Red Magic 8S Pro Review: This powerful Android phone offers key advantages over Samsung that gamers can’t ignore

The latest gaming Smartphone offers incredible power and performance at your fingertips

Redmagic isn’t exactly a household name in the UK. Still, the Chinese company has been slowly gaining traction for their focus on high-performance, gaming smartphones since 2018.

Gaming on smartphones is more popular than ever thanks to the convenience and incredible leaps in CPU, battery and screen technology some of these powerhouse phones are rivalling home consoles.

The Redmagic 8S Pro is pushing that envelope further, offering not only the latest hardware but also some clever tricks up its sleeve that you won't see on other mobile phones.

Despite the Redmagic 8S Pro's stunning appearance, it feels nostalgic with its rectangular, flat, and blocky shape, reminiscent of some early smartphones.

CPU Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2Display 6.8 inches FHD+RAM 16 GB Storage 512GB

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CPU Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2Display 6.8 inches FHD+RAM 16GB Storage 512GB

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CPU Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2Display 6.8 inches FHD+RAM 12GB Storage 256GB

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Admittedly, its substantial dimensions of 163.98mm in height, 76.35mm in width, and 9.47mm in depth as well as its weight of 228g, further emphasizing its sturdiness. All this combined with its flat rectangular, blocky shape makes it look and feel like a brick.

Nevertheless, the 8S Pro looks undeniably high-tech, combining the best of both worlds: a hint of retro charm and cutting-edge technology.

Being a Gaming phone was expecting it to be black covered in RGB light, stickers and logos with grills and vents everywhere as well as jagged edges and I was only half right.

The 8S Pro’s design was more subtle than I had expected, but it does have a light-up logo which you can customize the colours and how it pulses.

There are three designs Platinum, Midnight and Aurora, this is a mostly black design with a transparent back like the Nothing Phone (2), all three look great with Platinum and Aurora standing out the most.

I was slightly disappointed it has no IP rating but assumed this is due to its tiny fan and air exhaust vents on the sides.

Durable and dependable, all versions are built from metal and glass, with the Aurora version featuring a tough, Aircraft Grade Aluminum frame as well as glass and back and front which is protected by Gorilla Glass 5.

For ports it has a USB-C 3.1 Type-C, Dual nano-SIM slot and in a surprising inclusion a 3.5mm Audio Jack, so you can plug headphones in.

Subtle shoulder triggers are also included that blend seamlessly into the design but make a big difference to your gaming while the red switch puts the phone into dedicated gaming mode.

Rocking a top-notch 6.8 Inch AMOLED display with a crystal clear 2480 x 1116 resolution and a very smooth 120Hz refresh rate, it really is perfect for gaming but also for watching videos or browsing the internet.That screen is almost completely unhindered by bezels giving an incredible 93% Screen to body ratio, which made games more immersive. The hidden front camera is cleverly concealed under that display so there is no notch interfering with your view either.

No environment will be too bright either with the 8S Pro supporting up to 1300 nits, so it's fine to use outdoors. With HDR 10+ support and over 16 billion colours, images are clear and colours really pop.

Redmagic devices have long been known for their focus on powerful hardware, and the RedMagic 8S Pro is no exception. This impressive device boasts cutting-edge technology that rivals even the top-tier Samsung phones, all at a fraction of the price.

At the heart of its performance lies the latest and most advanced Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 CPU, which has been overclocked to push its performance levels even further.

RedMagic 8S Pro cleverly utilizes a secondary Red Core R2 gaming chip which is responsible for managing all the additional functionalities including audio EQ, fan control, haptic feedback, and RGB lighting effects. By delegating these tasks to the R2 chip, the primary can focus solely on performance without any distractions.

This phone effortlessly runs any Android game I've encountered at max settings as well as a few emulators without any issues.

