RedMagic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro Review: Liquid Cooling, 185Hz Screen

Small-screen tablets have remained quite popular over the past two years. The reason is also simple: although large tablets offer a wider field of view, they are fundamentally unsuitable for long-time holding; phones, while convenient, have their screen size limiting the gaming field of view and operating space. So for gamers, the ideal form is actually quite clear: the screen should be bigger than a phone, the body should not be too heavy, the performance should be strong enough, and ideally it should also balance high refresh rate, touch control, heat dissipation, and external expansion.

Last year, the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 3 Pro already made the "small-size gaming tablet" category quite outstanding, and the upgraded Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro's approach is also very direct: continue stacking specs, continuing to push up on the few points that players care about most.

Its core selling point can be summarized in one sentence: stronger performance, more aggressive heat dissipation, more complete configuration, but the body is still in the form of a small tablet.

Appearance: Flat back cover, with a "sea-view room" flavor

The Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro still looks very much like Red Magic at first glance.

Continuing the family-style transparent mecha style, the back of the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro adopts a two-tone design, with the top being one whole horizontal decorative area, where you can see the REDMAGIC logo, the Snapdragon logo, and liquid cooling visual elements.

Compared to some gaming devices that simply use lines and stickers to create an esports feel, Red Magic's back design this time is closer to the idea of a "sea-view room console": making the internal heat dissipation and lighting effects a visualized part.

Switching from the previous generation's active cooling fan to this generation's pulsating liquid cooling engine, the most intuitive change is that the noise is gone. The advantage of the fan solution is active air intake and exhaust, but it cannot be denied that noise has always been a relatively noticeable part; the liquid cooling solution not only dissipates heat more strongly, but also makes the heat dissipation experience more "imperceptible," while retaining the visual effect through RGB lighting.

The back is still a flat back cover; for phones, everyone may already be used to camera bumps, but tablets, especially gaming tablets, are different — many people place the tablet flat on the desktop to play rhythm games, MOBA, or FPS, and if there is an obvious bump on the back, it will easily wobble when pressed.

Of course, it must be mentioned here that the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro has a small circle of tiny bumps around the flash, so it feels slightly uneven to the touch, but it's harmless — this bump can be completely ignored. The Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro remains very stable when placed on the desktop, which has practical significance for multi-finger operation and long gaming sessions.

In terms of size, the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro adopts a 9.06-inch screen, with body dimensions of 207.1mm × 134.2mm × 6.9mm, and a weight of 363g. This weight is much heavier compared to a phone, but it's not exaggerated for a gaming tablet — when held horizontally with both hands, the pressure is also relatively even, after all, it does not follow the route of a thin and light office tablet.

Screen: 9.06-inch OLED, 185Hz is the key

The front screen is the most easily perceivable upgrade point of the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro in terms of numbers.

The Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro is equipped with a 9.06-inch OLED Super Competitive Screen, with a resolution of 2400×1504, bezels of about 4.9mm on four sides, and a screen-to-body ratio reaching 90.1%.

This size is actually quite reasonable for gaming; in MOBA games, the distance between the mini-map, skill buttons, and the battlefield view won't be overly dispersed; in FPS games, the screen is bigger than a phone, giving more room for target searching and recoil control.

In terms of specs, this screen supports a 185Hz refresh rate. For RPG players, the difference between 185Hz and 120Hz or even 60Hz may not be as obvious as image quality, brightness, and color, but for FPS players, a high refresh rate is a very critical board in the barrel — you should know that PC esports monitors focused on FPS have already rolled to over 500Hz, essentially to reduce screen latency and make high-speed turning, flick-aiming, and tracking smoother.

Currently, games that have been adapted to the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro's 185Hz include "Crossfire: Gunslinger" and "Dawn Awakens," while the 165Hz adaptation range is wider, such as "Delta Force," "Arena Breakout," "Call of Duty Mobile," "Peacekeeper Elite," "Valorant Mobile," and even "Teamfight Tactics."

