Perhaps prompted byAsus teasing the upcoming ROG Phone 8, Nubia has revealed the Redmagic 9 Pro. This gaming phone is Nubia’s most powerful device yet, eclipsing the Redmagic 8, one of thebest gaming phonesof 2023.
Redmagic regularly releases some of our favorite gaming phones thanks to their affordability, top-tier hardware, and stylish designs. The Redmagic 9 Pro is no different, packing the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, 16GB RAM, and a 6.8-inch 120Hz FHD screen into a phone that costs less than $700 — quite the feat at the tail end of 2023.
When producing a powerful gaming phone at this price, some corners must be cut. While awful cameras are typically expected, we were disappointed by a design change that sacrifices practical use in favor of visual flair. Despite a few downsides, there’s no denying Redmagic has produced one of the best gaming phones in the market by providing everything you need to play the most demanding Android games without sacrificing performance or battery life.
Nubia Redmagic 9 Pro
The RedMagic 9 Pro is a full upgrade over its predecessor, but the hardware improvements feel unnecessary. However, this means the phone is capable of handling any game you throw at it.
Price & availability
Affordable in all markets
All three models of Redmagic 9 Pro cost the same as their Redmagic 8 Pro equivalents, $650 for the 12GB RAM/ 256GB Sleet model and $749 for the 16GB RAM/ 512GB Cyclone and Snowfall models. While this may seem surprising in a year where most Android flagships have increased in price, the improvements found in the Redmagic 9 Pro make little practical difference; it would be a struggle to recommend it if the price had increased.
Pre-orders for the Redmagic 9 Pro open on August 22, 2025, and sales will begin on August 01, 2025, through the Redmagic website.
While the RedMagic 9 Pro will be available internationally, connectivity is lacking, just like with the RedMagic 8 Pro. There’s no support for mmWave 5G, so you may struggle to get consistent high-speed 5G in the US, depending on your carrier.
Stylish lines that look good at any angle
Redmagic has retained the blocky, functional aestheticintroduced in the Redmagic 8 seriesof phones, but there are notable changes. The shape and size might be unchanged, but you’ll immediately notice the complete lack of camera bump on the phone’s rear.
The Redmagic 9 Pro’s rear cameras are placed behind the glass pane that, with a tiny exception, covers the entire back of the phone. This means the phone lies flat, and there’s no risk of damaging the cameras if you don’t use a case. The exception is the flashlight, which protrudes less than a millimeter from the back of the phone.
It’s a neat look, but it creates practical issues. Firstly, leaving fingerprints or smudges over the camera area is much easier when the back is flush. While taking photos with the Redmagic 9 Pro, I was constantly wiping the rear glass to avoid blurry photos; Nubia should have shipped the phone with a microfibre cloth instead of a case.
Speaking of cases, slapping on the thin plastic case that shipped with the Redmagic 9 Pro creates more problems. There are holes for the camera lenses (presumably to reduce smudging) but no lip. Dust, lint, and your fingers will slip into these gaps, further blurring the glass covering the lenses. This design makes even casual photography difficult. It does make for a great aesthetic, but I can’t help but think that Nubia has made the Redmagic series less useful in favor of unnecessary flair.
The volume rocker has shifted to the right side of the phone above the power button, which has been replaced with a circular button to avoid misclicks. I appreciated this small but effective change, as I can easily tell the difference between buttons, especially while getting used to the new layout.
Below the power button is the Game Space switch (more on this later), and on the bottom is a centered USB-C port. At the top of the phone is the 3.5mm headphone port. The touch triggers are easily missed at first glance, found on the right side of the phone when held in portrait and distinguished by a slight indent on the top and bottom right corners.
Unlike the Asus ROG series of phones, which seem determined to announce to everyone in a five-mile radius that you are indeed using a gaming phone, Nubia takes a more refined approach to its LEDs and sounds. One set of LEDs is set in thin bars under the touch triggers, and another lights up the “09” logo on the phone’s rear. It’s a mercifully restrained design, but I wish there were a white light option for a crisper overall look. Turn on the cooling fan, and another LED will light up as it spins. All these lights can be extensively customized or disabled.
While I enjoy the RedMagic 9 Pro’s look, it feels less practical than last year’s design. It’s the best-looking Redmagic phone yet, but I would have preferred that it didn’t create unnecessary problems with the rear cameras with the flush back.
Crisp, clear, and responsive
The Redmagic 9 Pro packs a 6.8-inch AMOLED screen that can reach up to 120Hz. It’s practically identical to the Redmagic 8 Pro’s screen, with the minor improvement of an extra 300 nits of brightness.
The phone can switch between 120, 90, and 60Hz refresh rates. There’s also an Auto option, which switches between refresh rates depending on the app or game. The Redmagic 9 Pro will always try to reach the highest refresh rate, so I left it to Auto most of the time, but those concerned about battery life can lock it to 60Hz.
An AMOLED screen means brighter colors and deeper blacks. The Redmagic 9 Pro offers a few color mode options, but I stuck with Colorful, which kept colors punchy without oversaturating the screen.
If you regularly game competitively on a smartphone, you’ll probably have one of thebest Android-compatible controllers on hand, but if not, the RedMagic 9 Pro supports a whopping touch sample rate of 960hz, which makes the phone’s screen one of the most responsive on the market, perfect for twitch gaming.
Bloated, but full of customization potential
The RedMagic 9 Pro’s software is excellent once you’ve customized it to your tastes. Nubia goes for quantity over quality regarding software features, and the Redmagic 9 Pro is no different. Settings are not organized logically. If you haven’t used Redmagic OS before, you’ll spend days learning where all the various options are hidden.
After uninstalling the bloatware apps I could from the home screen (I don’t think anyone needs the Booking.com app preinstalled on their gaming phone), I headed into the settings where Nubia hides all its handy software tricks.
There are a lot of software settings to customize here, from the phone’s LED colors to its cooling fan modes. I appreciate the level of personalization you can apply here, but delving through the settings to find what you want to tweak is an outright chore. There are also some bizarre choices over what you can and can’t customize. For example, while you can change the fingerprint unlock animation, you can’t change the look of the button itself, which looks out of place on most wallpapers due to its futuristic neon look.
A better walkthrough of the phone’s settings would have been helpful here, and unifying the settings unique to Redmagic phones in a dedicated app would have been even more beneficial. The stock Android settings app doesn’t quite cut it for a phone with as many complex features as a Redmagic device.
One of the most notable new features is face unlock, which works… sometimes. While it usually recognized my face on the first attempt, the few seconds it took to process my image meant I eventually switched back to the faster fingerprint reader.
Out of all the software included, what Nubia really wants you to use is Game Space. This dedicated app is a launcher for your Android games, and it also contains the settings you’ll need to fine-tune your gaming experience, from individual game performance to genre-specific color settings.
I’m usually not a fan of unnecessary gimmicks, but I found the dedicated Game Space switch on the side of the phone very helpful. Rather than scrolling through my phone’s app drawer for my games, I can toggle the switch, and they’ll all appear before me. When this switch is enabled, you won’t be able to swipe back to the home screen, which is handy if you tend to close games accidentally while playing.
There’s also a Game Space overlay. Swipe in from the top right or left corners of your screen, and you can tweak settings, check hardware usage, and more without closing your game. This is also where you can customize settings game-by-game, like the touch-triggers.
Performance
More power than is necessary
When gaming on consoles or PCs, it’s usually the hardware that’s the limiting factor of how well your games play. However, Android gaming phones havefar outstripped the games available on the Play Store. The Redmagic 9 Pro’s Snapdragon Gen 3 chipset is potent, but you’ll find it nearly impossible to tax it with the majority of games available on the Play Store.
I almost feel a little sorry for the Redmagic 9 Pro here, as it’s rendered somewhat unnecessary because most Android games aren’t all that demanding. Whether I was exploring the beautiful vistas of Genshin Impact or engaging in frantic Call of Duty matches, I never saw the framerate drop.