Complementing this staggering power is the implementation of LPDDR5X RAM, which comes in two configurations: either 12GB or 16GB. Alongside this, the device features the swiftest UFS 4.0 internal storage available, ensuring not just snappy day-to-day usage but also remarkably short download and loading times.

In terms of storage variants, the Midnight option offers ample 12GB RAM and 256GB storage, while the Platinum and Aurora editions astound with a remarkable 16GB RAM and a massive 512GB storage capacity. However, it is essential to note that while these configurations provide ample space for most users, the device does not support Micro SD storage expansion.When running benchmarks the 8S Pro absolutely tore through them, outperforming most phones on the market. It achieved a Geekbench 6 score of 2141 in Single-Core and an impressive 5806 in Multi-Core, surpassing the Samsung S23 Ultra but trailing slightly behind the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Its 3DMark results were nearly three times higher than the average 2023 device, showcasing its exceptional graphics performance.

What sets the 8S pro apart from most other gaming phones is its ability to sustain high performance unlike most other phones, this is due to its 11-layer heat dissipation system, which notably incorporates a layer of graphene positioned under the screen as a small fan that can be manually triggered or can turn on when it detects gaming and can spin up to 20,000 rpm to aid cooling and stop any throttling of performance.All this adds up to a phone that rarely got hot even when I was playing games at maximum settings for over an hour before it even began to warm up.

Three cameras make up the 8S Pro including a 50MP main camera, an 8MP Wide and 2MP Macro. The main camera shines particularly in daylight conditions and delivers great results if a little washed out but retains lots of detail, however, in lower light conditions that quality drops significantly and it becomes very pro to blurring and camera shake. The macro lens also lacked enough detail to provide decent close-up shots with mine looking fuzzy. The exposures seemed good but the colours were a little bland and bleached.

While I love how the selfie camera on the front is hidden I really disliked the soft focus, and Vaseline on the lens effect which made it unusable.

Annoyingly the phone currently crashes whenever I try to view photos in either the native camera app or Google Photos, which I'm sure will be fixed in a software update but it's annoying.

For video modes, the 8Spro supports massive 8K at 30 FPS as well as 4K and full HD and 720 at 60 FPS.

It uses the REDMAGIC OS 8.0 is based on Android 13 and seems like a pretty stark variant of Android offering a swift performance but it has some extra tricks. Thankfully it didn’t come bundled with loads of bloatware and unwanted apps but it did have some actually useful features.

If you want to see your games on your phone on the big screen Redmagic Studio turns the 8S Pro into a full-screen mode that mirrors the phone's display on your PC or laptop, turning it into a gaming console and it's a really cool feature that reminded me of a gaming version of Samsung’s Dex.

It has a bigger-than-average 6000mAh dual battery of two 3000mAh cells which makes it last a long time even when pushing performance after a full day of moderate use I still had just over 60% battery, so any gaming session on this beast won’t drain your battery in under an hour.

It also features 65W fast charging giving you a full charge in only 40 minutes, unfortunately, there is no wireless charging but it does come with a charging adapter provided.I was honestly shocked at the pricing of such a high-performance device with even the most expensive version almost half the price of the Samsung S23 Ultra.Midnight - 12GB + 256GB - £579Aurora 16GB + 512GB - £689Platinum 16GB + 512GB - £709

The Redmagic 8S Pro is packed with some of the most powerful and sophisticated phone technology on the planet and it shows, making it comparable to the Samsung S23 Ultra for a fraction of the price. For day-to-day use, you feel is faster performance but gamers or anyone using their phone for anything more demanding like streaming or editing will be wowed by the 8S Pro's phenomenal performance capabilities.

While I loved its seer power and clever innovations, unfortunately, the camera and its software are seriously holding the 8S Pro back and preventing it from being one of the top phones on the market.

The 8S Pro stands as a true powerhouse, capable of running circles around anything else in its price range and even many beyond it. Delivering exceptional value for tech enthusiasts seeking who aren't too bothered about taking photos and want top-notch performance without the exorbitant price tag.

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