In terms of touch control, the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro is equipped with a Synaptics S3930 touch chip, with a multi-finger native touch sampling rate of 300Hz and an instantaneous reporting rate of up to 2000Hz. This is Red Magic's response to players' voices, since Red Magic has been criticized quite a bit before for touch control issues, and for a gaming tablet, touch control and refresh rate actually need to be looked at together — as long as one of them has a shortcoming, it will ultimately show up in the "hand-following feel," especially for FPS players, whose actions like aiming down sights, turning, recoil control, sliding, and weapon switching all rely heavily on continuous touch response.

Performance: AnTuTu 4.29 Million Points, Performance Firmly in the First Tier

In terms of performance, the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro is equipped with the fifth-generation Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile platform, with the device identified as QTI SM8850P, which is the tablet-specific version without a baseband, and the GPU is Adreno 840.

In the AnTuTu V11.1.3 test, the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro scored a total of 4,297,377 points, with the specific sub-items as follows:

CPU: 1,167,433 points

GPU: 1,568,762 points

MEM: 585,697 points

UX: 975,485 points

Looking at the sub-item scores, the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro's GPU score exceeds 1.56 million, which is the most direct reflection of this device's gaming attributes. For a gaming tablet, the CPU peak is certainly important, but what truly determines the high-quality gaming experience is whether GPU performance, thermal release, and system scheduling can all keep up together.

In addition, besides the fifth-generation Snapdragon 8 Elite, the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro is also equipped with the Red Core R4 esports chip and the CUBE Qingtian Gaming Engine 3.0, which can achieve 2K+144Hz concurrency while also reducing SoC load and lowering power consumption, with the purpose of not only letting high-load games "run smoothly" but also allowing them to run stably for a long time.

In terms of storage, the AnTuTu storage test total score is 234,231 points, with the specific results as follows:

Sequential Read: 4268.1MB/s, 30,048 points

Sequential Write: 4109.4MB/s, 30,579 points

Random Read/Write: Read 2172.6MB/s, Write 1275.1MB/s, 58,734 points

Multi-thread Mixed Random Read/Write: 1523.6MB/s, 10,576 points

Mixed Random Read/Write: 144.7MB/s, 42,151 points

AI Read: 2172.6MB/s, 35,416 points

Multi-thread AI Read: 352.3MB/s, 26,727 points

This storage score is also firmly in the first tier among current Android devices.

However, for the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro, benchmark scores are only the first layer of performance. This time, the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro uses a pulsating liquid cooling engine, liquid metal 3.0, and an extra-large VC vapor chamber to form the cooling system, and combined with no fan noise, the actual gaming experience is better.

Gaming Hands-on Test: Pure Frame Rate Is Not the Endpoint, High Image Quality + Stability Is

For the gaming tests, we conducted four projects: "Honor of Kings," "Genshin Impact," "Honkai: Star Rail," and "Teamfight Tactics," among which "Honkai: Star Rail" and "Genshin Impact" can better represent high-load scenarios, while "Honor of Kings" and "Teamfight Tactics" can better reflect high-refresh-rate adaptation.

First, let's look at "Honkai: Star Rail." In about 30 minutes of testing, the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro had an average frame rate of 61fps, a 1% Low frame rate of 58.2fps, and a minimum frame rate of 56fps. From the frame rate curve, the overall fluctuation is very small, basically running steadily at 60fps, and it's worth noting that the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro's native rendering resolution reached 1080p, which is more than 30% higher rendering pressure than the conventional 864p rendering, so this performance is quite convincing.

In terms of temperature, after the test, the front reached a maximum of 45.3℃ and the back reached a maximum of 42.2℃. The front heat is mainly concentrated in a local area of the screen, and the back heat source is also relatively concentrated, but there was no large-area hot-to-touch situation. Combined with an average power consumption of about 8106.5mW, it can be considered a stable output completed under a relatively high load.

Next, looking at "Genshin Impact," in about 30 minutes of testing, the average frame rate was also 61fps, the 1% Low frame rate was 56.6fps, and the minimum frame rate was 53fps, which is a very good performance.

In terms of temperature, the front reached a maximum of 42.3℃, the back reached a maximum of 40.5℃, and the average power consumption was about 4798.7mW.

