In Canada, the ZTE Nubia Red Magic 10 Pro falls a bit out of the budget smartphone range with a price tag of $934 CAD ($649 USD); however, a smartphone that’s sub $1,000 is always nice nowadays when flagships are quickly becoming overpriced.
The Red Magic 10 Pro offers flagship specs with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite, 12GB-24GB of RAM (with the ability to convert storage into RAM) and a 144Hz refresh rate. The handset is incredibly blocky but features a built-in cooling fan and an excellent and large 7,050mAh battery.
Gamer design
The Red Magic 10 Pro has some nice design cues like its cameras being flush with the rear of the phone. With the ‘Shadow’ colour variant, there’s a subtle design that looks pretty great. And with the Game Fan turned on, there’s a custom light that appears right below the ultra-wide camera. It even has a 95.3 percent screen-to-body ratio, which is incredibly narrow for any smartphone. Despite this, the Red Magic 10 Pro is a chunky boy and feels like a budget phone, especially compared to other devices carrying the Snapdragon 8 Elite, like the OnePlus 13 or the ROG Phone 10. The phone’s frame is incredibly squared off and uncomfortable to hold; however, the design fits in with the gaming motif, considering gaming laptops are also pretty bulky.
Continuing with the Red Magic 10 Pro, the handset has a glass front and back and an aviation aluminum frame, making it incredibly sturdy. Despite this bulky exterior, I wouldn’t be as worried about dropping the device without an MLD-STD grading.
The Red Magic 10 Pro features a 6.85-inch display with a 1216 x 2688-pixel resolution, 2,000 nits brightness and a 144Hz refresh rate, which is great for gaming. It also has an average touch sampling rate of 960Hz but a peak sampling rate of 2,500Hz.
Touch sampling refers to the frequency at which a phone tracks the movement of your finger. Typical smartphones have a 60Hz touch sample rate, which tracks the screen every 16.6ms. A touch sampling rate of 950 is over 16 times faster than most other handsets, which is incredibly impressive. Combined with up to a 144Hz refresh rate, running other games in the background and refusing to close apps simply for fun, the Magic 10 Pro is buttery smooth. A peak touch sampling rate of 2,500 is over 41 times quicker than a regular smartphone, which is incredible.
Incredibly powerful
The Red Magic 10 Pro plays games incredibly well with its Snapdragon 8 Elite, 12GB of RAM, and other gaming capabilities. The handset plays titles like Wild Rift, Blasphemous, and Dead Cells incredibly well, and they look beautiful on the handset’s big, nearly bezel-less screen. With a fan, I can play several Wild Rift games without any heating issues. There are also shoulder trigger buttons with a 520Hz touch sampling rate, but I didn’t use them for the games I played.
I also ran the Red Magic 10 Pro through Geekbench 6, and the device had a single-core score of 3,073 and a multi-core score of 9,684. This is impressive and beats the OnePlus 13, but its score was lower than the ROG Phone 10. There are also AI features powered by the Red Magic 10 Pro’s Red Core, which offers AI-driven stabilization and upscaling and can ensure peak performance. The handset also has Gemini, which I absolutely love; however, you can read more about the Gemini experience here.
The Red Magic 10 Pro also has a crazy battery life, easily lasting between charges for a couple of days. Even if you play a few games, listen to music, and scroll through tons of social media videos, the handset lacks wireless charging, but it sports an 80-watt charger in the box, and you can fully top it off in under an hour.
Surprisingly, the handset’s cameras are pretty good. The images are overexposed, and the colours are oversaturated and a little inaccurate, but the pictures look decent. It’s definitely not great compared to flagships, but it’s solid for a gaming phone under $1,000.
4 G4m3Rz
The Red Magic 10 Pro is a solid buy for under $1,000. It has flagship features and an awkward design but some fun gaming-like elements. Its camera is subpar, but it makes up for this with a fantastic battery and can play games flawlessly.
This handset is not for everyone; however, I recommend purchasing it for anyone who likes gaming. If your primary reason for having a smartphone is to play games, then the Red Magic 10 Pro is right up your alley.
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