A home run for gaming phones
RedMagic has really turned the whole gaming smartphone segment on its head, and the RedMagic 9 Pro is the latest example of how you don’t need to spend upwards of $1,000 or more to get a powerful mobile gaming experience. Incorporating many of the same features as leading devices, the RedMagic 9 Pro is a more affordable option for mobile gaming enthusiasts. I wasn’t quite sure how that would pan out prior to testing. In my experience, many devices that were priced lower simply didn’t offer the same great experience I was used to.
RedMagic however, has delivered what I was beginning to think wasn’t possible with a device that starts at $650. A mobile gaming phone that’s still extremely powerful without breaking the bank. Seriously, the phone is surprisingly good in every aspect you’d want out of a gaming phone. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect. But then again, no phone really is, and there’s always something that could use improvement. That holds true here as well. So let’s dive into the review and see how things go for RedMagic with its newest gaming phone.
RedMagic 9 Pro Review: Build Quality
If you’ve ever wondered how the build quality is on a RedMagic device, or just any device that retails for a starting price of $650, wonder know more. The first time I pulled the phone out of the box I was impressed with how good the phone felt. The sleek metal frame gives the RedMagic 9 Pro that premium feeling that you just don’t get with a phone that uses plastic or other materials. But the build quality is more than that.
Nothing on this phone feels cheap. Like it should have cost more than it does. Right down the buttons on the right side of the phone, the build quality was superb. And what’s nice is that it almost feels like one seamless slab. Some might not like this but I think it’s nice as there are no sharp edges to catch your fingers on. Even the shoulder triggers on the top are nice and smooth. As to be expected since they’re touch-based and not physical buttons you press inward.
If there were anything at all for me to gripe about with the build quality, it would probably be the SIM card tray. It just seems like you have to push the SIM ejector tool incredibly hard to get the tray to pop out. Which I found to be annoying at times. The good news is this is a very minor thing. And since most people aren’t going to be SIM swapping all that much, this likely won’t bother you beyond the initial time you insert your SIM card.
Overall, it’s clear that RedMagic put a lot of effort into building a high-quality device. One that feels good to hold and one that feels very premium.
RedMagic 9 Pro Review: Design
While the build quality is great, the design of the phone is more of a mixed bag for me. It is a very stylish design and that for the most part is a good thing. Piggybacking off of the excellent build quality, the design of the RedMagic 9 Pro is super premium as well. Save for one tiny element that I really didn’t like. The glass back panel. Now, there is some nuance to this as I do like some things about it but not everything. The glass panel on the back is there for a reason. It’s so you can see the detailing under the glass and it’s also what keeps the camera sensors visible as these sit under the glass panel.
Now RedMagic also makes this device in three different colorways. Snowfall, Sleet, and Cyclone. We’re working with the Cyclone model which I personally think is the best colorway. Since it’s mostly black with some matte gold logos and lettering.
It also has a mild gaming aesthetic without being too loud or brash. Plus, there’s something cool about the look of see-through electronics. This isn’t entirely see-through, of course. You can’t actually see any of the inside components. Just the top layer of paneling that goes over all of that. But it’s still a neat look, especially for a gaming phone. The downside of this glass back panel when it comes to the design is that it’s a fingerprint magnet. Just as you would expect a piece of clear glass to be. You see every single fingerprint all the time. And this proved to be more of an annoyance to me than I thought.
It wouldn’t be a dealbreaker for me personally. But if you’re like me and you hate fingerprints on your devices, get ready to wipe this down multiple times a day or simply learn to live with it. Other than that, the design of the rest of the phone is very top-notch. The corners of the frame could do with just a touch more rounding to fit the contours of my hands when playing games.
But just about every little detail is well thought out. One particular thing I really love is how close the touch triggers are to the edges. On some phones I’ve used in the past these were further in and this kinda made it hard to press them. Here though, they feel like just the right distance to where touching them feels comfortable and natural. Of course, this is a gaming phone, and like most gaming phones, there’s RGB lighting.
Luckily, it’s not too over the top here. The RGB is only present in the fan that sits under the second rear camera sensor, under the “09” on the back, and in two small thin lines in the touch triggers. It’s enough to provide some visual appeal without being too flashy. Though I also wouldn’t mind if there were no RGB at all. Overall though, the design is really solid and I think it’s probably the best-looking phone RedMagic has ever designed.
The cooling system
I wanted to touch on the cooling system here because I think RedMagic has done a great job at fitting it into this phone. It mostly works well but we’ll get into that later in the review. For now, I just wanted to talk briefly about the design of the cooling setup. This includes a fan that you can see on the back and then two exhaust ports on either side of the phone for air to flow through. What’s nice about this is that you can actually feel the air moving through these vents when the fan is at full speed. It’s faint but if you hover your finger over it without completely covering the vent you can definitely feel the air moving.
And this is going to help with keeping the phone temperatures down. While I can’t say this is the absolute best cooling design for a gaming phone, it’s a neat approach. And for some reason, there’s something about being able to feel the air moving through the device that I like.
RedMagic 9 Pro Review: Display
There’s really nothing to dislike about the display. It’s a good size for gaming and other entertainment and it gets pretty bright. In terms of resolution, it’s Full HD+ which is about what to expect from a gaming phone display. This helps both with battery life and allows for smoother frame rates when playing games with higher graphics settings options. While a higher resolution display on phones is always nice, I’ve never felt that it was needed. The display is small enough that Full HD+ or even Full HD looks perfectly fine.
Thankfully, RedMagic has used a flat display here. Curved displays aren’t generally used on gaming phones but as an example, the OnePlus 12R is positioned as the more gaming-focused device between it and the OnePlus 12 (that’s according to OnePlus) and it comes with a curved display. This design has just never been to my taste so I’m happy that RedMagic is sticking with the flat displays for its devices.
Refresh rate
More important than the resolution or whether or not the display is flat or curved, is the refresh rate. Now on the RedMagic 9 Pro, this caps out at 120Hz. It’s not as high as it is on the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition. But 120Hz is still really good for a phone display at the size of 6.8 inches which is what the RedMagic 9 Pro is working with.
What’s interesting is that past RedMagic phones have had higher refresh rates than this model. And although it is nice to have, I’m not so sure that it’s really needed. Here’s why. There aren’t a ton of games on the Play Store that support 144Hz refresh rates anyway.
Some of the most popular games, like Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail, only support a refresh rate of up to 60Hz. Others like Fortnite and PUBG MOBILE support up to 120Hz. And I won’t be surprised if Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile caps out at 120Hz as well. With this in mind, you’re really only ever getting the full benefits of the higher refresh rates on phones like the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition when you’re scrolling through the device menus, browsing the web and what have you. In all likelihood, you’ll never end up getting those refresh rates in games.