Under the 145-frame mode of "Honor of Kings," the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro had an average frame rate of 145.4fps, a 1% Low frame rate of 138fps, and a minimum frame rate of 123.9fps. At this frame rate, skill releases, camera dragging, and team fight scenes in the game are all smoother.

In terms of temperature, the front reached a maximum of 42.5℃, the back reached a maximum of 40.0℃, and the average power consumption was about 6123.5mW.

"Teamfight Tactics" is a demonstration of the high-refresh-rate ceiling; in the top-quality 165-frame mode, tested for about 35 minutes, the average frame rate was 166.9fps, and the 1% Low frame rate was 105.5fps. The average frame rate is very high, but judging from the 1% Low and fluctuation indicators, there is still some fluctuation, with a certain sense of lag, but considering the image quality, this game's performance is still at a relatively good level.

In terms of temperature, the front reached a maximum of 41.6℃, the back reached a maximum of 40.4℃, and the average power consumption was about 6768.3mW.

Looking at several sets of data comprehensively, the advantage of the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro is not just peak performance, but also stability under high load, especially under the 1080p resolution of "Honkai: Star Rail," where the average frame rate and 1% Low both performed excellently, and although the temperature was high, the frame/bezel temperature remained within an acceptable range.

Peripheral Configuration: Comprehensive Configuration, and Fully Maxed Out

The peripheral configuration of the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro is also very full. In terms of audio, it is equipped with 1227 stereo dual speakers, and adds N' Bass acoustic enhancement material; the vibration feedback uses dual X-axis linear motors, combined with 4D stereo vibration, making the gaming feedback more powerful than most Android devices.

In terms of battery capacity, the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro has an 8300mAh battery. Many friends may subconsciously say it's small — nowadays, 7000mAh and 8000mAh phones are everywhere, so 8300mAh looks too ordinary — but it is indeed one of the largest battery sizes among small tablets currently available.

In addition, the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro has a Type-C port on both the long side and the short side, and both support 80W charging, both being USB 3.2 Gen2, which can be called luxurious, showing just how much the specs are stacked.

Starting charging from 1%, it can charge to 5% in 5 minutes, to 11% in 10 minutes, and it finally takes 80 minutes to fully charge. Compared to the previous generation, the actual charging speed is much more conservative.

In addition, the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro also supports the PC emulator and Steam Direct Connect mode found on the Red Magic 11S Pro series, allowing you to directly play adapted games from your Steam game library on the tablet, and it can also load Steam cloud saves. Connecting a controller allows it to be used as a handheld console, connecting a monitor and keyboard/mouse can turn it into a desktop gaming device, and casting to a TV can also expand it to a living room scenario.

Summary: Small-Screen Gaming Tablets Continue to Push Forward

The Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro is a product with a very clear target; it is not meant to replace ordinary large-screen office tablets, nor is it meant to be a light-entertainment small tablet — its core users are still gamers, especially those who like high-refresh-rate FPS, high-load mobile games, long-time landscape holding, and users who have needs for live streaming, screen casting, and peripherals.

Compared to the previous generation, its upgrade points are very concentrated: the performance platform is upgraded, heat dissipation moves from fans to liquid cooling, the screen refresh rate is increased to 185Hz, the appearance retains the transparent RGB design, a new dual full-function Type-C port is added, while it continues to insist on the flat back cover, plus the 1227 stereo dual speakers and dual X-axis motors, dual USB 3.2 Gen2 protocol, and so on. It can be said that the configuration is very aggressive, to the point where even the author himself would think — is it really necessary? Wouldn't it be better to remove this configuration in exchange for a cheaper price?

But based on the experience so far, the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro continues Red Magic's consistent approach: not making the most balanced mass-market tablet, but continuing to stack up the performance, screen, touch control, heat dissipation, and ports that gamers care about most.

So, if you want a device that can fit into your bag, or even partly into your clothing pocket, but has a wider field of view than a phone and is more suitable for gaming than an ordinary tablet, the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro is indeed a hard-to-ignore choice.