Nubia Red Magic 9S Pro: Two-minute review

The title of ‘Best gaming phone’ has arguably never been more up for grabs than it is in 2024. While Asus turned out a solid pair of smartphones with its ROG Phone 8 series, it also took several steps towards the mainstream that arguably diluted the appeal of those devices to gamers.

As the only other company regularly turning out gaming phones, Nubia is best poised to take advantage of this change in priorities from the category leader. The Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro, which was released earlier this year, was something of a bargain, offering top-end performance, built-in fan cooling, and physical controls in a mid-priced package.

Now the Red Magic 9S Pro is here, offering incremental improvements over the 9 Pro for the same price. We could probably just copy and paste our Red Magic 9 Pro review in at this point, and most of what we said about that phone would still be accurate.

There’s a strong argument to be made that this is a needless update, with a nigh-on identical flat-edged design (complete with mappable capacitive trigger buttons), the same 6500mAh battery with 80W wired charging, and the same dual 50MP camera system backed by a 2MP macro sensor.

Even the chip that runs the show is pretty much the same, albeit this ‘Leading Version’ of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is clocked slightly higher than before. There’s either 12GB or 16GB of RAM, depending on the variant you opt for.

To accompany this slightly overclocked component, Nubia has stuck in an upgraded ICE 13.5 cooling system, which adds a new frost cooling gel into the equation.

Unfortunately, Nubia’s decision to stick with the same basic design means the Red Magic 9S Pro has the same flaws as its predecessor. While it’s nice to have an unimpeded 6.8-inch FHD+ AMOLED display, Nubia’s implementation still means that you get a terrible in-display selfie camera.

You also have to put up with Nubia’s less-than-brilliant custom Android UI. It’s much better than it was only a couple of years ago, but if you’re after an elegant day-to-day experience, you’re better served spending similar money on one of the best mid-range phones on the market.

Despite the lack of anything really new, however, the Red Magic 9S Pro somehow finds itself in a straight shootout with the Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro as the best gaming phone on the market. Given its clearer focus on gaming, as well as its superior value proposition, it might just scrape the win.

Nubia Red Magic 9S Pro review: price and availability

• From $649 / £579 / Australian customers can buy from Red Magic’s global store in USD
• Early-bird offer from July 23 to July 30, 2024

The international version of the Red Magic 9S Pro will be available from July 23, 2024. For its first week on sale, an early-bird offer will be running that enables purchasers to secure a $30 / £30 discount.

There will eventually be four color/storage variants on offer, starting with the entry-level Sleet model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $649 / £579. The Cyclone and Snowfall models – both of which ship with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage – cost $799 / £709.

The fourth Frost model won’t hit shops until mid-September 2024, and will be another entry-level option, with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $649 / £579.

That pricing is identical to the Red Magic 9 Pro – all that’s different is the addition of the extra entry-level Frost option.

• Value score: 5/5

Nubia Red Magic 9S Pro review: specs

Nubia Red Magic 9S Pro review: design

• Gorilla Glass 5 front and back, aluminum frame
• Dead-flat shape
• 520Hz capacitive shoulder buttons
• Dedicated gaming mode switch

With this being an S-series device, the Red Magic 9S Pro looks and feels nigh-on identical to the Red Magic 9 Pro before it. It’s exactly the same size (164 x 76.4 x 8.9mm) and weight (229g), which means you’re dealing with a phone that hits Galaxy S24 Ultra levels of unwieldiness.

This is one of the most angular phones you’re likely to find, with flat surfaces all around. Even the camera module is integrated into the Gorilla Glass 5 back, while the Gorilla Glass 5-coated front doesn’t exhibit so much as the slightest hint of curvature.

The thick, flat frame is formed of aluminum, which gives the phone a solid feel, and this vast rim houses more points of interest than you might be accustomed to. Most of these are located on the right edge, where you’ll find a pair of 520Hz capacitive buttons (with integrated LED lights) that can be mapped to controls in many games.

These buttons flank one of two vents for the integrated cooling fan, a long volume rocker, a nicely tactile circular power button, and a dedicated gaming mode switch that boots the phone into Nubia’s gaming UI.

The top edge of the phone, meanwhile, houses a 3.5mm headphone jack, which I’d suggest is an essential inclusion in any serious gaming phone. The opposite edge houses a USB-C port, but there’s no secondary charging port on the longer side, as we’ve seen on older ROG models (but not, alas, the ROG Phone 8).