Even with services like GeForce NOW on Android, Ultimate memberships max out at 120 frames per second. So there’s not much of a reason to have more than a 120Hz display. Even if it does look good for scrolling.
Brightness
The brightness of the display is about what I would expect from most phones on average these days. Without getting into figures, it appears bright enough to easily see in direct sunlight or brightly lit rooms. Now in terms of specs, RedMagic rates the display at 1,600 nits for the peak brightness. We don’t have a way to measure nits but we have started using a device that measures the brightness of the display in lux. And based on the readings the display brightness measures 950.2 lux.
How we came to this number was using a light meter. First, we turned the display brightness on the phone all the way up to max and then brought up a picture of a fully white background so the display was all white with the brightness all the way up. Then we used the light meter to measure the lux and came up with the number mentioned just above. If you don’t care about the stats, just know that the brightness of the display is more than enough. It’s rare that you’ll run into a situation where the brightness isn’t enough to see the display. As I never ran into this issue myself. So in short, the brightness is great and you shouldn’t have issues with it.
Colors
Color accuracy or just in general how good the color is on a phone display may not be something you think about. Unless displays and the color accuracy of them is something that’s an interest of yours. But it’s a common thing that we look at when reviewing phones here and I think it’s especially important for a phone that’s focused on mobile gaming. If you’re playing games on your phone, then at some point or another you’re going to be sitting down staring at it for a longer period of time. And over the course of the phone’s life cycle, you’ll be doing this often.
So you want the colors to be at least decent where they don’t look muted or washed out. Bright, vivid colors with deep black contrasts make your games look that much better. The blacks aren’t as deep on the RedMagic 9 Pro as some phones (like those in the Galaxy S lineup), but the colors definitely look lush and they pop off the screen rather nicely.
This comes out really well in games like Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail thanks to all the flash graphical effects of character special abilities. I wouldn’t mind a tad more saturation but overall I was pretty pleased with how the colors look on this display. But like I said I certainly wouldn’t mind if the colors had a little more weight behind them.
RedMagic 9 Pro Review: Performance
When it comes to gaming phones you expect the performance to be top-notch. Potentially without equal or at the very least, well above most of the competition. Unsurprisingly, the performance of the RedMagic 9 Pro is excellent. This is in no small part due to the use of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile platform. But the model we received for review also comes with 16GB of RAM which is quite a lot. No issues were found in running today’s most demanding mobile games.
Both Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail were played with max graphics settings and at a maximum of 60 frames per second and both games ran flawlessly and looked good while doing it. I also have no doubt that the RedMagic 9 Pro will have no problems with performance when it comes to upcoming games like Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile. This will launch later this month so I had no way to test performance with the game yet. But I expect it will support high refresh rates of at least 60 frames per second and graphics do look pretty good from what I’ve seen in Activision’s official trailers.
With that being said, you’ll want a high-powered phone to run the game smoothly with good graphics. The RedMagic 9 Pro will easily be able to handle that. I also checked the phone out with games like Diablo Immortal and Call of Duty: Mobile briefly, and it performed excellently there too. Even after longer periods of time, performance stayed optimal with RedMagic’s cooling system in place. That being said, the cooling does fall below my expectations in one scenario, but we’ll get into that in just a bit.
The Benchmarks
To test performance with some statistics, we’ve started using benchmarks like Geekbench 3 and 3D Mark to measure the performance of each device and then put that information into a graph to visualize how the devices stack up against the competition. In the case of the RedMagic 9 Pro, we’re comparing it to the likes of the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition, the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate, and the OnePlus 12. All of these devices run with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, with the exception of the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate that’s using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. It’s still a gaming phone, however, and was last year’s top device for mobile gaming. So it fits with the comparison.
Starting with Geekbench 6, the RedMagic 9 Pro scores higher than any other device we compared it to. The single-core score comes out to 2299. Meanwhile, the multi-core score comes out to 7174 and the GPU score comes out to 14785. This isn’t surprising at all. Qualcomm’s latest mobile platform is packed with power and RedMagic makes very good use of it with the 9 Pro.
If you’re less concerned with what the benchmark scores are, just know that the phone is going to perform well in most tasks. Gaming, multitasking, you name it.
Now the next benchmark test we used is 3D Mark. Specifically, the 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress Test. The phone scored very high on this test as well. If you’re unfamiliar with this test, it plays a very high graphics video that’s 1 minute long and then loops 20 times. So it’s essentially running this video for 20 minutes straight. According to the results of the benchmark, the RedMagic 9 Pro scored 5210 on its best loop. Its worst loop was 4897. This is higher than the best loop of the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate. The RedMagic 9 Pro also had a stability rating of 94%. So, it knocked it out of the park.
For the final benchmark we use what we call the CapCut Test, This is a test that we came up with to see how fast the phone could export a 1-minute video with a simple animation in the beginning using the CapCut app. In this test, the RedMagic 9 Pro scored highly and was once again very fast. In fact, it was faster than any other phone we’ve done this test with, exporting the video in 5.2 seconds. To keep things as even as possible we use the same video for every phone. So there you have it. The RedMagic 9 Pro is a performance beast. Through and through.
Thermals
One of the really important factors in a gaming phone is going to be the thermals. How good of a job does the phone do staying cool while performing high-intensity tasks? In this case, with gaming since this is a gaming phone. You want to ensure that the phone stays cool so it continues to perform optimally. And in just about every case the phone stayed cool enough to perform well with no problems whatsoever. To test the thermals, we checked the temperature of the phone three different ways, using an infrared thermometer for each method.
First, we checked the thermals after playing Genshin Impact for an hour with the game running at max settings, with 60 frames per second, and the screen at max brightness. We also checked the temperature after running the 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress test. This was the only area where the cooling more or less took a nosedive. After the test the phone was too hot to hold, burning my hands just at the touch of it if I tried to hold it for more than a second or two. I basically had to put it down and let it cool off for 5 minutes before picking it back up.
I do want to emphasize the fact that this isn’t really representative of how warm the phone will get during your daily use. As you’re not going to be running this test multiple times a day, every day, if at all. But it is worth noting since there may be tasks that result in this kind of heat at some point. For the Genshin test, the phone continued to perform well with little to no snags by the end of the hour. The last test we ran was starting up a video recording and checking the temperatures after 5 minutes, and after 10 minutes to see where things sit, as the phone can get pretty warm when recording 4K video.
For the temperatures, the phone reached 107 degrees Fahrenheit after playing Genshin Impact for an hour. The 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress test was quite a bit higher at 129.3 degrees. Finally, the video recording caused temperatures to reach 91.7 degrees after 5 minutes, and 95.9 degrees after 10 minutes. All in all, not terrible across the board. In fact, in all cases except the 3D Mark test the phone temps were more than manageable.
