RedMagic is definitely the most special phone brand in these couple of years.
Now in the niche market of gaming phones, it’s not easy for any brand to survive. Some brands shifted their strategies to the mass market, such as iQOO, while unfortunately, some even have been close to backing down from the market. You know what I’m talking about. Yeah, it’s Black Shark, it used to be my favorite gaming phone brand.
However, only RedMagic is still running wild on the gaming-phone path and is starting to try designs that will always remain only in the minds of other phone makers.
What? ROG phone? Well, an old castle owner, let’s cut him a slack.
RedMagic
The latest RedMagic 9 Pro in my hand is the most specially designed phone in 2023, probably taking the title until 2024, unless RedMagic releases a new model to defeat their own 9 Pro.
Technically, its innovative design wasn’t just developed based on the need for gaming, such as the punchless screen and the perfect rectangular shape. As well as a completely flat back design. the RedMagic 9 Pro is designed to look like a betrayal of the mainstream phone market.
Unbox
The packaging for the RedMagic 9 Pro is with a rarely seen silver color as well as glossy accents. The hard case comes with it fits the phone perfectly.There is also a charger and a charging cable inside the package.
First I would like to talk about the charger which supports up to 80W and has decent charging protocol support.
Unfortunately it is a glossy black finish and it’s definitely the most fingerprint-prone charger on the planet. A hacker could easily take everything I have just by stealing the charger.
Design
The RedMagic 9 Pro looks like a phone from the future. The experience of viewing this phone from the front is outstanding, with extremely narrow bezels, coupled with an under-screen camera and square screen proportions delivering an unrivaled visual.
No matter what angle you look at the screen, it is just outstanding. Most of the time it is very difficult to spot the under-screen camera, even on close inspection. It is only vaguely visible against a white background with low brightness.
This phone has a very cool back design that is completely flat with a carbon fiber texture. As well as RGB lights, there is no doubt that no one can resist such a look. One thing worth noting is that like RedMagic’s previous phones, the 9 Pro also packs a cooling fan, but this time the design is much more understated, subtly blending in with the camera’s camera. In 2023, if you want a flagship phone without a raised camera, the RedMagic 9 Pro is the only choice.
The flash portion has a very small bump that’s about as thick as a piece of paper. In the frame, there is quite a lot of stuff, a 3.5MMW headphone jack, IR remote, touch trigger, 3 microphones, dual speakers, and more.
Some may complain about the thickness and grip, but compared to the iPhone 14, the thickness is acceptable. And thanks to the slightly curved connection between the frame and the screen, the grip feels unexpectedly good.
The phone I got has a small stain where the fan is located, and not just me, some of the users who have purchased the 9 Pro have also responded with similar issues, SO, please also consider it before buying. It doesn’t affect the use, but, it just looks a little embarrassing.
Performance
The performance is the strongest among the 8Gen3 phones I have tested. Whether it was Geekbench or 3DMark, the 9 Pro got scores that other phones struggled to match.
The only complaint I have is that RedMagic doesn’t offer a 16GB-RAM option on the 9 Pro, so if you want 16GB, you’ll have to buy the 9 Pro+. However, it’s not very wise to pay the extra money for the Plus variant. You can check out the differences between them here:
Game Test
First of all in Genshin Impact, without a doubt, it was easily kept at 60fps all the time, with power consumption at around 5w like most Snapdragon 8Gen3 phones, in PUBG mobile, perfect 90fps with a very smooth gaming experience. In Honor of Kings, the game runs at 120fps the whole time and has very excellent power control.
Of course, if you want even more performance, you can manually turn on Diablo mode, and this 8Gen3’s CPU and GPU will run at ultra-high frequencies. I tested it for 20 minutes in Harajuku with Diablo mode on, the average power consumption was rising to 9.2W and there was no downclocking at all during the 20 minutes of gaming, which is insane.
Meanwhile, the RedMagic 9 Pro got close to a maximum temperature of 50°C, even coming with a hardworking fan running. That’s probably an extreme performance that we could run on the Snapdragon 8Gen 3 platform.
8gen3 is strong enough to easily crash almost any game even without Diablo mode on, I think Diablo mode is designed for geeks and emulator players.
If you are an FPS game player, then the 9 Pro’s shoulder triggers can be effective in improving your game, I usually set the left one as aiming acts and the right set as shooting. That’s still very useful, compared to regular phone players, you can always have quicker responses. If there’s anything that feels better than the touchable triggers, it must be Black Shark’s mechanical triggers, which, however, are probably going to be history with the brand. I do miss the physical feedback on the Black Shark 4 series.
Fully Covered Display
The RedMagic 9 Pro comes with a 6.8-inch AMOLED screen and uses a 20:9 ratio and smaller curvature, so it’s not just for gaming, the screen also provides an excellent experience when watching videos.
This screen also has a manual maximum brightness of 600nit and an excitation brightness of 1600nit, as well as low brightness PWM dimming and high brightness DC dimming. Simply put, this is a good gaming screen.
Battery & Charging
The 9 Pro has a large 6500mAh battery, and it doesn’t consume more power than any other 8gen3 phone if Diablo mode isn’t on, all in all, the RedMagic 9 Pro can please any picky person when it comes to battery life.
It has a maximum charging power of 80W, and it takes about 38 minutes to fully charge the battery, which is even better than some phones with 100W charging power.
The other good news is that the RedMagic 9 Pro supports bypass charging, and it allows you to manually turn it on whenever you need it. RedMagic really knows what gamers want.
Camera
To be honest, just looking at the specs alone, the camera on the 9 Pro is not bad. The main Camera not only has a large 1/1.57-inch sensor but also supports OIS.
I also briefly took some sample shots, but I think people who really want to buy this phone might not care too much about that. Anyway, you can check out the video here, where we show the samples.
As for the front-facing camera, it just brought me back to 2012.
Verdict
In short, the RedMagic 9 Pro has everything a gamer could want! great performance, cool looks, big battery, bypass charging, and more. This is definitely the ultimate gaming device that gamers will hard to resist.
Anyway, if you are still interested in the upgraded gaming phone, buy it at Giztop or Geekwills.