Those two shorter edges also house the phone’s stereo speakers, which isn’t the most gaming-friendly of decisions. It’s generally better to have these be front-firing, as it’s too easy to block them with your hands when you’re holding the phone. The output is extremely loud and clear, but it lacks the controlled nuance and depth of more expensive phones.

The rear of the phone adopts the same kind-of-transparent design as the 9 Pro. I say ‘kind-of-transparent’ because if you look closely, precious little of the phone’s inner workings are actually exposed here – there’s a symbol depicting the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 ‘Leading Version’ chip and some vaguely circuit board-evoking sections, but only a window showing the cooling fan seems genuine.

The most impressive part of the Red Magic 9S Pro design is on the front, where minimal bezels and the lack of a notch result in a 93.7% screen-to-body ratio. Admittedly, that doesn’t necessarily make for the best gaming experience – we’ve already discussed the benefits of front-firing speakers, and it’s always handy to have something to hold onto as well – but it certainly looks impressive.

• Design score: 3.5/5

Nubia Red Magic 9S Pro review: display

• Large 6.8-inch screen
• FHD+ resolution, 120Hz refresh rate
• BOE Q9+ luminescent material
• Under-display selfie camera

Without wishing to sound like a stuck record so early in the review (believe me, there’s more to come), the Red Magic 9S Pro display is identical to that of the Red Magic 9 Pro. That is, it’s a large 6.8-inch OLED screen with a 2480 x 1116 resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate.

That’s not the fastest screen on a gaming phone – the Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro hits 165Hz – but given that relatively few mobile games will even support frame rates of up to 120fps, this is verging on being a non-issue.

Nubia stepped up the vibrancy with the 9 Pro screen, and the 9S Pro benefits from the same BOE Q9+ luminescent material. Translation: the colors are particularly punchy, and those concerned about a faithful video playback experience will want to dial things back to the more muted ‘Soft’ mode.

In peak conditions, this screen is capable of hitting 1600 nits. With auto brightness turned off and the brightness cranked up to the max, I recorded a top brightness of 447 nits – again, very much in keeping with the 9 Pro.

As already mentioned, one of the most striking things about this display is that it’s completely unimpeded by a front-facing camera. Aside from the likes of the Sony Xperia 1 VI, most modern phones lump you with a notch of some kind, but the Red Magic 9S Pro has an in-display selfie camera to preserve that pristine canvas.

• Display score: 4/5

Nubia Red Magic 9S Pro review: cameras

• 50MP main with OIS this time
• 50MP ultra-wide, 2MP macro
• 16MP in-display selfie camera still terrible
• Up to 8K video

Guess what? Nubia hasn’t changed the Red Magic 9S Pro camera set-up one jot. Which means it remains a secondary concern, in a way that will be familiar to anyone who’s owned a gaming phone before.

You get the same 50MP Samsung GN5 as we’ve seen in the past few models, which is actually a decent enough component – if not a particularly fresh one. It was the sensor that led the way back in the Galaxy S22 days. This is backed by OIS and a 7P lens, meaning there are seven plastic elements.

The Red Magic 9S Pro turns out reasonably sharp and vibrant shots in good lighting, although Nubia’s color science does punch colors up somewhat. The night mode shots I took didn’t turn out particularly great though, with a weird grainy texture to the skies that suggests a processing issue.

Indeed, these night shots didn’t look as good as the ones I took with the Red Magic 9 Pro earlier in the year, which perhaps points to a software issue. Hopefully, an update will clear this up.

There’s also a 50MP Samsung JN1 ultra-wide sensor here, but it doesn’t turn out particularly good results. There was often a massive disparity in the clarity and tone between these two main sensors, with the ultra-wide turning out much dimmer, murkier snaps.

The video specs are pretty solid, with the phone’s flagship processor enabling up to 8K/30fps, 4K/60fps, or 1080p/240fps. The footage I captured seemed steady enough, though panning around 180 degrees on a sunny day led to some slightly clunky exposure adjustments.

If there’s one big casualty of Nubia’s decision to go with an all-screen front, it’s the 9S Pro’s 16MP under-display selfie camera. Selfie shots are truly abysmal, as they were in previous models. Detail, exposure, and dynamic range are worse than even a modern affordable phone with a regular front-facing camera.

