Game the system
SMARTPHONE | £579 from RedMagic www.snipca.com/49269
RedMagic is marketing its 9 Pro as a phone for gamers, which is usually another way of saying it’s powerful enough to run the most demanding software and has a brilliant screen. It also tends to mean manufacturers can hike up the price, thanks to the premium components they use.
Like other Chinese manufacturers, however, RedMagic has mastered the art of making premium phones that cost less. We saw this with the RedMagic 8 Pro (reviewed in Issue 652), and now the company has repeated its feat with the 9 Pro, which has a similar launch price of £579 (with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage) or £709 (16GB RAM and 512GB storage).
It’s one of the first phones to use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, placing it at the cutting edge of Android phones. That’s the same chip Samsung uses in its Galaxy S24 phones, which start at £799 for a basic model with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage.
The Gen 3 processor runs about 10 per cent faster than its Gen 2 predecessor in single-core tests, and around 40 per cent faster in multi-core tests. That means you’ll see more of a difference if you use apps that push the phone to its limits. This is what makes it particularly suited to games, although anyone who uses their phone for video-editing and other processor-hungry activities will also see the benefits.
A number of design features point to the 9 Pro’s gaming emphasis. The RedMagic OS 9 operating system, which is based on Android 14, has a dedicated game space you can launch to access the phone’s gaming-specific elements. These include additional buttons around the edge of the phone that help it behave more like a game controller than most phones can manage.
The single USB-C port supports HDMI with a refresh rate of up to 120Hz, so it would be easy to plug into a monitor or TV. The camera is disappointing, though, and is probably one of the corners RedMagic has cut to keep the price down. This will make it less appealing to non-gamers.
With a huge 6,500mAh battery, the phone lasted nearly 20 hours in our tests. That’s an excellent result and should mean it can run for a couple of days before it needs recharging.
SPECIFICATIONS
8-core Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor • 12GB or 16GB RAM • 256GB or 512GB storage • 6.8in 120Hz 2480x1116-pixel AMOLED screen • 50-megapixel rear camera • 16-megapixel front-facing camera • Wi-Fi 7 ��
