RedMagic 10S Pro review: A gaming powerhouse with compromises

For almost as long as smartphones have been around, gaming phones have existed as devices that prioritize battery and performance, often at the expense of thin designs and features like camera quality. The RedMagic 10S Pro is the latest of these gaming phones, but instead of simply prioritizing performance and battery, the device adds extra features like trigger buttons on the corners for gamers who want that extra control.

Not only that, but the RedMagic 10S Pro is actually pretty affordable, given how high-performance it is. The device costs roughly $699, which is far less than many similar-performing alternatives. But should gamers really go for a purpose-built gaming phone like the RedMagic 10S Pro, or should they stick to gaming on another device that might be just as powerful?

RedMagic 10S Pro specs

Design

Take one look at the RedMagic 10S Pro and you’ll recognize that it’s purpose-built for gamers who know what kind of phone they’re getting. It has a Snapdragon 8 Elite logo on the back, complemented with the RedMagic logo, red accents on the back and sides, and so on.

The build of the phone is kind of unique, too. It’s a pretty blocky device with flat sides and sharper corners than the majority of other phones these days. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s certainly bulkier than most non-gaming devices you can find out in the wild. That is, until you get around to the camera system on the back, which is completely flush with the rest of the back of the phone. That’s likely due to a few different factors, like the lack of a telephoto camera and the fact that the device is already pretty thick. Regardless, many will like the approach.

There are other unique design touches, too. There’s a red switch on the right side of the device that you might assume is a ringer switch, but actually it launches the RedMagic Game Space feature, which is essentially a game launcher where you can customize performance settings for your games. To get out of Game Space, you can’t just swipe up on the display — you have to physically toggle off that switch.

The phone also has the aforementioned trigger controls on the left and right corners when you hold it horizontally. These are capacitive touch controls, not actual physical buttons, so some might not love how they work, but it’s still kind of cool that they’re there in the first place. Of course, they were included in the RedMagic 10 Pro from last year, though, so they’re not completely new for this phone, and if you have a RedMagic 10 Pro, you won’t get any extra buttons or controls by upgrading.

On the front of the device, you’ll also get an under-display front-facing camera, which helps make the display uninterrupted when you’re gaming. The trade-off, of course, is that the camera quality is likely to be very low, but we’ll get into that in the camera section.

Display

The screen on the RedMagic 10S Pro is built for performance as well. It’s not necessarily the highest resolution display, but it is a step up over the 1080p screen on the previous generation model, coming in at 2688 x 1216 pixels. More importantly, it has a high refresh rate, which reaches 144Hz. Coupled with its massive 6.85-inch size, it’s a good-looking screen.

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

The display has a peak brightness of 2000 nits, and I found that it easily got bright enough for the vast majority of situations, including outdoor use. It’s perhaps not quite as bright as some competitors out there, but again, I never had an issue with its brightness. I suspect most users will have a similar experience. Altogether, this screen is excellent for gaming, watching movies, or really doing anything else.

Under the display can be found an optical fingerprint sensor, and it seemed to work well in my use. It was accurate and relatively quick, and I never had any major issues with it.

Performance

Perhaps the most important thing about the RedMagic 10S has nothing to do with its design or display. It has to do with how well it performs. Thankfully, the phone performs very well. It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor coupled with either 12GB, 16GB, or 24GB of RAM. Our review model has 16GB.

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

Complementing that setup is a fan that can be customized to simply run based on heat levels or to cool quicker. There are other settings for the fan too, like having it turn off automatically when you enter a phone call.

So how does the phone perform? Well, very well. That’s far from surprising. With the top-tier chipset combined with the fan for improved cooling, it easily handles all modern mobile gaming situations. I played a few different games on the device, including Call of Duty: Mobile, Asphalt 8, and more, and found that the fan did a great job at keeping the phone cool. That said, if you’re not gaming with headphones, you might find that the fan can get a little loud, but that’s to be expected.

Battery and charging

The second big advantage of using the RedMagic 10S Pro is its massive battery. The phone has a 7,050mAh battery, which is absolutely ginormous and much larger than you get in consumer phones. Of course, if you’re gaming for hours every day, you’ll eat up that battery pretty quickly, but it’ll last longer than a smaller battery would on a different phone. If you don’t game for hours every day, most users will be able to stretch the phone to two or more days of use, which is pretty impressive.

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

Most of the time when manufacturers claim that phones have two-day battery lives, they mean under very light usage, but medium users will easily get two days, and heavy users might find that they can too, depending on what they’re using their phone for.