RedMagic 9 Pro Review: Battery Life and Charging
Battery life is always one of the things I am most critical of because I tend to use my phone a lot. I mostly use mine for mobile gaming but I do use it plenty for watching YouTube, messaging, and streaming music as well. And with gaming being the bulk of the usage, the battery needs to last a while. Thankfully, RedMagic packed a 6500mAh battery in this device.
Despite all its power that could easily drain the battery, the combination of the large battery and the RedMagic 9 Pro’s smart optimization helped it last throughout the day with no problems. I would routinely get close to 10 hours of screen-on time with normal use. Which for me is usually an hour or two of YouTube towards the end of the evening, some music streaming during the mornings, and a few hours of mobile gaming throughout the day with a bunch of messaging on Discord and Telegram. As well as occasional Reddit use and browsing the web. I don’t use my phone as much as some users but it certainly doesn’t just sit there. Far from it.
So I can with certainty say that the battery on this phone is pretty good. It’s also worth keeping in mind that there are going to be days when you use the phone less often. Sometimes I only really have the screen on for a couple of hours a day. And the rest of the time it’s just sitting idle. In those times, it’ll be a few days before you need to charge the phone.
Benchmarking the battery
Right off the bat, I was expecting the battery to last a long time because of the larger capacity. And I have to say, I wasn’t disappointed. Now to test the battery life rundown what we did was pull up a 4K video that runs for 24 hours with the screen at max brightness. We use the same video for every phone to keep things as similar as possible. Out of all the devices we’ve tested recently, the RedMagic 9 Pro lasted longer than most.
Only two phones lasted longer — the Galaxy S24 Ultra and the Honor Magic6 Pro. The former lasted for 25 hours and 35 minutes. While the latter lasted for 26 hours and 7 minutes. By comparison, the RedMagic 9 Pro lasted 25 hours and 3 minutes. More than an hour less than the Honor Magic6 Pro and a little over half an hour less than the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Pretty good. Especially when you consider that when compared to other gaming phones, it outlasted all of them by far.
As an example, last year’s ROG Phone 7 Ultimate lasted 21 hours and 27 minutes. Meanwhile, the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition with its smaller battery lasted 17 hours and 39 minutes. If a gaming phone is something you’re looking for but battery life is most important, then the RedMagic 9 Pro might be the best choice for you.
We also test the charging time to see how quickly you can juice the phone back up. The RedMagic 9 Pro comes with an 80W charger so it’s capable of charging up pretty fast. And during my testing, it charged up in 42 minutes and 3 seconds. This isn’t the fastest charging phone we’ve tested but considering the battery capacity at 6500mAh, it’s rather impressive. Compared to the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition, with a smaller battery capacity mind you, that charged up in 40 minutes and 22 seconds.
Charging speed will vary if you’re not using the charging brick that came in the box with the phone. But in most cases, this is likely where you’re going to be charging it up. Since it’s unlikely the battery will need charging during the day unless you’re away from home for multiple days and bring a different charger with you. All in all, the battery life and charging speeds on this device are outstanding.
RedMagic 9 Pro Review: Software
As with any gaming phone, the software is a big part of the device. Because there are usually some features that are baked into the Android OS that don’t come on normal phones. These are mostly geared towards the gaming side of things and each gaming phone tends to be a little different when it comes to these features. But to start things off, the RedMagic 9 Pro is running on Android 14. What makes the software special in the case of this phone is the gaming-related features, though.
Things like settings for mapping the touch triggers and of course, the ability to change the lighting effects and colors for the RGB. There’s also the GameSpace app which houses a ton of settings for gaming. It’s here that you can launch games and access settings like system anti-mistouch or the anti-disturbance setting. You can also launch right into Game Space with the red slider switch on the side of the phone. If the phone is unlocked, just slide this upwards and GameSpace opens right up. All of this is exciting but it’s also pretty run-of-the-mill for most gaming phones.
There’s always a section that lets you tweak all the gaming features and easily launch your installed games. Acting as a hub if you will. For me, the software that really set the RedMagic 9 Pro apart was the X Gravity feature. This is the phone’s system for mapping external peripherals like controllers, or a mouse and keyboard. You would use this for mapping on-screen touch controls to the physical peripheral you want to use. Since a lot of games don’t natively support controllers, this is going to be a huge benefit to players who prefer them over touch.
There’s also Game Gravity, which is supposed to be for cloud gaming but this simply has you tapping into the remote play apps for those services specifically. For instance, the PS Remote Play app for PlayStation games or the Game Pass app for Xbox. What some might find really useful is the Cast option. This lets you play mobile games on a larger display and when paired with the X gravity for input mapping to a controller or mouse and keyboard, it’s an easy way to play mobile games like you would a PC or console game. You’ll need a monitor or TV that supports Z-SmartCast feature to make this work.
But if you do have one then the process is pretty simple. In the X Gravity options, there’s a button for “Projection” and inside that, you can search for screens that support the casting. Once found you can start using the phone on that larger screen and then dive into games. I don’t have a screen that supports this so I wasn’t able to test it, unfortunately. But the process of getting it up and running doesn’t seem overly complicated. How well it works will depend on your Wi-Fi signal strength and speeds, though.
Overall, the software experience was smooth and there were plenty of gaming features to take advantage of. However, I think most people will get the most use out of some of the simpler options, like the game casting the input mapping.
RedMagic 9 Pro Review: Speakers
Speakers are just as important for a gaming phone as any other element. Whether that be battery life, display, or performance. While I will almost always recommend using earbuds or headphones when playing mobile games, because this ends up offering a better audio experience, sometimes you just don’t feel like using either and just want to play with the phone speakers. But you want them to sound good if you’re going to do this. In my experience, the audio quality on the RedMagic 9 Pro was pretty good.
My only complaint is that the speakers aren’t front-facing. So like the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition, one of the speakers is going to be easy to cover up a little which can muffle the sound. You can position your hand in such a way that this is minimized, but it doesn’t prevent covering the speaker entirely. Even with this design setup though, the speakers still sounded pretty good whenever I was playing games. And even better if I was watching videos or listening to music. I tend to hold the phone differently when watching video so the speakers don’t end up covered at all.
And when listening to the music the phone is just sitting on my desk. In these cases, the speakers perform pretty well and deliver sound that isn’t too bass-heavy. At higher volume levels the speakers can get a bit tinny but this is really only a problem if you turn the volume most of the way up. The phone speakers get very loud so I never really saw the reason to do this. And that’s great because it allowed for better audio quality while still having a decent volume level to hear everything.
Loudness
As mentioned above the speakers get plenty loud. Volume levels are loud enough that there was rarely a situation where I needed to turn the volume up all the way just to hear something, even if I was in a louder environment. That being said, in a louder environment, which is generally going to be in public, I am just going to use headphones. Not only so that I can hear my content better, but also so I’m not disturbing others. But for testing’s sake, turning the volume all the way up results in the ability to hear them perfectly fine even in another room.
For example, I would set the phone down and stream music while cooking, and I could easily hear the phone from the kitchen while it was across the apartment. Mind you, outside you’ll definitely notice that sound isn’t as easily discernable. In short, just use headphones if listening to audio outside or in public.
Distortion
This is something that I noticed when testing out the loudness of the speakers. That at the highest volumes, you can definitely tell there’s some distortion happening. I didn’t use this volume level often because there was simply no need for it. And in the end, the audio just ends up sounding worse. However, the distortion wasn’t so bad that the sound was terrible. But the audio definitely comes through cleaner if the volume is say, around 70%-75% and below.
Bass
I’ve never been much of a bass fan but it is nice to have some punchy bass for certain things. Typically with music, and for me that specifically ends up being EDM. The RedMagic 9 Pro speakers put out some decent bass but I wouldn’t say it’s some of the best bass a smartphone can produce. You can tell it’s there and it’s decent. Basically, I wasn’t disappointed in how the bass came through and I don’t think most other buyers of this phone would be either.
Treble
Treble basically dictates how clear higher tones are. With higher-quality treble, the more clear these higher tones in audio will be. The RedMagic 9 Pro speakers offer decent treble just like the bass. But again, I wouldn’t say it’s anything to write home about. It’s good, but not outstanding. Then again, you have to remember this is a bassline $649 phone. And a lot of emphasis has already been placed on other components of the phone. Like the performance, cooling, storage, and battery life.
Balance
Balance is overall pretty good with the speakers here as it was easy to hear both higher tones and lower tones. The lower tones seem to overpower the higher tones just a little.
Vocals
For me, the vocals are one of the better parts of the speakers. I felt like these came through rather well whenever listening to YouTube videos or when in the voice-acted scenes of some games like Honkai Star Rail. Not perfect, but in my opinion by far the part of the speakers that seemed to perform the best.
Immersion
Immersion is one of the most important parts of the speakers in a gaming phone because gaming is probably what you’re doing most with a device like this one. And the better the immersion, the better the gaming experience. You want a full sound that envelopes you as best as possible. While the speakers won’t hold a candle to earbuds or headphones, they do a really good job of providing some immersive sound experiences. I still think the speakers on the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition and the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate are better, but these aren’t far behind.
RedMagic 9 Pro Review: Camera Performance
Gaming phones have never been the best option for phone cameras, and that’s mostly still true. But there is some nuance to consider. The best camera is the one you have on you. In many cases, that’s going to be your phone. And if your phone happens to be a gaming phone with a mediocre camera, then that’s the best camera for you unless you have other readily available options. With that said, camera performance has come a long way for phones. And this includes devices that are geared towards gaming, such as the RedMagic 9 Pro.
I think the best way to look at this camera is to go in without any expectations. This isn’t because the camera is bad, but you’d be setting yourself up for disappointment if you buy this phone expecting it to be the best camera of any smartphone available. So, with that said, this is what I did. I tried not to think about how each photo looked in comparison to something like the Pixel 8, which I had already reviewed and know has one of the cameras of any smartphone on the market. My goal was to judge the camera on its own merits so I was really only focusing on what this camera can do and how the images look.
Now that that’s out of the way, the camera on the RedMagic 9 Pro performs better than I was expecting, but I think that’s mostly because I’ve just been conditioned to think of gaming phones as having mediocre cameras. As that was the case for so long. But ASUS really showed that gaming phones can produce some pretty good pictures and the RedMagic 9 Pro follows in those footsteps. When using just the regular photo mode for shots, images come out with a decent amount of detail and colors pop nice and bright.
There seems to be a little more saturation than some other phones, and this is easier to see when you have really bright and vivid colors in the image. Like the blue sky or red wood paneling in the photo I took at the food cart commons. I was also once again quite surprised with how well the portrait mode photos came out. There’s a good amount of foreground detail in the image of the sakura tree while additional branches and blooming sakura buds in the background are sufficiently blurred without making the edges around the focal point too fuzzy.
Sometimes when using portrait mode on other devices I’d notice that parts of the focal subject end up blurred when they shouldn’t be. But that didn’t really seem to happen with the RedMagic 9 Pro which was a nice surprise. Since I love using portrait mode for photos when I do actually use the camera on my phone. The camera does ok in low light conditions but this is kind of where you start to see the camera and the software are a little bit lacking. Darker-lit rooms cause the images to lose a little detail. Macro shots are probably where I feel the camera is weakest. At least for what I was able to test.
No matter how many macro shots I took of the Gnocchi I made, the image always came out just a little out of focus. Even after trying out varying degrees of distance between the camera and the dish. This is a little bit of a bummer since macro shots can be really interesting. But photos can still look good close up if you’re using the regular or pro modes. And if you really want to experiment, you can check out the “camera-family” section all the way to the left. This houses a variety of different photo modes like slow-motion, starry sky, light draw, time-lapse, and others.
I wasn’t able to test most of these since most of them require the use of a tripod, which I don’t have at the moment. Overall, I think the camera is ok. I’ll say what I’ve always said when it comes to gaming phones. You aren’t buying this for the camera. And as long as you remember that, you’ll be fine with the camera’s quality and performance. The images really do come out just fine. And that’s the most important part. They don’t have to be the best photos of any phone. They just have to look decent. And I’d say they do here.
Now in addition to using the camera like you would use one normally, we do test the camera using a test we came up with here at Android Headlines to see how it compares to other smartphones. I did this after taking all of the other shots. The test is setting up a photo light box and placing a Rubix Cube inside of it, then we take a picture of the Rubix Cube with the phone and compare it to other devices with this same image.
The reason we do this is so we have a controlled image environment for testing purposes. In this case, I’m using the images of the RedMagic 9 Pro, the ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition, and the OnePlus 12R since these were the three most recent phones I personally tested, and they’re all from this year while also all being gaming focused.
Should you buy the RedMagic 9 Pro?
While we can’t definitively answer yes or no for you on this, since you might be looking for something different than what this phone has, we can offer some reasons why you might want to buy or skip it. I will say though, that there are some good reasons to buy this phone.