• Camera score: 3/5

Nubia Red Magic 9S Pro review: camera samples

Nubia Red Magic 9S Pro review: performance

• Slightly faster Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip ‘Leading Version’
• 12GB or 16GB RAM of LPDDR5X RAM
• 256GB or 512GB UFS 4.0 storage
• Some concerning throttling issues

Nubia finds itself in a bit of a tricky position with the 9S Pro, because Qualcomm hasn’t released its customary ‘Plus’ chip update. This means that the fastest chip available remains the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which already powered the Red Magic 9 Pro. Awkward.

The solution, it seems, is to effectively ‘do a Samsung’ and use a slightly overclocked version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Nubia calls it the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip ‘Leading Version’, but it’s essentially the same chip with a performance core that runs to 3.4GHz (rather than 3.3GHz) and a GPU that runs to 1GHz (rather than 900Hz).

If that sounds like a minimal upgrade, well, it is. Indeed, with the same 12 or 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM as before, the regular range of CPU and GPU benchmark results I obtained turned out broadly the same as the 9 Pro.

Of course, that still means that the Red Magic 9S Pro is one of the fastest phones on the market. It’s more than capable of running even the most advanced games on top graphical settings at fluid frame rates, though so is any other flagship Android phone or iPhone from the past couple of years.

There is one point of concern here, and it relates to sustained performance. Nubia claims to have improved the 9S Pro’s cooling system, with an ICE 13.5 set-up that renders the phone 1.5 degrees cooler than before.

In practice, however, the Red Magic 9S Pro seems less stable than its predecessor. Running a couple of the 3D Mark Stress Tests (Wild Life and Solar Bay), which are 20 consecutive minute-long intensive GPU workouts, the results were surprisingly variable. They never got much higher than 80%, suggesting a fair degree of throttling is in play.

That’s a decent enough score for a regular phone with only passive cooling, but it’s well short of the high–90s scores I was getting with the 9 Pro. Even the Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro can hit the low-’90s, and that phone doesn’t have a built-in cooling fan.

Given the nature of the hardware, this would seem to be either a software issue or a problem with that higher-clocked chip. Hopefully a swift update can fix it, as this isn’t something you want to see in a gaming phone.

• Performance score: 4.5/5

Nubia Red Magic 9S Pro review: software

• Red Magic OS 9.5 on Android 14
• Ugly UI, but it works
• Powerful Game Space dedicated gaming UI

The Red Magic 9S Pro gets Red Magic OS 9.5 layered on top of Android 14, and it offers a broadly familiar experience. From a pretty sticky start, Nubia’s Red Magic OS UI has worked its way to being half way passable. It’s no longer the mess of oversized fan widgets and poorly translated text that it used to be.

Let’s not be in any doubt, though, that this isn’t a particularly appealing UI. The wallpapers have that tiresome ‘gamer’ aesthetic about them – all neon flourishes, metallic surfaces, and sharp angles, like a close-up shot of a Transformer’s clenched bicep.

There’s still a charmless Browser app, which also doubles as a charmless news feed app, and the Booking.com app still comes preinstalled for some reason. Still, none of these tedious elements is exclusive to Nubia’s custom UI these days.

In general use, Red Magic OS 9.5 is just fine to use. The home screen isn’t flooded with too many pointless apps. Even the home-brewed Goper app is justifiable if you’ve invested in one of Nubia’s accessories.

Everything runs smoothly, app switching is snappy, and unlocking the phone is a swift and relatively painless process. I didn’t get any of the sort of glitches that can occasionally be seen in Red Magic UIs, including the previous version.

As always, Nubia’s Game Space UI is a big feature here. Activated by a physical hardware switch on the side of the phone, it serves as a launching point for installed games, as well as a means for customizing fan, CPU, and GPU settings. You can also tweak screen sensitivity settings here, as well as adjusting screen ratios on a game by game basis.

Another aspect of this is an in-game UI, accessible with a drag from the side of the screen, which lets you do things like map those air triggers to particular controls. Being able to assign aim and shoot to specific buttons makes games like Warzone Mobile way better to play.

The Red Magic 9S Pro also supports up to 120fps wireless PC projection, now given the name ‘Z-SmartCast’, though I was unable to put this to the test.

