”
Asus is the openhanded dog in the secret plan , but a starting cost of $ 1,199 for theROG Phone 9 Proinstantly killed the collection for me . At that kind of financial hit , I can get a far more well - rounded headphone like theSamsung Galaxy S24 Ultra , theGoogle Pixel 9 Pro , or theiPhone 16 Pro .
Now , along comes the Red Magic 10 Pro , offeringQualcomm ’s best siliconand a lot more , all for just $ 650 . The ask is almost unbelievable from the present moment you put down your eyes on the earphone and go through its expansive sheet of niceties .
The Red Magic 10 Pro is a sight to behold
Even if this was not a typical “ gamer - first ” gimmick , I can easily recommend this telephone set for more reason than one . There are also a few quirks , particularly one tie to software longevity , that I will discuss later in the story .
The first phone I tried from the Nubia - backed brand was the firstRed Magic Phonein 2019 . It had a beautiful , sloping metal flesh with an RGB strip go across the back . It looked more like a widget from sci - fi flicks and was an absolute joy to hold .
In the yr that have glide by since , Red Magic shifted to a glassful and metallic element intent , but not in the same industrially bland way as mainstream players like Samsung and Apple . The Red Magic 10 Pro , I believe , is the fine design to follow out of the brand ’s labs so far .
Despite the asking cost being miserable than that of the entry - level phones from Google or Apple , Red Magic has used aviation - level Al and Corning Gorilla Glass . And here ’s the good part — there ’s no tv camera hump or mob . This is a sound that can dwell flat on its back .
The entire back is level despite fit three television camera ( two of them use a 50 - megapixel detector ) and a 23,000 rev physical devotee . It ’s slenderly magniloquent than the iPhone , but narrow and some as thick as the Apple flagship .
Oh , by the way , the 50MP cameras at the back click sharp pictures , and the modest - ight results surprise me . Have a look :
The see - through esthetics of the earphone are n’t as showy as the LED - line mess that is theNothing Phoneseries . Yes , there ’s the whole RGB shebang here — it ’s a gaming earpiece , of trend — but it has been done tastily .
The sports fan , XTC silicon chip high spot , and Red Magic logotype in the humble corner light up . There ’s a red style swop tonality on the side , break the all - bleak stylistic sameness . At the closing of the day , you certainly wo n’t be mistaking this phone for anything else out there .
There are a couple of other surprises , too . The Red Magic 10 Pro serves up a 3.5 millimetre headphone seaman , too . Plus , an 80 - watt GaN power brick also comes in the corner .
There are also two breeze vents on each side . These air passing lanes for inner temperature reduction also imply there is no meaningful rubble and water resistance on the Red Magic 10 Pro . That ’s the only weak billet in the phone ’s armour , but you get a protective slip in the retail software .
switch the headphone over , and you will get bowled over again . The bezels are undifferentiated , and they are just 1.25 mm , out - slimming the best out there . It count stunning in person , and I ca n’t help swank it with bright wallpaper .
Also , notice that there ’s no jam for the selfie camera on the front . The front tv camera is blot out underneath the filmdom , and this time around , you ca n’t even discern it with the naked eye . It ’s the result of sandwich two display layers , which involve a 20 - step finish process and thrice as much time .
I have seen implementations of an under - presentation television camera from Samsung and a few other brand , and it does n’t always search neat . What we have here is merely stunning and results in an off-and-on full - screen experience . Yet , it ’s not all show and flashiness here . There ’s passel of innovative substance , too .
Show, substance, and then some
The Red Magic 10 Pro offers one of the nicest screen I have ever reckon . This 6.85 - in OLED panel propose a summit brightness of 2,000 nit . The refresh rate stand up at 144Hz , while the instant ghost sampling charge per unit is 2,500Hz .
The result is an amazingly responsive screen that ’s sartor - made for fast - pace natural process games . bring a hand in that gaming endeavor are a dyad of capacitive shoulder triggers with responsiveness figures of 520Hz . Remapping them for duties like reloading , go off , and peek is somewhat commodious . you could also assign specific in - game ascendancy to gestures like inclination or rotate .
Using these triggers almost feels like cheating in mobile games , as they offer a more console table - like tone . For anyone reliant on the pincer hairgrip , these shoulder joint gun trigger are far more comfortable and serve as excellent inputs compared to awkwardly mete out with cramped onscreen mastery
On most occasion , I am the one whom my chum carry in shooter games . But with these shoulder triggers , I can come in out of battle royale round down with some extra damage and a bit of the quintessential gamer respect .
peach about games , this phone is made for gaming above anything else . And it does n’t let down . Qualcomm ’s work with the customs duty Oryon cores aboard the Snapdragon 8 Elite has delivered some stunning results , not just in term of heyday performance , but also stability and efficiency .
To top that off , Red Magic has done some impressive thermal hardware engineering here . The company assure Digital Trends that the Red Magic 10 Pro is “ the mankind ’s first phone to sport a fluid alloy cooling arrangement . ” However , this is not liquid metallic element in the same venous blood vessel as desktop processors .
Instead , Red Magic engineer have used an Indium alloy composite plant with potassium fluent metal medium , creating what one would about classify as a whole heat parazoan . It is place between the fan and the vapor sleeping room cool down outfit . The heat absorbed from the vapor sleeping accommodation is fed to the rooter .
On the re - traced loop run in three-D Mark Solar Bay , the Red Magic topped the chart and even surpassed theMediaTek Dimensity 9400 . Running a man-made CPU stress workflow , the peak central processor functioning only throttled down to 90 % of its flush value , which is mighty telling .
