Nubia's Redmagic brand has been committed to creating cost-effective gaming smartphones with killer hardware for many years. Considering the software experience flaws of the Redmagic 7 Pro last year, many users who wanted to use it as their daily driver faced difficulties. However, this year Nubia has finally addressed this biased issue, making the Redmagic 8 Pro a more recommendable device than its predecessor.

This time, Redmagic clearly expresses its desire to create a gaming smartphone suitable for daily use, and the understated design of the Redmagic 8 Pro undoubtedly reflects this goal. The iconic translucent back has been toned down and completely replaced with a sturdy matte back on the cheaper models. However, it is still fundamentally a gaming phone and has all the additional features required to make it a powerful gaming device.

Redmagic 8 Pro has abandoned one of the most popular trends in gaming hardware: excessive use of RGB effects. The Asus ROG 6 Pro feels like holding a flickering billboard, but the Redmagic 8 Pro limits its RGB effects to three small bars. Even the transparent Void model has its colors toned down on the iconic translucent back of Redmagic, reducing it to a small portion at the top. The rotating RGB fan is noticeable but can be easily disabled.

Every time you take it out of your pocket, it leaves a profound impression. The black aluminum frame looks more like a regular Android phone rather than a gaming device, and the matte surface on the back has the added benefit of making the phone easier to grip. The power button, Game Space switch, and two touch triggers are located on the right side of the phone. The textured red surface of the Game Space switch nicely breaks the flat black frame and is difficult to accidentally trigger, but using a controller clip may affect the volume keys on the other side. Although this phone is not as flashy as previous iterations, its appearance blends well with good Android phones and increases possibilities for everyday users.

The Redmagic 8 Pro has received some upgrades in its Full HD+ AMOLED display, with the resolution increased from 1080 x 2400 to 1116 x 2400. Additionally, it features a 120Hz LTO adaptive refresh rate that can be set to 90Hz or 60Hz to save battery life. As we emphasized before, the screen size remains the same as its predecessor but with a larger aspect ratio. Redmagic 8 Pro offers five color modes to choose from: Normal, Vivid, Natural, P3, and sRGB. By default, Normal is selected, which tends to favor saturated rather than realistic colors. It is a good choice for gaming, but some people may prefer the natural and softer tones.

The most notable hardware is the Snapdragon Gen 2 chipset, which has many improvements compared to the previous model, especially in terms of ray tracing performance, providing high-quality visual enhancements for gaming. The chipset's Adreno GPU offers a 25% performance increase and a 40% efficiency improvement over last year's model in this field. Without activating the game fan, it achieves an AnTuTu score of over 1.28 million, Geekbench multicore score of 5179, and single-core score of 1394, making it the highest score obtained among all Android phones to date.

To keep the phone cool, the built-in cooling fan operates at a speed of up to 20,000 RPM and is very quiet. Speaking of performance, the Redmagic 8 Pro handles every game I throw at it with ease. Genshin Impact runs at 60 FPS on the highest graphics settings for two hours, and PUBG Mobile runs at HDR graphics settings for two and a half hours, consistently maintaining 120 FPS. Most importantly, the phone never gets hot in my hands, showcasing the full potential of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

The biggest software appeal of the Redmagic 8 Pro is the Game Space software launched by a switch on the side of the phone. Game shortcuts can be stored here, along with tools to adjust touch sensitivity, frame rate, fan, and shoulder triggers. It is a very straightforward application and provides a convenient way to access games in one place. In-game, sliding from either side of the phone brings up the Game Space, which has menus on both sides of the screen. Here, you can find functions to adjust refresh rate, fan, RGB settings, app shortcuts, and more.

You can also view CPU and GPU performance, start screen recording, and enable movable in-game overlays that allow you to easily check time, FPS, and battery life. Convenient in-game tools such as crosshair overlays can also be displayed. Overall, it is a convenient tool that I find myself using in most gaming sessions.

Powering all this hardware is a 6000mAh battery. With average usage of playing games, making calls, and watching videos at 120Hz throughout the day, the Redmagic 8 Pro only loses 52% of its battery. Keeping the phone at 120Hz and playing videos at maximum brightness will fully drain the battery in 14 hours. The Redmagic 8 Pro offers 65W fast charging, and the 65W charger can charge it from 0% to 60% in 25 minutes and fully charge it in 38 minutes. Even the most dedicated mobile gamers don't have to worry about battery life issues, as a short wait can provide a full day of gaming.

If you are looking for a high-performance gaming smartphone, the Redmagic 8 Pro is the best choice you can find. It has all the components we expect from a premium gaming phone, such as shoulder triggers and an internal fan, and its price is quite reasonable among all gaming phones.