You should buy the RedMagic 9 Pro if:
– You want a great gaming phone
– Exceptionally long-lasting battery life is important to you
– Affordability is a factor
You shouldn’t buy the RedMagic 9 Pro if:
– You can spend more for a higher-end device
– A better camera is important to you
– You want something with slightly better cooling performance
RedMagic has really turned the whole gaming smartphone segment on its head, and the RedMagic 9 Pro is the latest example of how you don’t need to spend upwards of $1,000 or more to get a powerful mobile gaming experience. Incorporating many of the same features as leading devices, the RedMagic 9 Pro is a more affordable option for mobile gaming enthusiasts. I wasn’t quite sure how that would pan out prior to testing. In my experience, many devices that were priced lower simply didn’t offer the same great experience I was used to.
RedMagic however, has delivered what I was beginning to think wasn’t possible with a device that starts at $650. A mobile gaming phone that’s still extremely powerful without breaking the bank. Seriously, the phone is surprisingly good in every aspect you’d want out of a gaming phone. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect. But then again, no phone really is, and there’s always something that could use improvement. That holds true here as well. So let’s dive into the review and see how things go for RedMagic with its newest gaming phone.
RedMagic 9 Pro Review: Build Quality
If you’ve ever wondered how the build quality is on a RedMagic device, or just any device that retails for a starting price of $650, wonder know more. The first time I pulled the phone out of the box I was impressed with how good the phone felt. The sleek metal frame gives the RedMagic 9 Pro that premium feeling that you just don’t get with a phone that uses plastic or other materials. But the build quality is more than that.
Nothing on this phone feels cheap. Like it should have cost more than it does. Right down the buttons on the right side of the phone, the build quality was superb. And what’s nice is that it almost feels like one seamless slab. Some might not like this but I think it’s nice as there are no sharp edges to catch your fingers on. Even the shoulder triggers on the top are nice and smooth. As to be expected since they’re touch-based and not physical buttons you press inward.
If there were anything at all for me to gripe about with the build quality, it would probably be the SIM card tray. It just seems like you have to push the SIM ejector tool incredibly hard to get the tray to pop out. Which I found to be annoying at times. The good news is this is a very minor thing. And since most people aren’t going to be SIM swapping all that much, this likely won’t bother you beyond the initial time you insert your SIM card.
Overall, it’s clear that RedMagic put a lot of effort into building a high-quality device. One that feels good to hold and one that feels very premium.
RedMagic 9 Pro Review: Design
While the build quality is great, the design of the phone is more of a mixed bag for me. It is a very stylish design and that for the most part is a good thing. Piggybacking off of the excellent build quality, the design of the RedMagic 9 Pro is super premium as well. Save for one tiny element that I really didn’t like. The glass back panel. Now, there is some nuance to this as I do like some things about it but not everything. The glass panel on the back is there for a reason. It’s so you can see the detailing under the glass and it’s also what keeps the camera sensors visible as these sit under the glass panel.
Now RedMagic also makes this device in three different colorways. Snowfall, Sleet, and Cyclone. We’re working with the Cyclone model which I personally think is the best colorway. Since it’s mostly black with some matte gold logos and lettering.
It also has a mild gaming aesthetic without being too loud or brash. Plus, there’s something cool about the look of see-through electronics. This isn’t entirely see-through, of course. You can’t actually see any of the inside components. Just the top layer of paneling that goes over all of that. But it’s still a neat look, especially for a gaming phone. The downside of this glass back panel when it comes to the design is that it’s a fingerprint magnet. Just as you would expect a piece of clear glass to be. You see every single fingerprint all the time. And this proved to be more of an annoyance to me than I thought.
It wouldn’t be a dealbreaker for me personally. But if you’re like me and you hate fingerprints on your devices, get ready to wipe this down multiple times a day or simply learn to live with it. Other than that, the design of the rest of the phone is very top-notch. The corners of the frame could do with just a touch more rounding to fit the contours of my hands when playing games.
But just about every little detail is well thought out. One particular thing I really love is how close the touch triggers are to the edges. On some phones I’ve used in the past these were further in and this kinda made it hard to press them. Here though, they feel like just the right distance to where touching them feels comfortable and natural. Of course, this is a gaming phone, and like most gaming phones, there’s RGB lighting.
Luckily, it’s not too over the top here. The RGB is only present in the fan that sits under the second rear camera sensor, under the “09” on the back, and in two small thin lines in the touch triggers. It’s enough to provide some visual appeal without being too flashy. Though I also wouldn’t mind if there were no RGB at all. Overall though, the design is really solid and I think it’s probably the best-looking phone RedMagic has ever designed.
The cooling system
I wanted to touch on the cooling system here because I think RedMagic has done a great job at fitting it into this phone. It mostly works well but we’ll get into that later in the review. For now, I just wanted to talk briefly about the design of the cooling setup. This includes a fan that you can see on the back and then two exhaust ports on either side of the phone for air to flow through. What’s nice about this is that you can actually feel the air moving through these vents when the fan is at full speed. It’s faint but if you hover your finger over it without completely covering the vent you can definitely feel the air moving.
And this is going to help with keeping the phone temperatures down. While I can’t say this is the absolute best cooling design for a gaming phone, it’s a neat approach. And for some reason, there’s something about being able to feel the air moving through the device that I like.
RedMagic 9 Pro Review: Display
There’s really nothing to dislike about the display. It’s a good size for gaming and other entertainment and it gets pretty bright. In terms of resolution, it’s Full HD+ which is about what to expect from a gaming phone display. This helps both with battery life and allows for smoother frame rates when playing games with higher graphics settings options. While a higher resolution display on phones is always nice, I’ve never felt that it was needed. The display is small enough that Full HD+ or even Full HD looks perfectly fine.
Thankfully, RedMagic has used a flat display here. Curved displays aren’t generally used on gaming phones but as an example, the OnePlus 12R is positioned as the more gaming-focused device between it and the OnePlus 12 (that’s according to OnePlus) and it comes with a curved display. This design has just never been to my taste so I’m happy that RedMagic is sticking with the flat displays for its devices.
Refresh rate
More important than the resolution or whether or not the display is flat or curved, is the refresh rate. Now on the RedMagic 9 Pro, this caps out at 120Hz. It’s not as high as it is on the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition. But 120Hz is still really good for a phone display at the size of 6.8 inches which is what the RedMagic 9 Pro is working with.
What’s interesting is that past RedMagic phones have had higher refresh rates than this model. And although it is nice to have, I’m not so sure that it’s really needed. Here’s why. There aren’t a ton of games on the Play Store that support 144Hz refresh rates anyway.
Some of the most popular games, like Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail, only support a refresh rate of up to 60Hz. Others like Fortnite and PUBG MOBILE support up to 120Hz. And I won’t be surprised if Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile caps out at 120Hz as well. With this in mind, you’re really only ever getting the full benefits of the higher refresh rates on phones like the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition when you’re scrolling through the device menus, browsing the web and what have you. In all likelihood, you’ll never end up getting those refresh rates in games.
