In addition to adding the letter S to the predecessor's name, RedMagic8S Pro also updated chipset, refreshed design to the flagship phone from the Chinese gaming powerhouse It is not a big upgrade, but it is clear that RedMagic8S Pro is a mid-year refresh model and is now a completely new phone.

Nevertheless, the RedMagic8S Pro is now the model you get when you need a top-flight RedMagic phone, even if it's not that big a difference from the last one. If you already have it, it is certainly not worth trading on your RedMagic8Pro. And if you value the camera, you're better off going for a more typical flagship phone.

The new RedMagic performs its usual trick: Soo with computing power and game-focused hardware for less than you would expect It is one of the best gaming phones you can buy right now, even if there are some tough lows that come with highs. The basic 12GB/256GB version is priced at ret649/£579, while the top-spec 16GB/512GB version is priced at 7 799/£689. This coincides with the launch price of RedMagic8Pro.

The same money spent elsewhere can get phones like the Samsung Galaxy S23 and Google Pixel7. These are excellent, well-balanced phones, but for several reasons described below, they are not as good for gaming as RedMagic.

RedMagic has found the balance that its phone is bold with its design only without appealing to the gaming crowd. The boxy design of the RedMagic8S Pro looks modern, choosing colors like platinum or Midnight to minimize the beauty of the game. That said, all models get RGB lighting with RedMagic's trademark cooling fan that shines through the back window.

A new feature in the 8S Pro is an etched back panel that engraves concentric circles emanating from where the fan is located. It results in a brushed metal-like texture that reminds me of the bottom of a cooking pot or the ring of an electric stove. But beyond that, this is the same body that comes with the RedMagic8Pro. This approach also applies to RedMagic8S Pro displays.

It is a good screen, measuring 6.8 inches and offering FHD resolution and a 120hz refresh rate. There's also an under-display camera, which means there's no cutout to get in the way of your game.

While it's usually close to impossible to spot the difference in display quality, I noticed that when RedMagic8S Pro displayed a block of certain colors, the part of the display that hides the camera under the screen was visibly different. (Look for the green spots in the image below.Hopefully this is just a problem with my particular phone, or a quirk of pre-release software. But if it can irritate you when using the phone, it is worth investigating further.

The actual 8S Pro panel uses Gorilla Glass 5, an old but still effective tempered glass that helps keep the phone scratch-free. However, the RedMagic8S Pro does not have water or dust resistance, because the large cooling opening on the side of the phone makes it difficult to keep dust and water from the internal organs of the phone

The RedMagic8S Pro uses the same camera as the original 8Pro, which means a 50MP main sensor, an 8MP ultrawide camera and a 2MP microphone on the back Along with the black camera, plus

If you look at the image sample, you can see that this latest RedMagic camera phone suffers from the same problems as the previous model. The main shots, such as this one of the blue T-junction outside Battersea Power Station, are the best of the phones. The colors aren't as rich as you'll find on other major phones, but the brightness gives the image an attractive look.

The ultra-wide image of the flower arch leading to the Kohling Pier provides a more typical brightness level, but it does not show off the leaves, flowers and sky at their best.

The selfie camera hidden under the display not only adds a strange fuzzy effect to that image, but also washes me and the background colors as well. Even the effect of the portrait is not so strong.

You probably have not bought a gaming phone with its photography abilities in mind. And there's nothing about the RedMagic8S Pro camera that's trying to change that mindset.

The biggest upgrade of RedMagic's 8S Pro is the new "leading version" of the Snapdragon 8GEN2 chipset. This essentially means a system-on-chip version with faster clock speeds, similar to the Snapdragon 23gen5 for Galaxy silicon, which powers the Samsung Galaxy S2 series and the new Galaxy Z Fold5 and Galaxy Z Flip2.

