We’ve seen quite a few compelling RedMagic smartphones in the last couple of years. The last one I reviewed was the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2-powered RedMagic 8S Pro. The RedMagic 9 series was even more compelling, as my colleague Justin concluded. Now it’s time for the RedMagic 10 Pro, which I’m here to review. I’ve been using this device for a while now, and I feel more than ready to share my thoughts with you… as I had a lot of fun with it.
It feels like RedMagic is learning from its mistakes year in, year out, to be quite honest. I have less and less to complain about when it comes to RedMagic devices. In all honesty, for the price tag issued for the RedMagic 10 Pro, it feels almost like a no-brainer if you want a smartphone for gaming. I’m just giving you a preview of what’s coming, as this phone ended up impressing me quite a bit. Let’s take it one step at a time, though, starting with its design.
RedMagic 10 Pro Review: Hardware / Design
The RedMagic 10 Pro’s design is one of the most unique ones in the industry. There are actually several reasons for that. Before I get to the specifics, let’s just say that the phone is made out of metal and glass. To be more specific, RedMagic used aluminum for the frame of this device. The phone has a squarish shape, though its corners are not completely sharp. The front and back sides are flat, as is the frame all around the device.
The ‘Competitive Key’ is customizable, and very useful
On the right-hand side, you’ll find a circular power key, along with volume up and down buttons. There’s also the ‘Competitive Key’ on the right-hand side, which is essentially a two-mode slider. You can customize it, but by default, it’s set to launch a gaming mode of sorts. We’ll talk more about it in the performance section, though. A cutout for the phone’s fan is located here as well, as is the fan itself. Once the fan is on, you also get a lighting indicator from the inside. That’s not all, though. You’ll also find shoulder trigger here, at the top and bottom side of the right side.
There’s nothing on the left side aside from a cutout for ventilation. An audio jack is included at the top, along with an IR blaster, and a cutout for one of the phone’s speakers. The second cutout is located at the bottom, along with a Type-C port, and a SIM card tray which is accessible from the bottom.
This is one of the most unique-looking phones out there
Now, why did I say that this phone has one of the most unique designs? Well, first and foremost, it does not include a display camera hole or notch. It also doesn’t have a camera embedded into the bezel, as its bezels are razor-thin. RedMagic once again placed the camera under the display. It’s centered, and under certain conditions, you can see a yellowish ting where it’s located, but you really have to look for it. During general use of the phone, you won’t even notice it.
That’s not all, though. This phone also has bezels that are only 1.25mm thin, those are the thinnest bezels we’ve used up until now and also heard of up until this point. Those two points in combination provide a screen-to-body ratio of 95.3% here, which is also top-of-the-line. It puts this phone at the top of the industry in regards to screen-to-body ratio. And no, I’m not done. The phone’s cameras are also flush with the backplate and thus well-protected. Only the LED flash protrudes, but just a little bit. There are also LED lights included on the back, in the top-right and bottom-left corner. The ‘X’ and ‘RedMagic’ logos can light up in various different colors. They’re also customizable, so you can have them light up when you’re charging, gaming, listening to music, get notifications, and so on. More on that later.
A see-through back on top of the most immersive display on the market
You’ll also notice that the backplate on our review unit is see-through. Yes, we’ve seen that on other phones, but still, it’s worth noting, as it looks really nice in person. Fingerprints can ruin the experience a bit, but a quick wipe and you can start admiring it once again. The device is slippery considering it’s a glass + metal phone, but it’s nowhere as slippery as many other devices we’ve used this year. Its squarish build helps it in that regard, that’s for sure. Something else worth noting is that its frame is matte all around, at least on our unit, so the fingerprints are not much of a problem there. Those sides are slightly rounded toward the edges, so the phone is quite comfortable to hold, despite its size.
All in all, I really enjoyed using the RedMagic 10 Pro. There’s really not a single thing I have to complain about here. It looks outstanding, it’s not too heavy, and thanks to the under-display camera and the fact how thin its bezels are, this is the most immersive smartphone I’ve ever laid my hands on. RedMagic did an outstanding job in the design department.
There is also a case in the box
RedMagic does include a case in the retail box, which is always nice to see. This case is nothing fancy, though. It’s a hard plastic case, which does have some flex to it. As you can see in the images below, the sides are completely open here, but the case does cover the top and bottom sides, plus it does add protection for the corners. This is a see-through case, so it goes with the device quite nicely.
