RedMagic 10 Pro Hands-On: Kitted Up for Gaming, but Hit or Miss as a Phone

The RedMagic 10 Pro is a $649 gaming phone with higher-end hardware and offers great value for what you get—at least on paper. When I played Dead Cells, I used the phone game mode to remove the frame cap and switch to higher resolution graphics and it still played at a solid 90 frames per second. Mortal Kombat Mobile instantly launches at a full 144 frames per second, the highest the screen supports. And while Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is an older title, the Android version is easy to control, thanks in part to the touch-sensitive 960Hz sample rate – but I still recommend using a controller. Games like the aforementioned Dead Cells look vibrant and smooth; however, after a few days of testing the RedMagic 10 Pro, it’s otherwise largely hit or miss in terms of being a good phone.

The RedMagic’s strong specs include a Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, whose high speeds I first tested with Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro. The RedMagic 10 Pro supports 100W wired charging to power its giant 7,050mAh battery, both of which we rarely see in phones sold in the US. Looking forward to testing the phone’s battery and charging speed.

10 Pro is based on RedMagic 8 series’ design featuring a front-facing camera below the display that provides a continuous 6.85-inch canvas for games and videos. This year’s RedMagic phone has a display that supports a 144Hz refresh rate, which should be more than enough for smooth animations and scrolling, even if it’s not the highest refresh rate I’ve seen on a gaming phone. The 2688×1216 pixel screen has a peak brightness of 2000 nits. The RedMagic also has an internal cooling fan and a liquid metal cooling system commonly found in gaming PCs.

3DMark Wild Life Extreme benchmark

RedMagic 10 Pro 5,869 35.15 fpsAsus ROG Phone 9 Pro 5,923 35.47 fps

In the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme graphics and gaming benchmark test, the RedMagic 10 Pro scored comparable to the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro, which costs $551 more. The RedMagic also ranked slightly ahead of the Asus in the Geekbench 6.0 CPU benchmark. So clearly RedMagic ticks the box in terms of the phone’s gaming prowess. Just the 10 Pro’s ability to be a decent phone leaves me disappointed and disappointed.

Geekbench 6.0 benchmark

RedMagic 10 Pro 3,123 9,756Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro 3,075 9,710

In my early testing of the RedMagic 10 Pro, I encountered a number of software issues that tested my patience. Many of these problems are the same ones I had previous RedMagic phones. It’s disappointing that there isn’t much improvement.

The most obvious problem is the camera software, which by default applies a watermark to all images and makes disabling it extremely unintuitive. Instead of removing it from the camera app or phone settings, you need to launch RedMagic’s Game Space menu by turning on its red physical switch, tapping on your profile icon, and then scrolling down to the option to turn off “Red Magic Watermark . ” These menus also have an inconsistent grammatical style that I find irritating in phone software.

RedMagic also makes a number of changes to how it works with Android that I think gets in the way. For example, the Google News feed was initially replaced by “Z-Board,” which I quickly turned off because it read to me like an inline ad, even though it billed itself as “Recommended News & Services.” It also defaults to a native browser application, but this is easier to change to another option such as Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.

And while it’s cool to use a phone that has a seamless screen, the camera below the display takes bad pictures. For example, in this selfie from the 16-megapixel shooter, the background is very washed out, even after I used a microfiber cloth to clean the “lens” section of the screen several times. The RedMagic 10 Pro’s rear cameras include a 50-megapixel primary camera, a 50-megapixel ultra-wide camera, and an unnamed 2-megapixel camera. I asked RedMagic to clarify what the third camera is – it usually helps with portrait mode.

RedMagic doesn’t have a great track record for software updates and security. RedMagic’s website claims that its phones receive “more than two years of software support”, which is low by 2024 standards. While Asus also provides two years of major software updates for its ROG gaming phone, it guarantees at least five years of security updates. I’ve asked RedMagic to clarify the support schedule, but haven’t heard back.

Who is RedMagic 10 Pro for?

The RedMagic 10 Pro isn’t meant to lure people away from more traditional flagship phones like the Samsung Galaxy series. But its lower price point makes it one of the most affordable phones with a Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, beating all the 2024 phones CNET tested in pure gaming performance. Its full-screen display makes it a powerful media machine, especially if you connect it to a game controller when playing more console-level games on it. The large battery and fast charging speed further enhance its appeal as a pocket-sized gaming device. For the more ROM savvy crowd, you can potentially flash this device to suit your needs better than RedMagic’s existing software experience.

The handheld gaming market is also becoming increasingly competitive, raising more questions about who the best audience is for a gaming phone like the RedMagic 10 Pro, especially when the device’s functionality as a phone is its weak point. A Steam Deck — though too big to fit in a pocket — offers direct access to many PC games for less than RedMagic, even if the Steam Deck itself isn’t a phone. The Asus ROG Phone 9 series is an easier recommendation as a capable phone and gaming device, but its starting price is much higher than $1,000.

But with an early-bird sale date of December 12th, followed by a general sale date of December 18th, the RedMagic 10 Pro will be particularly notable as one of the first phones to hit the North American market with the latest Snapdragon processor inside. And maybe for early adopters who are also gaming enthusiasts, that’s enough to get them on board. But most people will probably be better off waiting for the first wave of flagship Android phones to also include this processor, or perhaps consider the more expensive Asus phone if gaming is a priority alongside a more streamlined software experience .