In short, the Red Magic 9S Pro’s software is as clean, stable, and powerful as we’ve seen from Nubia, though there’s still loads of room for improvement. I still far prefer the elegant Asus approach as seen in the ROG Phone 8 Pro, which offers users the choice of a more custom UI or one that’s closer to stock Android.

• Software score: 3.5/5

Nubia Red Magic 9S Pro review: battery life

• 6,500mAh battery
• Clears a full day of intensive use with ease
• Fast 80W wired charging

Nubia is stuck with a 6,500mAh dual-cell battery for the Red Magic 9S Pro, which is just peachy. That’s way larger than your average non-gaming phone battery, and is even more capacious than the Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro’s.

Like the Red Magic 9 Pro, this phone has the potential to last two days when used moderately. On one typical day of fairly intensive usage, with 5 hours 30 minutes of screen on time, I was still left with 44% left in the tank.

Naturally, given the phone’s gaming focus, this extra capacity is really intended to get you through a full day even when you indulge in an intensive gaming session or two. The Red Magic 9S Pro is more than up to the task here.

You still get 80W charging straight out of the box, which is another area that hasn’t improved from the 9 Pro. It’s not quite as swift as it might seem, thanks to that larger-than-average battery. I was able to get a full charge in a little over 45 minutes, which is broadly in line with the Asus ROG Phone 8 family.

Unlike the Asus ROG Phone 8, you don’t get wireless charging here. That’s not typically a feature that hardcore gamers are looking for, however. They’re more likely to be pleased by the 9S Pro’s ability to run directly off the wall charger when plugged in, without going through the battery. That’s potentially better for the battery, not to mention mitigating potential heat buildup while gaming.

It would have been nice to have also had that secondary USB-C port on the opposite edge to the Air Triggers, though, which would have made for a more comfortable charge-while-you-play experience.

• Battery score: 5/5

Should I buy the Nubia Red Magic 9S Pro?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Nubia Red Magic 9S Pro review: also consider

The Nubia Red Magic 9S Pro is a great-value gaming phone, but there are still some excellent alternatives to consider.

How I tested the Nubia Red Magic 9S Pro

• Review test period = 1 week
• Testing included = Everyday usage, including web browsing, social media, photography, video calling, gaming, streaming video, music playback
• Tools used = Geekbench 6, GFXBench, 3DMark, native Android stats, bundled Nubia 80W power adapter

First reviewed: July 2024

Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro: Two-minute review

Asus might have made the best out and out gaming phone of 2023 in the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate, but the Nubia Red Magic 8S Pro was the people’s champ. It offered comparably zippy performance and gamer-friendly controls in a reasonably neat package, all for less than half the price.

Now the Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro is here, with updated internals and a slightly streamlined design at the same asking price. Yes, it’s another iterative update from Nubia, but that’s kind of what it takes if you’re intent on staying at the cutting edge of mobile gaming performance on a strict budget.

The design is much like the previous models, with flat surfaces and gaming-friendly capacitive shoulder buttons, but with a more elegant flattened camera module. Meanwhile, the huge notch-free display is brighter and more vibrant than before.

If we’re talking top-tier features, the Red Magic 9 Pro really hits the bullseye with its performance. Not only does the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 beat most of the competition, but it can do so over a sustained period thanks to an extensive multi-layered cooling system.

The other key component here is the Red Magic 9 Pro’s battery. It’s bigger than ever at 6,500mAh, and it can last a full two days of regular usage on a single charge. Heavy gaming won’t leave you sweating come the end of a day either, while a bundled 80W charger gets you back up to speed quickly.

Few of the best gaming phones take brilliant pictures, and the Red Magic 9 Pro is no exception. Its 50MP main Samsung-made sensor does a passable job, especially now that it has OIS, but the new 50MP ultra-wide is fairly mediocre, and the under-display selfie cam is abysmal.

Nubia’s software provision has come on leaps and bounds since its calamitous early days, to the point where it’s now actually quite usable. It’s far from perfect, but its Game Space mode is well tuned to a gamer’s needs.

It isn’t the best pure gaming phone on the market, even with its imperious performance, but the Red Magic 9 Pro is undoubtedly the best-value. You simply won’t find this level of sustained performance anywhere else for $649 / £579.

Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro review: Price and availability

• From $649 / £579 / Australian buyers use Red Magic's global store in USD
• Pre-order from December 27, 2023
• On sale from January 3, 2024

The international version of the Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro was made available for pre-order from December 27, 2023 on the Red Magic website, with open sales commencing on January 3, 2024.

The entry-level Sleet model – which ships with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage – costs $649 / £579. The Cyclone and Snowfall models – both of which ship with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage – cost $799 / £709.

While Red Magic tries to sell its devices local currency in most of the markets it operates in, interested buyers in Australia will have buy through the company's global store, which is all priced in USD, meaning the base 256GB model sells for approximately AU$965 at $649 and the 512GB variant costs equivalent to about AU$1,190.

That essentially sees Nubia freezing the pricing of its latest gaming phone compared to the 8S Pro. The mid-level price has been taken out this year too, which effectively means that you get a choice of color if you’re shopping for the top storage RAM version.

• Value score: 5 / 5

Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro review: Specs

Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro review: Design

• Gorilla Glass 5 front and back, aluminum frame
• Even flatter design than before
• 520Hz capacitive shoulder buttons
• Dedicated gaming mode switch

As gaming phones go, the Red Magic 9 Pro looks pretty decent, but isn’t the most comfortable to hold for extended periods. Make no mistake, this is still a big, bulky phone, at 8.9mm thick – half a millimetre thinner than the 8S Pro – and with a similar weight of 229 grams.

Both measurements are at the very top end of acceptable for regular phone users, but within a gaming phone context they’re quite reasonable. With none of the ROG Phone 7 series' curves, however, it might weigh a little heavier after a lengthy gaming session.

The Red Magic 9 Pro’s blocky, flat-surfaced look has been accentuated this year with an almost completely flat back. The camera module has been shunted to the side and placed underneath the transparent rear cover, which could be the first practical use case for such an aesthetic choice. It’s a pleasingly clean effect, though it’s ever so slightly spoiled by the flash poking through.

My model comes in the Snowfall colorway, which is basically off-white with a semi-transparent back hinting at some of the components within. Cyclone pulls the same trick but with black as the underlying color, while Sleet is the terribly named plain black entry model.

There’s some RGB lighting, of course, around the fan, under the '09' decal, and now also underneath the capacitive shoulder button controls that sit along the right edge. Said sensors appear to be unchanged since the 8S Pro, lighting aside.

Once again, they have a speedy 520Hz response rate, and work with Nubia’s gaming UI, allowing you to map gaming controls to them. They’re particularly handy in shooters like CoD Mobile or PUBG Mobile, where they can be assigned to aim and shoot.

On a rather over-stacked right-hand edge, you also get the volume and power buttons – the latter pleasingly circular – as well as a custom Game Boost Switch. Flip this to jump into Game Space mode, where you can launch games and tinker with performance and interface elements, so as to optimize your gaming experience.

That flat side frame itself is made from aluminum, while the display is once again covered by Gorilla Glass 5. This isn’t the newest or toughest material of its kind, but cuts clearly had to be made somewhere to hit that price point. Another such compromise is the lack of a water and dust resistance IP rating.

You only get the one USB-C port on the bottom of the phone, unlike the Asus ROG Phone range, but you still get a 3.5mm headphones jack on the top edge.

The front of the phone impresses from a visual perspective, with minimal bezels and an under-display selfie cam making for a nigh-on all-screen experience. It’s not an especially gamer-friendly touch, though, with less space to hold the phone and ample opportunity for false presses.

It also means that the speaker grilles have been consigned to the top and bottom edges, which isn’t ideal for landscape gaming.

• Design score: 3.5 / 5

Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro review: Display

• Large 6.8-inch screen
• FHD+ resolution, 120Hz refresh rate
• New material provides brighter, bolder picture
• Under-display selfie camera

Like its predecessor, the Red Magic 9 Pro packs a large 6.8-inch OLED display with a 2480 x 1116 resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. The latter spec isn’t the fastest on the gaming phone market, but given that precious few games will support frame rates in excess of 120Hz it’s not a huge problem.

This isn’t exactly the same as the Red Magic 8S Pro display, however. Nubia has switched to using BOE’s Q9+ luminescent material, which makes for a punchier output. A little too punchy, in fact – I had to crank the color mode all the way down to ‘Soft’, away from the ‘Colorful’ default and past the medium ‘Standard’ setting, to secure a slightly more natural look.