There are several vertical lines on the back, which do protrude on the back, a bit. I do think that a case of any kind does take away from the charm of this phone, but considering how slippery the device is, using a case is definitely not a bad idea. I dropped it once during the review period and managed to leave a rather noticeable mark in the top-right corner of the frame.
RedMagic 10 Pro Review: Display
The RedMagic 10 Pro features a 6.85-inch 1.5K (2688 x 1216) AMOLED display by BOE. This display is flat, and its refresh rate goes up to 144Hz. The peak brightness here is 2,000 nits. The display also has a 2,500Hz instant toch sampling rate and an overall touch sampling rate of 960Hz. This is very important for gaming, especially if you’re trying to be truly competitive in games that require a touchscreen. The bezels around the display are uniform, and they’re only 1.25mm bezels thick. They’re the thinnest around at the moment. Something that this phone also has above any other is its high screen-to-body ratio of 95.3%, it’s the market leader in that regard. I’ve mentioned that already, but it’s worth noting again.
Gorgeous display without unnecessary holes/notches
There is no display camera hole on this display, a notch, or anything like that. RedMagic opted to place a camera under the display. You can barely see it, and only when specific content is on the display. You’ll see a yellow-green smudge where the camera sits at those times. Most of the time it’s invisible, and after a while, you stop noticing it altogether. This is an outstanding choice for gaming, needless to say, and the same goes for general screen real estate and consuming multimedia. Your content can stretch over the entire display properly.
Adaptive brightness was an issue at first, but not anymore
This panel was never too dim for me, not at all. It was bright enough when I needed it to be, and it was great for gaming. In combination with shoulder triggers, I really enjoyed some Warzone Mobile on the phone, even though I mostly use a gamepad for that. The touch response was outstanding on the display, and the refresh rate made everything look smooth. One thing that I did have an issue with is adaptive brightness… at first. After about a week of dimming my screen when it’s not supposed to, it finally learned not to do it after I corrected it a number of times.
RedMagic 10 Pro Review: Performance
Hardware-wise, the RedMagic 10 Pro is one of the most powerful smartphones in the market at the moment. This handset is fueled by the Snapdragon 8 Elite, one of the most powerful mobile SoCs out there, if not the most powerful one. On top of that, RedMagic included 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM here, along with UFS 4.1 flash storage. Yes, not UFS 4.0, but UFS 4.1. Those hardcore performance-related internals are boosted by an upgraded ICE-X Cooling System.
RedMagic actually used liquid metal for cooling purposes in this phone, which is also an industry first. Liquid metal cooling is usually used in gaming laptops, by the way. The company included an 11-layer structure for cooling purposes. In addition to liquid metal, graphene is also used, along with aerospace-grade aluminum, and a dual-pump vapor chamber. On top of all that is said above, there is also a dedicated gaming chip in there, the Red Core 3.
The thermal management is top-notch
So, thermal management should be top-notch on the phone, is it, though? I’ll get around to gaming soon, but let me just say that the phone feels really smooth to use in general. We’ll talk about the software separately, but RedMagic went in the right direction here. Everything feels very smooth. There is a hiccup here and there, a very slight one, like on most phones, but that’s about it. There’s no lag or anything like that, not even when you’re doing something hardcore on the device, like heavy video processing, major multitasking, etc. I have a feeling that RedMagic will further smooth this out via updates.
Now, what most of you probably wondering about… gaming. This is a gaming smartphone after all, and yes, it’s fantastic for that purpose. For all intents and purposes, this is a gaming machine. The performance under heavy load is phenomenal, and I never had issues with the phone getting too hot, not at all. It did get warm as I was jumping between three rather demanding games, but it was never too warm or hot. That’s not something I can say for many phones out there.
The RedMagic 10 Pro handles games without a problem
I played mostly Warzone Mobile and Genshin Impact on the device, along with some 3D pool and Subway Surfers. I did add a couple of more rather demanding games into the mix, and everything ran fine. As many of you may know, Warzone Mobile has been… a mess since the Black Ops 6 integration. Many people were not able to run the game at all. Well, I did, and I pushed every possible setting to the max. Yes, there were some hiccups in the game, but that’s because of the abysmal optimization that Activision did, the same goes for some graphical glitches. What managed to surprise me, however, is that the phone was never pushed too far by the game. It did run the fan, yes, it did get warm, yes, but never too warm. Genshin Impact ran perfectly at all times.