Even with services like GeForce NOW on Android, Ultimate memberships max out at 120 frames per second. So there’s not much of a reason to have more than a 120Hz display. Even if it does look good for scrolling.
Brightness
The brightness of the display is about what I would expect from most phones on average these days. Without getting into figures, it appears bright enough to easily see in direct sunlight or brightly lit rooms. Now in terms of specs, RedMagic rates the display at 1,600 nits for the peak brightness. We don’t have a way to measure nits but we have started using a device that measures the brightness of the display in lux. And based on the readings the display brightness measures 950.2 lux.
How we came to this number was using a light meter. First, we turned the display brightness on the phone all the way up to max and then brought up a picture of a fully white background so the display was all white with the brightness all the way up. Then we used the light meter to measure the lux and came up with the number mentioned just above. If you don’t care about the stats, just know that the brightness of the display is more than enough. It’s rare that you’ll run into a situation where the brightness isn’t enough to see the display. As I never ran into this issue myself. So in short, the brightness is great and you shouldn’t have issues with it.
Colors
Color accuracy or just in general how good the color is on a phone display may not be something you think about. Unless displays and the color accuracy of them is something that’s an interest of yours. But it’s a common thing that we look at when reviewing phones here and I think it’s especially important for a phone that’s focused on mobile gaming. If you’re playing games on your phone, then at some point or another you’re going to be sitting down staring at it for a longer period of time. And over the course of the phone’s life cycle, you’ll be doing this often.
So you want the colors to be at least decent where they don’t look muted or washed out. Bright, vivid colors with deep black contrasts make your games look that much better. The blacks aren’t as deep on the RedMagic 9 Pro as some phones (like those in the Galaxy S lineup), but the colors definitely look lush and they pop off the screen rather nicely.
This comes out really well in games like Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail thanks to all the flash graphical effects of character special abilities. I wouldn’t mind a tad more saturation but overall I was pretty pleased with how the colors look on this display. But like I said I certainly wouldn’t mind if the colors had a little more weight behind them.
RedMagic 9 Pro Review: Performance
When it comes to gaming phones you expect the performance to be top-notch. Potentially without equal or at the very least, well above most of the competition. Unsurprisingly, the performance of the RedMagic 9 Pro is excellent. This is in no small part due to the use of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile platform. But the model we received for review also comes with 16GB of RAM which is quite a lot. No issues were found in running today’s most demanding mobile games.
Both Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail were played with max graphics settings and at a maximum of 60 frames per second and both games ran flawlessly and looked good while doing it. I also have no doubt that the RedMagic 9 Pro will have no problems with performance when it comes to upcoming games like Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile. This will launch later this month so I had no way to test performance with the game yet. But I expect it will support high refresh rates of at least 60 frames per second and graphics do look pretty good from what I’ve seen in Activision’s official trailers.
With that being said, you’ll want a high-powered phone to run the game smoothly with good graphics. The RedMagic 9 Pro will easily be able to handle that. I also checked the phone out with games like Diablo Immortal and Call of Duty: Mobile briefly, and it performed excellently there too. Even after longer periods of time, performance stayed optimal with RedMagic’s cooling system in place. That being said, the cooling does fall below my expectations in one scenario, but we’ll get into that in just a bit.
The Benchmarks
To test performance with some statistics, we’ve started using benchmarks like Geekbench 3 and 3D Mark to measure the performance of each device and then put that information into a graph to visualize how the devices stack up against the competition. In the case of the RedMagic 9 Pro, we’re comparing it to the likes of the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition, the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate, and the OnePlus 12. All of these devices run with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, with the exception of the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate that’s using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. It’s still a gaming phone, however, and was last year’s top device for mobile gaming. So it fits with the comparison.
Starting with Geekbench 6, the RedMagic 9 Pro scores higher than any other device we compared it to. The single-core score comes out to 2299. Meanwhile, the multi-core score comes out to 7174 and the GPU score comes out to 14785. This isn’t surprising at all. Qualcomm’s latest mobile platform is packed with power and RedMagic makes very good use of it with the 9 Pro.
If you’re less concerned with what the benchmark scores are, just know that the phone is going to perform well in most tasks. Gaming, multitasking, you name it.
Now the next benchmark test we used is 3D Mark. Specifically, the 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress Test. The phone scored very high on this test as well. If you’re unfamiliar with this test, it plays a very high graphics video that’s 1 minute long and then loops 20 times. So it’s essentially running this video for 20 minutes straight. According to the results of the benchmark, the RedMagic 9 Pro scored 5210 on its best loop. Its worst loop was 4897. This is higher than the best loop of the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate. The RedMagic 9 Pro also had a stability rating of 94%. So, it knocked it out of the park.
For the final benchmark we use what we call the CapCut Test, This is a test that we came up with to see how fast the phone could export a 1-minute video with a simple animation in the beginning using the CapCut app. In this test, the RedMagic 9 Pro scored highly and was once again very fast. In fact, it was faster than any other phone we’ve done this test with, exporting the video in 5.2 seconds. To keep things as even as possible we use the same video for every phone. So there you have it. The RedMagic 9 Pro is a performance beast. Through and through.
Thermals
One of the really important factors in a gaming phone is going to be the thermals. How good of a job does the phone do staying cool while performing high-intensity tasks? In this case, with gaming since this is a gaming phone. You want to ensure that the phone stays cool so it continues to perform optimally. And in just about every case the phone stayed cool enough to perform well with no problems whatsoever. To test the thermals, we checked the temperature of the phone three different ways, using an infrared thermometer for each method.
First, we checked the thermals after playing Genshin Impact for an hour with the game running at max settings, with 60 frames per second, and the screen at max brightness. We also checked the temperature after running the 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress test. This was the only area where the cooling more or less took a nosedive. After the test the phone was too hot to hold, burning my hands just at the touch of it if I tried to hold it for more than a second or two. I basically had to put it down and let it cool off for 5 minutes before picking it back up.
I do want to emphasize the fact that this isn’t really representative of how warm the phone will get during your daily use. As you’re not going to be running this test multiple times a day, every day, if at all. But it is worth noting since there may be tasks that result in this kind of heat at some point. For the Genshin test, the phone continued to perform well with little to no snags by the end of the hour. The last test we ran was starting up a video recording and checking the temperatures after 5 minutes, and after 10 minutes to see where things sit, as the phone can get pretty warm when recording 4K video.
For the temperatures, the phone reached 107 degrees Fahrenheit after playing Genshin Impact for an hour. The 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress test was quite a bit higher at 129.3 degrees. Finally, the video recording caused temperatures to reach 91.7 degrees after 5 minutes, and 95.9 degrees after 10 minutes. All in all, not terrible across the board. In fact, in all cases except the 3D Mark test the phone temps were more than manageable.