This new material seems to grant the Red Magic 9 Pro a little more brightness too. Nubia claims a peak brightness of 1,600nits, which is up 300nits from the 8S Pro. With auto-brightness switched off, I recorded the 9 Pro hitting 445 nits, which is about 100 nits more than its predecessor.

While this might not be the sharpest or most nuanced display on the market, the Red Magic 9 Pro's screen makes for an excellent gaming canvas. It’s big, flat, sufficiently bright, and it doesn’t have a bothersome notch getting in the way of the action.

• Display score: 4 / 5

Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro review: Camera

• 50MP main with OIS this time
• Improved 50MP ultra-wide, 2MP macro
• 16MP in-display selfie camera still terrible
• Up to 8K video

If a manufacturer needs to free up space and money to do something a little different with a phone, it’s invariably the camera that suffers. Just as with foldables, so it is with gaming phones.

Last year’s Red Magic 8S Pro didn’t take particularly great pictures, and the Red Magic 9 Pro isn’t all that much better. It does mark a slight improvement, however.

While it packs the exact same 50MP Samsung GN5 main image sensor as before, this time it’s accompanied by optical image stabilization (OIS). You’d take this component for granted in a $700/£600 smartphone, but it’s a welcome addition to this $700/£600 gaming phone.

The combination of an aging flagship sensor (it was in the Samsung Galaxy S22) with proper stabilization, a 7P lens (that stands for seven [plastic] elements), and the improved image processing of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, produces decent shots in good lighting. The results in low lighting are a tad crisper than with the 8S Pro, though Nubia’s Night mode still brightens things up to a slightly false-looking degree.

Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro camera samples

Nubia has also improved the ultra-wide camera, swapping out the 8MP sensor in the 8S Pro for a 50MP Samsung JN1 alternative. While it’s an adequate component in good lighting, there’s a marked difference to the main sensor in terms of tone and dynamic range.

The fresh OIS provision also enhances the 9 Pro’s video capabilities. It’s still shooting at 8K/30fps, 4K/60fps, or 1080p/240fps, but the footage I captured seemed to benefit from the new steadying technology.

One thing that most certainly hasn’t changed is the Red Magic 9 Pro’s 16MP under-display selfie camera. It might free up space on the display, but once again selfie shots look truly terrible – a blurry, smudgey, borderline impressionistic mess.

• Camera score: 3 / 5

Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro review: Performance

• One of the first phones on the market with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip
• 12GB or 16GB RAM of LPDDR5X RAM
• 256GB or 512GB UFS 4.0 storage

Any compromises made with the Red Magic 9 Pro’s design and camera were reached in service of this: providing as much gaming power as possible for a mid-market price.

On that front, the Red Magic 9 Pro is an unmitigated triumph. Nubia has switched to the latest and greatest chip at its disposal, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 from Qualcomm, together with either 12 or 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM.

This is the same chip the vast majority of 2024 flagship phones will be using, and it’s as fast as you’d expect. The usual CPU and GPU benchmark tests reveal a clear, if hardly seismic performance boost over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 from 2023.

Interestingly, it’s nip and tuck with the iPhone 15 Pro and its A17 Pro. Apple’s latest chip seems to have a clear single-core CPU performance advantage, but the $649 / £579 Red Magic 9 Pro and its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 wins its fair share of GPU rounds.

Raw processing power is all well and good, but that’s only half the story with a gaming phone such as this. Where the Red Magic 9 Pro really impresses is with its level of sustained performance.

Running a couple of the 3DMark Extreme tests, which run 20 successive minute-long intensive graphical tests, the Red Magic 9 Pro achieved close to perfect stability. That is, its average loop score remained remarkably consistent. Non-gaming phones only tend to score 70 to 80% in the stability stakes, due to their habit of throttling the processor significantly after the first loop.

The difference all comes down to cooling. Nubia has equipped the Red Magic 9 Pro with an upgraded ten-layer ICE 13.0 Cooling System, which includes a physical fan that kicks in when you start up a game. It’s a bit noisy, but it enables you to run the likes of Genshin Impact or Diablo Immortal on the highest settings at a solid 60fps, and they won’t start dropping frames deep into your session.