There are shoulder triggers included on the device, on the right side. Now, I usually play FPS shooters via a gamepad, but I decided to do it without it for the purposes of the review. Those shoulder triggers came in really handy, and they ran perfectly. I assigned them exactly for what I needed, and I had absolutely no issues. The touch response on the display is also outstanding, so I don’t really have complaints about that either. Now, even though RedMagic did include a whole software suite for gaming here, I never needed to mess with anything in there manually, nor force the fan to be on all the time.
The in-game gaming hub is very useful and simple to use
The main thing that you should be aware of is the in-game gaming hub that RedMagic offers. You can access it when swiping towards the middle twice, from the left or right sides. There are triggers in the top section of the left and right sides of the screen which the phone will show you when you launch a game for the first time. Here you have a ton of options, and it’s a well-executed gaming suite on RedMagic’s part. As you can see in the image below, there are a ton of options here. You have control over the brightness, you can mess around with tunning specific performance-related options, set up shoulder triggers, block calls, and much more. It’s a one-stop shop for everything you need, essentially. I have never triggered this by accident, as the triggers are in the perfect spot.
The bottom line is, the performance here is outstanding. The phone regulated heat perfectly, I never had an issue in that regard, not even close. It remained perfectly comfortable to hold throughout my gaming sessions, regardless of how hard I pushed it. There’s really nothing to complain about here. One thing I’d note is that you can hear the fan when it’s running. I wouldn’t say it’s loud, but you can hear it. It’s a small price to pay for keeping the phone at an optical temperature, though.
Benchmarks
We’ve run both Geekbench 6 and 3D Mark Wild Life Extreme Stress Test on the phones. You can see the results for both below. Do note that we’ve also included thermals for when the 3D Mark test finished running, as it puts a lot of strain on the phone, so it’s a good indicator of how cool the device can remain.
RedMagic 10 Pro Review: Battery
The RedMagic 10 Pro includes a gigantic 7,050mAh battery. Yes, you read it right, it has a battery that is larger than 7,050mAh. RedMagic used a silicon-carbon battery here, so the phone is not thicker nor heavier than its predecessor. That’s simply outstanding, as it has a notably bigger battery. Needless to say, this is very important considering this is a gaming smartphone, it is expected to run games for quite some time in its lifecycle.
Is the battery endurance any good, though, can it last through those heavy gaming sessions? And the answer is… yes, it offers outstanding battery life, No matter how hard I pushed it, it always lasted me until the end of the day, at least. If you’re not gaming all that much, this can be a two-day smartphone, no doubt. There’s really no point in talking about screen-on-time as it’ll vary considerably depending on your gaming. You can check our battery drain test results below, though.
Outstanding battery life & blazing fast charging
What about charging? Well, the phone supports 100W wired charging and no wireless charging. Yes, the charger is included in the box, but not a 100W charger. The phone offers an 80W charger in the retail box. We’ll get back to that in a minute. Before we get to the actual charging speed, let me first note that the device supports something called ‘Charge Separation’. That feature basically allows you to power the phone without charging it. You can plug it in and cut off charging in case you don’t want to mess with the battery and still want to game. RedMagic included this feature to prolong battery life, and it works wonderfully.
You can fully charge this phone in less than 40 minutes
In terms of the sheer charging speed, this phone charges faster than its predecessor despite the fact it has a larger battery and the same charging speed/charger. That’s quite interesting, actually. In any case, with the included 80W charger you’ll get up to around 90% charge in only 30 minutes, while a full charge will take an extra 5 minutes. So in only 35 minutes, you can charge this 7,050mAh battery all the way to the top. Needless to say, that’s immensely impressive. Even if you forget to charge the phone, that won’t be much of an issue. In only 15 minutes it gets to over 50% charge.
