RedMagic 11S Pro+ Review: AAA Gaming on a Smartphone

Recently, gaming phones have been having a tough time. More and more phones on the market have started to come with built-in fans, offering stronger performance output and gaming experiences, making it seem like almost anything can be a "gaming phone" these days. This puts gaming phone manufacturers like Red Magic in a somewhat awkward position. Right at this moment, the Red Magic 11S Pro+ has arrived — can it deliver an experience that is different from other phones?

丨Carefully Selected Chips with Good "Constitution"

Physical and process variations that cannot be completely eliminated during chip manufacturing cause natural differences in voltage stability, power consumption control, and performance ceilings among chips cut from the same batch of wafers. This is what people online refer to as the issue of chip "constitution" quality.

According to official introduction, every Snapdragon 8 Elite Leading Edition fifth-generation chip equipped in the Red Magic 11S Pro+ has been carefully and individually selected.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Leading Edition fifth-generation chip equipped in the Red Magic 11S Pro+ is first strictly selected from the central region of the wafer, where temperature is most stable, etching precision is highest, and optimal electrical performance and chip constitution can be provided. Next, automated test equipment is used to progressively raise the chip's operating frequency, and only chips that can stably reach a maximum clock speed of 4.74GHz (far exceeding the standard version's 4.6GHz) proceed to the subsequent screening stage.

The chips then undergo adaptive voltage regulation testing to filter out unstable or excessively power-hungry chips. In the end, only chips that can maintain stability without throttling under all kinds of demanding conditions are certified as the Snapdragon 8 Elite Leading Edition fifth-generation, and used in the Red Magic 11S Pro+.

In GeekBench 6 performance testing, the Red Magic 11S Pro+ achieves a single-core score of 3724 and a multi-core score of 11802, higher than the Dimensity 9500. Single-core performance still trails the A19 Pro — which is well known for this — by a small margin, while multi-core performance leads by a significant margin.

Such strong performance would be a bit of a waste if only used for benchmarking. So, can the Red Magic 11S Pro+ be used to run some AAA single-player games locally?

丨AAA Titles, Launch!

I installed Assassin's Creed Mirage on the Red Magic 11S Pro+ and successfully ran it. In actual testing at 720P with medium graphics settings, it can stably hold around 16 frames, with very low input latency — timing parries against enemies is entirely viable. Dropping to low graphics settings, the frame rate remains around 16 frames, just with fewer instances of stuttering.

On a side note, Red Magic has already established a partnership with Ubisoft and will be optimizing several Ubisoft AAA titles to continuously improve the gaming experience of Ubisoft games on Red Magic phones. Speaking of which, Ubisoft will be launching Assassin's Creed: Black Flag — Memory Reboot on July 9th — could that game also be experienced on the Red Magic 11S Pro+ when it arrives?

The Red Magic 11S Pro+'s PC emulator is launched directly through the shoulder buttons on the side, supports direct Steam connectivity — simply log into a Steam account and the game library list will sync to the phone, and after tapping to download, games can be played on the phone.

Game compatibility has been quite good so far. Assassin's Creed Mirage, Resident Evil 7, and others all run normally, and Resident Evil 7 can even reach around 60 frames. The game's side settings panel has also been specifically adjusted, adding settings related to gamepad and keyboard-and-mouse operation, while retaining the original power-saving, balanced, and Awakening performance modes.

However, possibly out of considerations for hardware protection and thermal management, the Red Magic 11S Pro+ still has some headroom left in performance output. Taking Assassin's Creed Mirage as an example, at 720P graphics quality, CPU and GPU utilization basically holds at around 70%, and the device's maximum body temperature is only 40.4°C.

If there were a feature that allowed players to directly adjust the game rendering resolution and max out CPU and GPU utilization, that kind of gaming experience would probably better satisfy players' needs.

For many players, as long as the game can run, they'll just attach their own cooling back clip! Coincidentally, Red Magic also has a matching cooling back clip available as an option.

Red Magic has indeed reflected its differentiation in software features and gaming experience. A AAA single-player gaming experience like this is something that other phones with built-in fans currently find very difficult to deliver.

丨Mainstream Mobile Game Performance Remains Stable

Aside from AAA single-player games, I also tested the Red Magic 11S Pro+'s performance in mainstream mobile games, with games set to the highest graphics quality and frame rate cap, and the phone running in Awakening mode.

The Red Magic 11S Pro+'s gaming performance is at the top tier of current smartphones, and the performance of several games is genuinely surprising.

First is Genshin Impact. Without the assistance of any frame-stabilizing features, it relies almost entirely on raw performance output to maintain stable frame rates. Looking at the performance scheduling, it can be seen that the processor's clock speed reached the maximum 4.74GHz several times. Performance calls are aggressive, and the frame rate curve is almost a straight line — the gaming experience is extremely smooth.

Next is Ananta, a new game that places a very heavy performance load on phones. However, the Red Magic 11S Pro+ maintained a completely flat frame rate curve throughout, running at full frames the entire time — a result that is rare among current smartphones.

Its performance strategy at this point is similar to when running Genshin Impact — core performance calls are aggressive. Although it did not reach the maximum clock speed of 4.74GHz, it frequently hit 3.6GHz, which is still very high performance output.

However, in low-load games like Honor of Kings, the Red Magic 11S Pro+ also maintains aggressive performance calls, causing the overall device power consumption in 144fps mode to reach 4.1W — relatively high, as typical flagship phones consume around 3.5W in this scenario. This kind of brute-force performance strategy is, in a certain sense, very "Red Magic."

丨Peripheral Configuration Is Also Solid

Rear water cooling

Shoulder buttons + fan vent

The Red Magic 11S Pro+ is broadly consistent with the Red Magic 11 Pro+ in other areas, also equipped with a combination of air cooling and water cooling. Whether running AAA single-player games or mainstream mobile games, it always maintains even heat dissipation, improving cooling efficiency by expanding the heat dissipation area, and even under high load keeps the device body temperature — which would otherwise run very hot — within a warm but manageable range.

The front of the phone is still a true full-screen display, using BOE's X10 under-display light-emitting substrate. In actual testing against dark, light, and white backgrounds, the front camera is hidden so well it is almost invisible.

The screen itself is 6.85 inches with 1.5K resolution and a 144Hz high refresh rate. It uses a Synaptics touch chip, and touch response has been greatly improved — in current use, no instances of dropped or accidental touches have occurred. Testing shows the screen uses DC dimming at medium-to-high brightness and 2592Hz high-frequency PWM dimming at low brightness.

In other specifications, it still houses a 7500mAh battery, 120W wired charging, 80W wireless charging, along with standard-equipped Wi-Fi 7, NFC, infrared remote control, metal mid-frame with glass back panel, full-body lighting effects, and a 3.5mm headphone jack that by today's standards might as well be alien technology.

So, although the Red Magic 11S Pro+ is a half-generation upgrade and many of its specifications are even identical to the Red Magic 11 Pro+, it has expressed its own differentiation through running AAA titles on the phone.

Even if you say other phones can do the same, they either lack sufficient performance, have poor compatibility, or both — and some individual models even have the appearance of a gaming phone while being completely out of touch with what players actually want. Furthermore, Red Magic, in terms of mainstream gaming experience, remains a top-tier presence today.

Performance phones with built-in fans have indeed formed some competition for Red Magic, but judging from the Red Magic 11S Pro+'s actual performance, gaming phones as a standalone category will continue to exist for quite a long time to come.