RedMagic 9 Pro Review: Battery Life and Charging
Battery life is always one of the things I am most critical of because I tend to use my phone a lot. I mostly use mine for mobile gaming but I do use it plenty for watching YouTube, messaging, and streaming music as well. And with gaming being the bulk of the usage, the battery needs to last a while. Thankfully, RedMagic packed a 6500mAh battery in this device.
Despite all its power that could easily drain the battery, the combination of the large battery and the RedMagic 9 Pro’s smart optimization helped it last throughout the day with no problems. I would routinely get close to 10 hours of screen-on time with normal use. Which for me is usually an hour or two of YouTube towards the end of the evening, some music streaming during the mornings, and a few hours of mobile gaming throughout the day with a bunch of messaging on Discord and Telegram. As well as occasional Reddit use and browsing the web. I don’t use my phone as much as some users but it certainly doesn’t just sit there. Far from it.
So I can with certainty say that the battery on this phone is pretty good. It’s also worth keeping in mind that there are going to be days when you use the phone less often. Sometimes I only really have the screen on for a couple of hours a day. And the rest of the time it’s just sitting idle. In those times, it’ll be a few days before you need to charge the phone.
Benchmarking the battery
Right off the bat, I was expecting the battery to last a long time because of the larger capacity. And I have to say, I wasn’t disappointed. Now to test the battery life rundown what we did was pull up a 4K video that runs for 24 hours with the screen at max brightness. We use the same video for every phone to keep things as similar as possible. Out of all the devices we’ve tested recently, the RedMagic 9 Pro lasted longer than most.
Only two phones lasted longer — the Galaxy S24 Ultra and the Honor Magic6 Pro. The former lasted for 25 hours and 35 minutes. While the latter lasted for 26 hours and 7 minutes. By comparison, the RedMagic 9 Pro lasted 25 hours and 3 minutes. More than an hour less than the Honor Magic6 Pro and a little over half an hour less than the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Pretty good. Especially when you consider that when compared to other gaming phones, it outlasted all of them by far.
As an example, last year’s ROG Phone 7 Ultimate lasted 21 hours and 27 minutes. Meanwhile, the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition with its smaller battery lasted 17 hours and 39 minutes. If a gaming phone is something you’re looking for but battery life is most important, then the RedMagic 9 Pro might be the best choice for you.
We also test the charging time to see how quickly you can juice the phone back up. The RedMagic 9 Pro comes with an 80W charger so it’s capable of charging up pretty fast. And during my testing, it charged up in 42 minutes and 3 seconds. This isn’t the fastest charging phone we’ve tested but considering the battery capacity at 6500mAh, it’s rather impressive. Compared to the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition, with a smaller battery capacity mind you, that charged up in 40 minutes and 22 seconds.
Charging speed will vary if you’re not using the charging brick that came in the box with the phone. But in most cases, this is likely where you’re going to be charging it up. Since it’s unlikely the battery will need charging during the day unless you’re away from home for multiple days and bring a different charger with you. All in all, the battery life and charging speeds on this device are outstanding.
RedMagic 9 Pro Review: Software
As with any gaming phone, the software is a big part of the device. Because there are usually some features that are baked into the Android OS that don’t come on normal phones. These are mostly geared towards the gaming side of things and each gaming phone tends to be a little different when it comes to these features. But to start things off, the RedMagic 9 Pro is running on Android 14. What makes the software special in the case of this phone is the gaming-related features, though.
Things like settings for mapping the touch triggers and of course, the ability to change the lighting effects and colors for the RGB. There’s also the GameSpace app which houses a ton of settings for gaming. It’s here that you can launch games and access settings like system anti-mistouch or the anti-disturbance setting. You can also launch right into Game Space with the red slider switch on the side of the phone. If the phone is unlocked, just slide this upwards and GameSpace opens right up. All of this is exciting but it’s also pretty run-of-the-mill for most gaming phones.
There’s always a section that lets you tweak all the gaming features and easily launch your installed games. Acting as a hub if you will. For me, the software that really set the RedMagic 9 Pro apart was the X Gravity feature. This is the phone’s system for mapping external peripherals like controllers, or a mouse and keyboard. You would use this for mapping on-screen touch controls to the physical peripheral you want to use. Since a lot of games don’t natively support controllers, this is going to be a huge benefit to players who prefer them over touch.
There’s also Game Gravity, which is supposed to be for cloud gaming but this simply has you tapping into the remote play apps for those services specifically. For instance, the PS Remote Play app for PlayStation games or the Game Pass app for Xbox. What some might find really useful is the Cast option. This lets you play mobile games on a larger display and when paired with the X gravity for input mapping to a controller or mouse and keyboard, it’s an easy way to play mobile games like you would a PC or console game. You’ll need a monitor or TV that supports Z-SmartCast feature to make this work.
But if you do have one then the process is pretty simple. In the X Gravity options, there’s a button for “Projection” and inside that, you can search for screens that support the casting. Once found you can start using the phone on that larger screen and then dive into games. I don’t have a screen that supports this so I wasn’t able to test it, unfortunately. But the process of getting it up and running doesn’t seem overly complicated. How well it works will depend on your Wi-Fi signal strength and speeds, though.
Overall, the software experience was smooth and there were plenty of gaming features to take advantage of. However, I think most people will get the most use out of some of the simpler options, like the game casting the input mapping.
RedMagic 9 Pro Review: Speakers
Speakers are just as important for a gaming phone as any other element. Whether that be battery life, display, or performance. While I will almost always recommend using earbuds or headphones when playing mobile games, because this ends up offering a better audio experience, sometimes you just don’t feel like using either and just want to play with the phone speakers. But you want them to sound good if you’re going to do this. In my experience, the audio quality on the RedMagic 9 Pro was pretty good.
My only complaint is that the speakers aren’t front-facing. So like the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition, one of the speakers is going to be easy to cover up a little which can muffle the sound. You can position your hand in such a way that this is minimized, but it doesn’t prevent covering the speaker entirely. Even with this design setup though, the speakers still sounded pretty good whenever I was playing games. And even better if I was watching videos or listening to music. I tend to hold the phone differently when watching video so the speakers don’t end up covered at all.
And when listening to the music the phone is just sitting on my desk. In these cases, the speakers perform pretty well and deliver sound that isn’t too bass-heavy. At higher volume levels the speakers can get a bit tinny but this is really only a problem if you turn the volume most of the way up. The phone speakers get very loud so I never really saw the reason to do this. And that’s great because it allowed for better audio quality while still having a decent volume level to hear everything.