RedMagic 10 Pro Review: Camera
Needless to say, the camera performance wasn’t exactly the main focus of RedMagic here. That is actually the worst aspect of the phone, but even that managed to surprise me a bit, at least the main shooter. We’ll get to that soon, let’s first talk about the hardware. There are three cameras on the back here, A 50-megapixel main camera (f/1.9 aperture lens, 1/1.5-inch sensor size, PDAF, OIS, 7P lens, APL-coated for glare protection) is backed by a 50-megapixel ultrawide unit (f/2.2 aperture, 1/2.88-inch sensor size, 0.61um pixel size). The third camera on the back is a 2-megapixel macro shooter (f/2.4 aperture lens). On the front, you’ll find a 16-megapixel camera (f/2.0 aperture lens, 1/3.06-inch sensor size) which sits under the display.
The main camera is the best here, but not amongst the best in the market
In all honesty, I did not expect much from the cameras on this phone. The main camera did manage to perform better than I expected. The pics are not bad per se, but they’re far from the best ones out there. While they’re sharp and detailed in most situations, the dynamic range leaves a lot to be desired. Highlights also get clipped rather frequently, while details in specific types of photos also end up being ruined.
The shadows are also a bit too dark. With that being said, for most people, none of this will be a specific problem. Though you should also note that the shutter is quite slow in everything but the best light. If you go into a darker room, or shoot during nighttime, the phone will take its sweet time to capture a photo. You should keep the phone as still as possible during that time, otherwise you’ll end up with a blurry mess.
Sticking to the main camera is the best call, the ultrawide one is… not great
The ultrawide camera is far worse than the main shooter. That is especially true in low light. The color profile is different than on the main camera, which is visible in almost every shot. In low light, the details are far worse than the ones the main camera produces. Taking shots takes even longer than with the main camera. I’ll say one thing for both cameras, though, they handle glare from street lights really, really well during nighttime, you’ll notice that in some of the shots shown below.
The macro camera is not really worth mentioning, to be quite honest. Yes, you can get usable shots when there’s plenty of light around, but that’s about it. You can’t really expect much from the macro camera. I tested it briefly and then forgot about it. It also doesn’t pop up when it should, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. You’ll notice that by the indicator on the screen, and the changed viewfinder, of course, as what you’re trying to shoot will come into focus.
The selfie camera did a better job than I thought it would
Now, while the selfie camera does a much better job than the one on the RedMagic 9 Pro, it’s not good per se. The sun can really mess up selfies, as you’ll get lens flare like nobody’s business. The colors are also not as good as they should be, and the images are blurrier than on regular selfies, but they’re not that bad, as they’re much better than they were on last year’s model. The dynamic range is not bad. This camera is more than usable unless you have high expectations for selfies, you’ll be happy with it. In all honesty, I’d personally take this over a display camera hole anytime, no question.
One downside that I did notice is that the phone drains the battery when 4K video is recording. I’ve recorded some 4K video at 30 FPS and the battery dropped by 10% after just 10 minutes. That’s probably just a bug within the software, but something that needs to be addressed.
Main camera samples:
Ultrawide camera samples:
RedMagic 10 Pro Review: Software
Android 15 comes pre-installed on the RedMagic 10 Pro, with the company’s RedMagic OS 10 skin. I have to say that the company came a long way in terms of software. It has been improving it year-in-year-out, and it’s actually really good now. I did spot a couple of bugs, but nothing major, to be quite honest. It also looks a lot better than it did on Android 14. It’s flatter and more minimalistic, while there’s still plenty of color thrown into the mix. The Material Design is well-implemented, and the skin can pick up colors from your wallpaper and all that. It can even change the text color within Gmail, for example.
RedMagic OS 10 is not trying to be iOS, and that’s a good thing
You’re not even lacking features here in general, not at all. All the little things are here, like the ability to swipe down from the top to lower the notification shade, or double-tap the home screen to lock the display. ‘Normal’ notification shade setup with notification toggles included is available, and all that. RedMagic OS 10 is not trying to be iOS, not at all, it’s Android through-and-through, and proud of it.
Now, in regards to customization and personalization. Themes are available, but you can also customize things manually. Using different icon packs, changing the shape of icons themselves, and even choosing what color will the UI adopt in general, in case you don’t want it to rely on the wallpaper. You can even choose different animations for different UI menus/elements, and choose the speed of those animations. The font is customizable, as is the in-display fingerprint scanner animation. There are lock screen widgets available, that you can utilize, such as ones for weather, battery life, alarm, and so on. And yes, the Always-On Display option is here too, and it’s well-implemented. There’s really plenty to dive into. It’s also worth noting that you can set different gestures for different actions, and much more.