My testing with the Redmagic 9 Pro quickly turned into a game of whether I could overheat it. But even when simultaneously playing Genshin Impact at a rock-solid 60FPS at max brightness, cranking the CPU to maximum performance, downloading and playing music, and downloading a movie while charging the phone, it never grew more than slightly warm in my hands. Of course, you won’t usually perform all these actions simultaneously (and there is no real reason to enable performance mode). However, it’s still remarkable to see how the Redmagic 9 Pro’s cooling fan keeps everything at a stable temperature while remaining virtually silent.
I was also impressed by the dual shoulder triggers. These offer a touch-sample rate of 520Hz and response rate of 7.4ms, more than most Android flagship screens, and while a physical controller will always win out, I found them surprisingly useful. This was mainly thanks to the rumble, which was short and sharp, helping to disguise the fact that I was tapping a solid chunk of metal rather than an actual trigger.
Battery life
Long-lasting, even when gaming all day
The 6500mAh battery in the Redmagic 9 Pro is more than enough. Even locking the refresh rate at 120Hz, I got two full days out of gaming, watching videos, taking videos, and browsing the internet. And when you do need to top it up, Nubia claims the 80W max charging speed will charge it to full in 35 minutes. The box includes an 80W charging brick alongside a USB-C to USB-C cable, which I was unfortunately unable to test as I was sent a US plug.
Nubia claims you can get up to 56 hours of usage. This is similar to what we found, but start enabling the performance features while playing demanding games, and this will drop significantly. So your mileage may vary, but at the end of the day, this is a large phone that comes with a large battery, which means you’ll rarely run out of power unless you really push things.
Barely capable even in perfect conditions
I’ve already discussed the problems with the camera layout on the Rredmagic 9 Pro, but considering how bad these cameras are, it’s almost irrelevant. While this is expected from a gaming phone, you’ll struggle to get decent shots unless in perfect conditions.
The 50MP primary camera is the same as the Redmagic 8 Pro, which is adequate for taking photos outdoors in good lighting. The new 50MP ultra-wide lens helps those landscape shots stay crisp, but you’ll want to avoid taking pictures at dusk or dawn.
The 16MP selfie camera is terrible, which is pretty much expected as it is hidden underneath the screen. Objects are oversharpened, colors are washed out, and capturing an authentic skin tone is practically impossible, the same as every other under-screen front camera Redmagic has used.
Not only this, but moving objects will create weird gaps in the photo, as you can see around the cat below. While I don’t expect much from a front-facing camera, I would have liked Nubia to provide something that I could use to take quality photos to share with my friends.
Competition
Hard to find a phone that offers better value
Thebiggest gaming phone of 2023is theAsus Rog Phone 7. While this phone is much more expensive and sports the less powerful Snapdragon Gen 2 chip, it offers a much more reliable experience. Its software is much closer to what you’ll find on flagship Android phones, and its cameras can take Instagram-worthy photos. However, the base model costs $860, $200 more than the Redmagic 9 Pro.
Another phone worth considering is theRedmagic 8S Pro. All the changes I dislike in the Redmagic 9 Pro aren’t present in this model, and while it runs on an older chip, you won’t encounter any performance issues. If you may find it on sale, it’s hands-down a great option that won’t break the bank.
Should you buy it?
The biggest problem with the Redmagic 9 Pro is that you simply don’t need the latest hardware toplay the most demanding Android games in 2023. While features like the extensive battery life and touch triggers are great assets, for the same price you may get a regular Android phone that will offer a more reliable overall experience that can also play the latest Android games.
However, if you’re keen on picking up the latest Android gaming hardware, the Redmagic 9 Pro is the best gaming phone you’ll find at its price point. There’s a lot to love here for those wanting to jump at an affordable gaming phone packed with the latest hardware, but until mobile games catch up to what Snapdragon is offering, upgrading to the best hardware every year feels more pointless than ever.
The Nubia Redmagic 9 Pro packs top-of-the-line hardware into a stylish form factor. While it sacrifices function in favor of form, there’s no doubt that this phone provides one of the best mobile gaming experiences around.