• Performance score: 5 / 5

Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro review: Software

• Red Magic OS 9.0 on Android 14
• Ugly but functional UI
• Powerful Game Space dedicated gaming UI

Nubia has improved its Red Magic OS user experience immeasurably over the past couple of years. What was once a painful mish-mash of screen-hogging widgets, occasionally untranslated Mandarin text, and a number of glitches has turned into a fairly typical custom Android 14 environment.

It’s still a pretty mediocre custom skin, with charmless wallpapers, a superfluous browser-cum-news-feed app, and the Booking.com app preinstalled (why is it always Booking.com?). But Red Magic OS 9.0 is now in a broadly functional state, and I was able to run the phone as my day-to-day device for around a week (and intermittently thereafter) with no major snags.

While I’m doling out faint praise, is that Google Keep I see preinstalled? It’s a very small point, but precious few manufacturers go with Google’s clean note-taking app out of the box, so I appreciate it when one does.

I did observe a couple of hiccups early on, with the home screen seeming to exhibit some bizarre lag despite all that power on tap, and despite me forcing the screen to refresh at 120Hz. After a couple of firmware updates, however, everything seems to be running smoothly.

I also had to go in and set Gmail to sync manually, for whatever reason. Presumably the aforementioned updates fixed that, but it’s difficult to be certain without a factory reset.

The important software here – given the intended audience – is Nubia’s Game Space UI. Flick that red switch and you’ll be booted into an interface that grants access to your games, as well as control over fan, CPU, and GPU settings.

When in a game you can drag in from the top left edge of the screen to bring up a streamlined UI. It’s from here you can also assign those capacitive controls to the game’s on-screen virtual buttons.

Nubia’s Game Space UI also lets you manage any accessories that you choose to buy, as well as run a large screen projection, manage your in-game screenshots and captured videos, tweak the RGB lighting output, and much more besides.

It’s way more than your average phone user will want or need, but then the Red Magic 9 Pro isn’t for average phone users.

• Software score: 3 / 5

Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro review: Battery

• Expanded 6,500mAh battery
• Clears a full day of intensive use with ease
• Fast 80W wired charging

Given that the Red Magic 9 Pro weighs about the same as the 8S Pro, and is also a little thinner, it’s impressive to note that Nubia has managed to increase the size of its battery.

It’s now up to a frankly huge 6,500mAh dual-cell configuration. Nubia claims that it can last up to 56 hours, which is tricky to equate to real world usage. I found that I could go through a full day of moderate usage with about four hours of screen-on time, and still be left with around 65% in the tank.

That’s an excellent result, not only improving upon the Red Magic 8S Pro, but also opening up the genuine possibility of practical two-day usage.

Of course, that’s not what all that extra juice is intended for. Gamers will find that they can indulge in a couple of intensive gaming sessions throughout the day, and won’t have to worry about plugging in until bed time.

The charging provision has ostensibly been improved too, with an 80W charger bundled in, which is up from 65W on the 8S Pro. Given the extra capacity of that battery, though, charging speeds are roughly the same, with a full charge from empty taking around 40 minutes.

Again, there’s no wireless charging here, but that’s a feature that’s routinely omitted from gaming phones – even the $1,399 / £1,199.99 / AU$2,099 ROG Phone 7 Ultimate – where advanced cooling solutions occupy that space instead.

• Battery score: 5 / 5

Should you buy the Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro review: Also consider

The Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro is a unique proposition alright, but it isn’t the only option if you’re after a game-friendly phone.

How I tested the Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro

• Review test period = 2 weeks
• Testing included = Everyday usage, including web browsing, social media, photography, video calling, gaming, streaming video, music playback
• Tools used = Geekbench 6, GFXBench, 3DMark, native Android stats, bundled Nubia 80W power adapter

I was sent the top Snowfall model of the Red Magic 9 Pro by a PR representative, at which point I commenced using the phone on a daily basis over a two-week period.

For at least a week of that time, the 9 Pro was my everyday phone. For the rest of the time, I swapped in another active SIM and continued to use the phone for benchmark tests, photos, and general browsing.

I’m a freelance journalist who got his start writing about mobile games in the pre-smartphone era. I was around to cover the arrival of the iPhone and the App Store, as well as Android, and their seismic effect on the games industry. I now write about consumer tech, games, and culture for a number of top websites.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed December 2023