nubia Red Magic 9S Pro review

The competition

The Red Magic 9S Pro is available in international markets in two memory combinations, each of them available in two colors. The 12/256 GB variant comes in Sleet or Frost colors and costs $649/€649/£579/SGD 979/MXN 13,999. There is also the 16/512 GB for Snowfall or Cyclone versions, which are priced at $799/€799/£709/MXN 16,999. The Frost option will be released in mid-September, while all other variants will be available for pre-order starting July 23. There are some early-bird coupon specials on redmagic.gg up until July 30, 2024, for you to grab worth $30/€30/£30/MXN 596.

The Red Magic 9S Pro is quite competitively priced for what it offers. Most viable flagship alternatives tend to cost far more.

For instance, an obvious contender is the ASUS ROG Phone 8. You do need to spend around €1,000 at current pricing to get one. Still, it is arguably the only other phone to challenge and perhaps beat the Red Magic 9S Pro gaming skills. You get amazing hardware all around with the ROG, including the display, speakers and capacitive shoulder triggers on their own level. Also, while you are giving up the built-in fan, the ROG Phone 8 does have full IP68 ingress protection. However, you will have to settle for the regular SM8650-AB version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.

Another way to spend €1,000 and acquire the SM8650-AC Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, is going for the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. With its flat display and excellent stereo speakers, it has many of the same parts as a dedicated "gaming" smartphone. Plus, nice quality-of-life things like an IP68 rating, Corning Gorilla Armor glass, a titanium frame and seven years of software support. Just don't expect to get quite the same peak performance out of the Galaxy as you would a gaming-tuned device. Nor are there dedicated trigger buttons on its side.

Asus ROG Phone 8 • Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra • Apple iPhone 15 Plus

Venturing beyond the Android realm for a bit here, there is no denying that Apple's iPhones make for great mobile gaming machines. Sure, you will have to live with the rather large Dynamic Island interrupting the otherwise gorgeous display, but that's about the only compromise you will have to make. The game library is beyond excellent, and with recent developments, Apple has even been opening up to some emulation apps on the official App Store. Plus, you get an iPhone at the end of the day, which is as solid of a daily driver as they come.

While you could technically get yourself an iPhone 15 Pro for around the €1,000 mark, we can't, in good conscience, recommend a 6.1-inch phone as a gaming device. Hence, your better bet is probably the iPhone 15 Plus, with its slower A16 Bionic chipset but notably larger 6.7-inch display.

Our verdict

Overall, the Red Magic 9S Pro is a capable gaming smartphone with tons of useful gaming features, excellent design, and probably one of the best, if not the best, price/performance ratios currently on the market. Kudos to nubia for maintaining its competitive pricing.

It's not only an affordable Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 option, but it also offers great battery life, fast charging and a great set of stereo speakers. Those excellent shoulder triggers and flat, uninterrupted OLED show great attention to detail and dedication toward the gaming crowd.

It is hard to overlook that the Red Magic 9S Pro is just the Red Magic 9 Pro with a chipset swap to the marginally better SM8650-AC Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. While we appreciate nubia's desire to offer its users the latest and greatest chip, we wish more was addressed with this release. Particularly the fact that the phone overheats during prolonged loads. Keeping things moderately cool under load used to be the Red Magic's thing, but it's slipped a few times now. Also, the display is not as competitive in brightness and HDR capabilities, the software still needs better translation, the high refresh rate gaming is still a hit-and-miss, and the speakers have oddly suffered a downgrade.

Even with all of these compromises, it is hard to beat the pure "gaming" value up on offer here. That alone is a great reason to consider the Red Magic 9S Pro. Better still, if you somehow manage to find discounted Red Magic 9 Pro stock somewhere and save yourself even more money, definitely go for that one instead.

Pros

• Unique flat, premium design.
• Large and fast 120Hz OLED panel, the UD selfie camera is inconspicuous.
• Great battery life, fast charging.
• Plenty of gaming-oriented features, including pressure-sensitive shoulder triggers.
• Flexible and well-executed external display and peripherals gaming experience.
• Nice sounding stereo speakers.
• Excellent connectivity with triple-band Wi-Fi, NFC, 3.5mm jack, IR blaster and DP output over Type-C.
• Feature-rich Redmagic OS 9

Cons

• The cooling solution underperforms compared to previous generations.
• The display is not among the brightest and does not support HDR video.
• The speakers have been downgraded compared to the Red Magic 9 Pro.
• The software is still plagued by awkward English translations from Chinese.
• Ultrawide and selfie cameras are still rather underwhelming.