Hands On with the RedMagic 8 Pro
Purchase Price: $649.99
There have been an abundance of high quality mobile gaming devices releasing one after another lately. We’re smack dab in the middle of our Razer Edge review and that device is surprisingly competent in a variety of ways. The newest addition to our office is the hotly anticipated RedMagic 8 Pro gaming phone. The last RedMagic we reviewed was the 6R and it had sneaky good value. Can we expect more of the same from the 8 Pro?
Top Notch Packaging
To start off the consumer unboxing experience, RedMagic immediately lets buyers know exactly what they’re getting into with a flashy reflective silver box packaging. The inner walls of the package are lined with a space Cyberpunk inspired graphic showcasing the company’s anime mascot character, Mora. Just an absolutely top notch presentation from the gaming brand. This is such a fun yet premium look for the brand. They’ve come a long way from the earlier phones we’ve purchased from them last decade.
RedMagic provides a clip-on plastic case that exposes the sides of the frame where the fan and shoulder triggers reside. A charging brick and USB-C cable are also provided as part of the purchase. The model we purchased is the lowest configuration which has the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor with 12 GB of Ram and 256 GB of storage. The back is enclosed with a matte glass material. This combination is sold for a shockingly low price of $649. We’re talking about this year’s top Android phone processor being widely available to consumers for less than $700 here! Regardless of anything else with the design of the phone, the sheer potential performance value alone deserves consideration for a spot in anyone’s pocket.
Rest of the Specs
Immediately upon removal from the box, you can feel just how large and hefty the phone is. The footprint of the 8 Pro is bigger than my entire hand. In fact, it’s almost exactly as long as the Razer Edge tablet is in length. That’s because RedMagic popped in a 6.8 inch AMOLED display that is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5. It’s a long 20:9 aspect ratio which gives the 1116 x 2480 p screen a 400 ppi density. This isn’t the sharpest display on the market, but the screen seems serviceable enough for gaming thanks to a 120 hz refresh rate. When you first glance at the lit up display, you’ll notice that it’s almost bezel-less in appearance. That’s also thanks to an under the display front camera. We’re seeing that more often these days. This particular sensor under the display is a 16 MP, f/2.0 wide lens.
The rear panel of the phone is quite unique in the current landscape of devices. Even in the gaming phone space, other than the ASUS ROG line, I don’t really see any other brand hitting the design language that RedMagic seems to covet. There’s a bit of text lining the shoulder triggers that is actually an RGB light strip. Unlike previous generations of RedMagic designs that is literally a strip of light, the caution tape lines and the text are what is illuminated on here. It’s much more subtle than on, say, the Nubia RedMagic 3, but it still does retain that gaming flare that is unique to the brand. This RGB strip can be programmed to play through a few different color schemes and illuminating patterns during gameplay and as a notification notice.
Three camera sensors flank down the center of the rear to form a column. There’s a large 50 MP, f/1.9 wide camera, an 8 MP f/2.2 ultrawide, and a 2 MP, f/2.4 macro lens. This can shoot up to 8K @30fps for video. To be blunt, my expectations are rock bottom low after just fiddling with the camera app for a few minutes. We’ll see if the performance can just be average enough to be acceptable as an everyday carry. That’s really all we need out of this kind of phone.
There’s a gigantic 6,000 mAh battery that I am extremely excited to test out. That in combination with the built-in cooling fan should make the 8 Pro a longevity champ with normal usage. There’s no wireless charging, but it does charge up to 65W plugged in.
Does it have the magic?
There’s a lot of software customization options on the 8 Pro. RedMagic uses a custom skin called Redmagic OS 6 on top of Android 13. With the application of themes and special widgets, you could theoretically make the phone feel more like a Windows gaming desktop than an Android home screen. There’s a dedicated toggle switch on the aluminum frame that turns on the Game Space Center. This gaming mode is one of the most in-depth customization options for mobile gaming I have personally reviewed. Some of the most beneficial features that are available are things like key remapping in games, macros, and a docking interface. It’s quite easy to stream your gameplay onto a television or monitor by casting through this software. It might be a little daunting at first with all these options to tinker with, but once you understand what each little setting can accomplish, you’ll soon realize just how vast the possibilities are for what the system can do.
In 2019, I gave the Red Magic 3 the title of “Sleeper Hit of The Year.” That phone was being sold for $479 with flagship specs. I’ve only spent a few hours with the 8 Pro and I can already see that this is a much more refined product that is still underpriced when compared to the where the rest of the market is. Stay tuned for the full review to see if this might steal the 2023 sleeper hit title only one month into the new year!
Alex
Caught in between the conundrum of his fascination with retro and the future, Alex has a very unique taste in technology. Never one to follow trends like his millennial peers yet constantly desiring to get ahead of the curve, he sees technology like he does his other love: comic books. Always looking for the best value or a hidden gem, his collector mindset reflects on some of his favorite gadgets: the Moto X (2015), HTC U11 and the Google Pixelbook. If there’s a good tech deal out there, Alex is on the hunt!