There are LED lights available on the back of the phone, and they’re customizable
I’ve mentioned earlier in the article that LED lights are available on the back of the phone. Those can light up when you receive new messages, get phone calls, your device is charging, and some other instances. Yes, that is customizable as well, you can choose the color you prefer. Those LED lights can also react to different music you’re listening to, or your gameplay. There are quite a few options in that menu. There is also the Z-SmartSidebar option, which is essentially a sidebar where you can place icons. All you need to do to access it is swipe towards the middle from the side and wait a second.
One-handed mode is included, and RedMagic actually gives you some great options here. You can choose to have it lower the screen as on iPhone and Pixel phones, or you can have it shrink the entire display size into the bottom-left or bottom-right corner. That’s not something many OEMs offer, so it’s nice to see. This also works really well, I didn’t have a problem activating one-handed mode at all. I’ve also just scratched the surface, there’s plenty more to discover in this software.
The software here is quite responsive, and a joy to use
Everything worked really well, I have to say. RedMagic OS 10 was very responsive, and the animations were good. Basically everything I’ve listed above worked well, without any hiccups. I did spot a bug when the YouTube Music widget is active, the text ends up being light gray, while the background is white, so it basically blurs everything together and it’s hard to read. Such instances were rare, though. This problem did not occur every time. The notifications also arrived on time, I did not have issues in that regard. I did set up some of them manually though, the ones that need to be constantly active, such as an app that my watch is connected to.
RedMagic 10 Pro Review: Audio
RedMagic included two symmetrical speakers on this device. Two 1115K speakers are on offer, and the sound quality is really good. More on that soon. DTS-X certification is also included here, while the Qualcomm Snapdragon Sound tuning is also a part of the package. With that out of the way, let’s talk about the sound quality.
Rather capable symmetrical speakers are included
Considering these are symmetrical speakers, you’re getting balanced sound from the top and bottom speaker. The top one is top-firing, while the bottom one is bottom-firing, just to be clear. The loudness of these speakers is really good, not the best we’ve heard, but much better than on the RedMagic 9 Pro, that’s for sure. Not many people will have something to complain here.
The audio coming out of the speakers is bassy, but nice still. The speakers are full-sounding, and you’ll notice some distortion only with vocals and some high-end range, but only if you tune the speakers all the way up. If you’d like to get the very best audio output, don’t go all the way up to 100% volume. Granted, you’ll basically never need to do that, but still… it’s worth noting.
A headphone jack is also a part of the package
Yes, there is also a headphone jack included in the package. It is located at the very top of the phone, and that’s nice to see here. Despite the fact this phone has a large battery, is very thin for what it is, doesn’t have a camera bump, has a considerable cooling system, and includes both under-display camera and fingerprint scanner… RedMagic found space for an audio jack. Many other OEMs could learn a lesson here.
RedMagic 10 Pro Review: Should you buy it?
So, is the RedMagic 10 Pro worth the money? Quite honestly, this is one of the easiest recommendations I’ve ever had to make, after a ton of reviews I’ve done. RedMagic priced this handset perfectly. The entry-level model at $649 (our unit is a bit pricier) is a no-brainer, as long as you’re not a demanding camera user. This phone packs a punch in pretty much every other way. It has a gorgeous display with the thinnest bezels and the highest screen-to-body ratio in the business. Very good speakers, solid display, outstanding performance, and more.
There is really not a lot to complain when it comes to RedMagic 10 Pro. Yes, the camera performance is not all that great compared to other flagships, but let’s be honest, people who are looking to buy this phone likely don’t expect the very best in that regard. The RedMagic 10 Pro does deliver in all other aspects and for this price tag… it’s an easy recommendation.
You should buy the RedMagic 10 Pro if you:
- Play a lot of games
- Hate display holes & notches
- Want a truly immersive display experience
- Don’t require the very best cameras
- Use your phone a lot during the day, thus need good battery life
- Appreciate extremely fast charging
- Don’t want to buy a charger separately
- Are not afraid of getting your phone wet in the rain
You shouldn’t buy the RedMagic 10 Pro if you:
- Get stuck in the rain often
- Need wireless charging
- Want the very best camera experience