The whole system make up a tangible departure , especially when you ’re eye foresighted gaming session . After playingZenless Zone Zerofor about an time of day on the Red Magic 10 Pro , the temperature scantily crossed the 104 - degree Fahrenheit marker , while the iPhone 16 Pro climb above the 115 - academic degree Fahrenheit level .
In half a 12 games — including titles likeCall of Duty : MobileandGenshin Impact — the headphone Lashkar-e-Taiba you set off an in - house Frame Rate Boost technical school that interpolates the performance from 60 Federal Protective Service to 120 Federal Protective Service and enhance the visuals to 2 K resolve . There are a whole bunch of plug - atomic number 49 that give a meaningful edge in game .
Now , you are buying a phone like the Red Magic 10 Pro to flirt a plenty of games , and that means it want a fitly enceinte battery . On this one , you get a monolithic 7,080mAh barrage , and to go with it , suffer for up to 100W fast pumped charging .
I got astounding gasoline mileage out of this battery with above - average utilization , easily terminate my daylight with over one-half of the electrochemical succus still left in the bank . Even if you stuff about 3 to 4 hours of graphics - intensive games into the mixture , you still wo n’t have to hunt for a courser .
With the supply 80W whole , you may get the phone shoot down midway in or so 15 min and it takes little over 35 minutes for a full care . Those design beat the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro . Plus , there ’s also a cutoff system that only keeps the lighting on , but does n’t ply any electrical power to the barrage .
There ’s also a setting that automatically enables the fan to keep the battery cool during charging . The only central omission here is the lack of reverse charging , even though the battery is large enough to share some juice and still survive a whole 24-hour interval with ease . Wireless charging is also absent , but for the price , it is satisfactory , specially when you have 100W wired level at your disposal .
A trust investment, above all else
Red Magic has been selling phones internationally for over half a decade now , but so far , it has followed an online global sale pipeline . The lack of an on - background outreach footprint and after - sales financial support channel would make any buyer do a two-fold - take before hand over their hard - earned Johnny Cash .
In case of any damage , you have to direct the Red Magic 10 Pro over to the brand ’s power and bear the transportation costs , in addition to the necessary resort and replacement work . Red Magic does n’t officially betray stamping ground section , but you may recover resellers monger them on platforms like Alibaba .
A healthy few Red Magic owners have imported the parts and got their phone fixed at a local store or did it themselves . The former is the safe path . In India ’s internal Das Kapital , New Delhi , I babble to a brace of electronics shop class , and they were unforced to handle the part sourcing and repair on my behalf , but the same ca n’t be said of most other cities .
The other conundrum is the computer software update office . Red Magic is only promising one class of OS rise ( up till Android 16 , which isalready out for Pixels as a developer beta ) and security update for three years . That ’s bad . Really bad .
Yes , you probably wo n’t be running into a situation where a secret plan demands the late interlingual rendition of Android to pass . Moreover , Android 16 will not be devastatingly outdated in the next few years , so most of your apps and games will run just ok .
If you are , however , eye the a la mode lustrous tricks of Android , then you have no alternative but to instal a usage read-only memory . alas , the yr 2024 has n’t been dandy for custom fixed storage .
At the heart of the tussle is the Play Integrity API , which lets an app check whether it runs on a genuine Android equipment and in a secure software system environment . Right now , it is flagging unbarred bootloaders and rooted devices — essentially anything that has n’t fleet the received Google GMS certification .
Earlier this year , users of the two - gene certification app Authy discovered that it will no longer support phones running a usance read-only memory . Why ? “ If it ’s not an official OS , we have to feign it ’s bad , ” explicate Shawn Wilden , who do work on Google ’s Android ironware security squad .
That intend the first circle of apps to run into issues with customs ROM will be banking apps , wallets , or other sensitive scenarios . Earlier this class , users reported that Google was blockingRCS messagingon rooted devices or those running tradition ROMs .
Not everybody agrees with Google ’s approaching . “ Play Integrity API is based on Trygve Lie , ” the Almighty of Graphene OSwroteon Mastodon . There are a few “ jam ” modules to handle the Play Integrity fingerprinting , but as perreports , Google has also started “ mass banning ” them .
Pound for pound, an absolute ace
With so much happening in the custom ROM community , the real question is how you handle the Red Magic 10 Pro once it live past the Android 16 life line or the three - year security measure update promise . Do you upgrade your phone then ?
It ’s a $ 650 investment , as the very minimum . Do you simply plough it into a handheld gambling console that can do by 120 Federal Protective Service casting to a prominent screen in wired and wireless mode ? Yeah , this earpiece does that really well , andso does its pad sibling . It ’s not a bad option , given the Red Magic 10 Pro ’s principal appeal .
It does n’t take much to see the outrageous grade of computer hardware packed into this gadget , for nearly one-half of what build blade would take from your notecase . The atomic number 14 is top - notch , and with it comes a wild aim , fast memory , a lovely display , cabinet - same triggers , one humongous assault and battery , lightning - truehearted charging , and a good pair of camera .
Is it a flagship , though ? I ’d say yes . Is it a good value ? Unbeatable , I reckon . Nothing even comes close . The only undoing is the trade name ’s condition as a pocket-size player and the base challenge that get along with that status quo . If you’re able to ignore that , this phone will leave you mesmerized in more ways than one . Just do n’t draw a blank to wipe it clean from time to time .
The Red Magic 10 Pro will be available starting December 12 .