Loudness
As mentioned above the speakers get plenty loud. Volume levels are loud enough that there was rarely a situation where I needed to turn the volume up all the way just to hear something, even if I was in a louder environment. That being said, in a louder environment, which is generally going to be in public, I am just going to use headphones. Not only so that I can hear my content better, but also so I’m not disturbing others. But for testing’s sake, turning the volume all the way up results in the ability to hear them perfectly fine even in another room.
For example, I would set the phone down and stream music while cooking, and I could easily hear the phone from the kitchen while it was across the apartment. Mind you, outside you’ll definitely notice that sound isn’t as easily discernable. In short, just use headphones if listening to audio outside or in public.
Distortion
This is something that I noticed when testing out the loudness of the speakers. That at the highest volumes, you can definitely tell there’s some distortion happening. I didn’t use this volume level often because there was simply no need for it. And in the end, the audio just ends up sounding worse. However, the distortion wasn’t so bad that the sound was terrible. But the audio definitely comes through cleaner if the volume is say, around 70%-75% and below.
Bass
I’ve never been much of a bass fan but it is nice to have some punchy bass for certain things. Typically with music, and for me that specifically ends up being EDM. The RedMagic 9 Pro speakers put out some decent bass but I wouldn’t say it’s some of the best bass a smartphone can produce. You can tell it’s there and it’s decent. Basically, I wasn’t disappointed in how the bass came through and I don’t think most other buyers of this phone would be either.
Treble
Treble basically dictates how clear higher tones are. With higher-quality treble, the more clear these higher tones in audio will be. The RedMagic 9 Pro speakers offer decent treble just like the bass. But again, I wouldn’t say it’s anything to write home about. It’s good, but not outstanding. Then again, you have to remember this is a bassline $649 phone. And a lot of emphasis has already been placed on other components of the phone. Like the performance, cooling, storage, and battery life.
Balance
Balance is overall pretty good with the speakers here as it was easy to hear both higher tones and lower tones. The lower tones seem to overpower the higher tones just a little.
Vocals
For me, the vocals are one of the better parts of the speakers. I felt like these came through rather well whenever listening to YouTube videos or when in the voice-acted scenes of some games like Honkai Star Rail. Not perfect, but in my opinion by far the part of the speakers that seemed to perform the best.
Immersion
Immersion is one of the most important parts of the speakers in a gaming phone because gaming is probably what you’re doing most with a device like this one. And the better the immersion, the better the gaming experience. You want a full sound that envelopes you as best as possible. While the speakers won’t hold a candle to earbuds or headphones, they do a really good job of providing some immersive sound experiences. I still think the speakers on the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition and the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate are better, but these aren’t far behind.
RedMagic 9 Pro Review: Camera Performance
Gaming phones have never been the best option for phone cameras, and that’s mostly still true. But there is some nuance to consider. The best camera is the one you have on you. In many cases, that’s going to be your phone. And if your phone happens to be a gaming phone with a mediocre camera, then that’s the best camera for you unless you have other readily available options. With that said, camera performance has come a long way for phones. And this includes devices that are geared towards gaming, such as the RedMagic 9 Pro.
I think the best way to look at this camera is to go in without any expectations. This isn’t because the camera is bad, but you’d be setting yourself up for disappointment if you buy this phone expecting it to be the best camera of any smartphone available. So, with that said, this is what I did. I tried not to think about how each photo looked in comparison to something like the Pixel 8, which I had already reviewed and know has one of the cameras of any smartphone on the market. My goal was to judge the camera on its own merits so I was really only focusing on what this camera can do and how the images look.
Now that that’s out of the way, the camera on the RedMagic 9 Pro performs better than I was expecting, but I think that’s mostly because I’ve just been conditioned to think of gaming phones as having mediocre cameras. As that was the case for so long. But ASUS really showed that gaming phones can produce some pretty good pictures and the RedMagic 9 Pro follows in those footsteps. When using just the regular photo mode for shots, images come out with a decent amount of detail and colors pop nice and bright.
There seems to be a little more saturation than some other phones, and this is easier to see when you have really bright and vivid colors in the image. Like the blue sky or red wood paneling in the photo I took at the food cart commons. I was also once again quite surprised with how well the portrait mode photos came out. There’s a good amount of foreground detail in the image of the sakura tree while additional branches and blooming sakura buds in the background are sufficiently blurred without making the edges around the focal point too fuzzy.
Sometimes when using portrait mode on other devices I’d notice that parts of the focal subject end up blurred when they shouldn’t be. But that didn’t really seem to happen with the RedMagic 9 Pro which was a nice surprise. Since I love using portrait mode for photos when I do actually use the camera on my phone. The camera does ok in low light conditions but this is kind of where you start to see the camera and the software are a little bit lacking. Darker-lit rooms cause the images to lose a little detail. Macro shots are probably where I feel the camera is weakest. At least for what I was able to test.
No matter how many macro shots I took of the Gnocchi I made, the image always came out just a little out of focus. Even after trying out varying degrees of distance between the camera and the dish. This is a little bit of a bummer since macro shots can be really interesting. But photos can still look good close up if you’re using the regular or pro modes. And if you really want to experiment, you can check out the “camera-family” section all the way to the left. This houses a variety of different photo modes like slow-motion, starry sky, light draw, time-lapse, and others.
I wasn’t able to test most of these since most of them require the use of a tripod, which I don’t have at the moment. Overall, I think the camera is ok. I’ll say what I’ve always said when it comes to gaming phones. You aren’t buying this for the camera. And as long as you remember that, you’ll be fine with the camera’s quality and performance. The images really do come out just fine. And that’s the most important part. They don’t have to be the best photos of any phone. They just have to look decent. And I’d say they do here.
Now in addition to using the camera like you would use one normally, we do test the camera using a test we came up with here at Android Headlines to see how it compares to other smartphones. I did this after taking all of the other shots. The test is setting up a photo light box and placing a Rubix Cube inside of it, then we take a picture of the Rubix Cube with the phone and compare it to other devices with this same image.
The reason we do this is so we have a controlled image environment for testing purposes. In this case, I’m using the images of the RedMagic 9 Pro, the ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition, and the OnePlus 12R since these were the three most recent phones I personally tested, and they’re all from this year while also all being gaming focused.
Should you buy the RedMagic 9 Pro?
While we can’t definitively answer yes or no for you on this, since you might be looking for something different than what this phone has, we can offer some reasons why you might want to buy or skip it. I will say though, that there are some good reasons to buy this phone.
You should buy the RedMagic 9 Pro if:
– You want a great gaming phone
– Exceptionally long-lasting battery life is important to you
– Affordability is a factor
You shouldn’t buy the RedMagic 9 Pro if:
– You can spend more for a higher-end device
– A better camera is important to you
– You want something with slightly better cooling performance
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