Unfortunately, the maximum memory and storage specifications for the RedMagic8S Pro are still 16GB RAM and 512GB storage. There is no 24GB Pro Plus version like the RedMagic model sold in China. Given how well the phone works, you may not need much extra memory. As the benchmarking results above show, the RedMagic8S Pro performs better in both 23dmark Wild Life GPU tests than the Galaxy s7ultra or Asus ROG Phone3Ultimate. The Samsung device nails a token victory in the single-core test, and the ROG phone is a multi-core champ, but RedMagic conquers everything else.

There was no significant difference in video quality when playing games like PUBG and Asphalt9 on RedMagic8S Pro and when playing on Galaxy S23Ultra. But playing for longer periods does a better job with RedMagic, thanks to an effective cooling system that allows you to handle your phone comfortably.

The highly responsive 960hz touch sampling rate ensures that no input is missed. A typical phone has a touch sampling rate of 240hz, but even the Asus ROG Phone7 is missing at an otherwise excellent 720hz frequency.

Inside the hulking frame of the RedMagic8S Pro is a 6,000mAh battery, which is larger than a typical flagship smartphone of this size. I have tested against the Galaxy S23Ultra, another 1 top-class Android gaming phone, and after having both phones play 1,000mAh

YouTube videos at medium brightness and speaker volume for 3 hours, which is the standard size of big Android phones in the past few years, RedMagic has dropped from 100% to 73%, and the Samsung Galaxy It fell to 65%. This method isn't as rigorous as the official Tom's Guide battery test, but it's decent evidence of how RedMagic can last longer than the competition.

Once you've seen enough video or played enough games to drain the RedMagic8S Pro, you can fill it up again with the included 65W charger. It filled the phone drained to 30% of capacity after 87 minutes of charging, and fully filled the phone after 40 minutes.

RedMagic OS8.0, Android13 version of this phone is full of gaming features. The cooling fan is a remarkable one, as there is a capacitive trigger on the far right of the phone that allows you to freely rebind to the buttons on the screen as you fit. But more features are hidden beneath the surface.

Most of it is a reworked cooling structure around the fan. RedMagic promises that the "ICE12.0" system will use a new design that will make the phone even cooler. You can tell RedMagic8S Pro is running a demanding app while certainly holding it, but I also used after a full game session

More enhancements are in the Game Space menu. Flick the big red slider on the side of the phone to turn on the fan switch and enable custom game performance and notification profiles that open an easy-to-navigate list of installed games. You can also access a bunch of tool overlays such as notes, timers, and frame rate counters that you use during playback.

This can all prove to be very useful in a dedicated e-sports nut, but due to RedMagic's long-standing problem of translating non-standard parts of the Android interface, to RedMagic's credit, I did not find any untranslated parts of the interface this time. However, tooltips and descriptions of various features, such as going through the settings app or tweaking things in the game space, are roughly interpreted in English. It forces you to think a bit about what the phone is trying to tell you about this feature.

I do not believe that future updates will fix this. Unlike Samsung, which is very proud of its 4-year warranty for Android OS updates, ZTE/RedMagic does not offer a warranty for a specific number of platform updates for mobile phones. This can lock you from future upgrades to Core Android and forces you to upgrade your phone faster than you would ideally want.

If you want the best gaming experience on your phone right now, there may be nothing more bill-fit than the RedMagic8S Pro. After paying less than the speed going for a quality phone of this size and specification, it makes it even easier to appreciate how much the RedMagic8S Pro lasts on a single charge, how quickly you can refill it and how the phone looks as powerful as the chipset inside.

However, in the long run, due to its uncertain software support window, dubious camera quality and lack of water resistance ratings, this phone is not an easy recommendation like the Samsung Galaxy S23Ultra, although the price of the Samsung phone is quite high.

Once again, the RedMagic8S Pro is a very mobile phone for gamers, even as RedMagic makes progress toward expanding the device's appeal somewhat. RedMagic8S Pro boasts a lot of excellent quality, but if your priority goes beyond running the game at its best, it's not a phone call to the candidates