The charging tech on offer here is pretty good too. The phone charges at up to 80 watts with a wired connection and comes with a charging brick and cable in the box to get those speeds. Unfortunately, there’s no wireless charging here, which is a bit of a bummer considering the price that this phone comes at. Most other phones in this price range support wireless charging.

Camera

The biggest compromise you’ll have to make when buying the RedMagic 10S Pro comes in the form of the camera. The phone technically has a triple camera system, but don’t assume that means there’s a telephoto camera. Instead, you’ll get a 50-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel ultra-wide camera, and a 2-megapixel camera that’s used for additional information in certain scenarios. That last camera isn’t one that you can switch to manually; it’s simply there to kick in automatically as needed.

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

So how does the camera actually perform? Well, not bad. In good lighting environments, images actually look pretty detailed and vibrant. While it’s perhaps not the most natural-looking camera experience out there, I still like the way that images turned out. That said, the ultrawide camera looked a little different than the main camera and struggled to capture the same vibrant colors. Not only that, but without a telephoto camera, zoomed shots quickly look blurry and grainy — though if you zoom to around 2x or so, images still look decent.

Low-light images were fine most of the time, but also perhaps somewhat inconsistent, especially between lenses. In severely low lighting, the phone struggled quite a bit, but in other scenarios, it was fine.

The front-facing camera is frankly pretty terrible. This is somewhat to be expected given the fact that it’s an under-display camera, which still hasn’t been developed enough to take great shots. Images are grainy, lack depth, and look like they came from a phone from 15 years ago.

Again, don’t expect an incredible camera experience here, and the lack of telephoto means that the RedMagic 10S Pro isn’t as versatile as other triple-camera smartphones in this price range. But that’s simply a compromise you’ll have to make if you want a dedicated gaming phone.

Software

The other compromise that you’ll have to make comes in the form of the software experience, which I didn’t love. The way the software works is relatively stock, though there are plenty of extra settings related to gaming features in the settings app, like those related to the light strip and fan.

The way it looks, however, isn’t really my favorite. Things are kind of blocky and dated-looking, though you can customize your way out of this through some of the built-in settings.

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

Unfortunately, the phone comes packed with bloatware, including games you likely don’t want to play, and apps like Booking.com, MoboReels, MoboReader, WPS Office, and more. Many of these can be removed, which is good, but it’s annoying that they’re there in the first place. Most annoying of all is “NextApp,” which makes it look like there are folders of bloat in your App Drawer, when really they’re not installed on your device. These fake folders can’t be removed, so they’re always there, which is very frustrating.

One software feature that I did like was RedMagic’s Game Space though. Here you can customize the performance settings on a game-by-game basis, tweaking touch sampling rate, whether you want top performance or top battery life, GPU settings, and more. It’s a neat tool for gamers who want to be able to customize how their phone works when they’re gaming, instead of simply leaving things up to the device itself to manage.

The RedMagic 10S Pro unfortunately only comes with three years of software updates, which is better than previous devices but nowhere near the likes of Google and Samsung, which are currently offering six or seven years of OS updates.

Conclusions

The RedMagic 10S Pro is very powerful, offers a unique design, and has interesting gaming-focused features like the shoulder triggers. If all you really do with your phone is game, then it may be worth considering.

That said, plenty of people do other things with their phone, too. Even if you game a lot on your phone, there are plenty of situations in which you might want a different device. For example, if you want a device with a solid, versatile camera, or if you game with a controller like those made by Backbone, in which case you’ll likely never use the shoulder triggers built into the device.

The big exception to this argument is the battery life. If you prioritize battery life above a triple camera and want a gaming-focused phone, the RedMagic 10S Pro is an excellent device. But if you want a more well-rounded smartphone experience with a versatile camera and better software experience, there are other devices out there for you.

The competition

There are other gaming phones out there, but many of them are much more expensive than the RedMagic 10S Pro. The Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro, for example, costs a hefty $1,600. The ROG Phone 9 is a little cheaper, but still starts at $1,000. If you’re not tied to a specific budget, then it’s probably worth going for one of those phones instead.

If you are tied to a specific budget, then it’s worth considering the usual suspects, like the Samsung Galaxy S25, which still performs excellently as a gaming device but has a triple camera and a better software experience. That said, it doesn’t have anywhere near the battery life that the RedMagic 10S Pro has.

Should I buy the RedMagic 10S Pro?

Yes, but only if battery life and gaming-focused features are more important to you than a slim design and a versatile camera.