Cooler than your mom’s phone

Redmagic likes to refresh its line every mid-year with an S model, a way to keep things up to date without straying too far from the earlier design. This year, I’m reviewing the Redmagic 9S Pro. While its design hasn’t changed much, the Snapdragon chipset is overclocked, and the internal cooling has been upgraded for a claimed 20% improvement, which is assuredly welcome for those who push their gaming to the limits.

Still, one has to wonder if we truly needed a refresh this year when the 9 Pro was already so competent, to begin with, receiving a well-deserved eight out of ten at the tail end of last December. But is seven months enough to excuse incremental improvements in one of the best gaming phones of the year?

Price, availability, and connectivity

Compared to the Redmagic 9 Pro, the new 9S Pro offers a few hardware and software perks. Its starting price is $649, which goes up to $799 if you want more RAM and storage. Otherwise, the pricing is the same as the previous models.

Starting July 23rd, those interested in the Redmagic 9S Pro can join an early bird offer that nets buyers a $30 discount code. This early bird perk will last until the 30th when the code offer ends. At that point, you’ll have to pay full price without the benefit of a code for later use.

Much like previous Nubia and Redmagic devices, I recommend using them on T-Mobile in the US for connectivity. I used it to test the Redmagic 9S Pro, and I can say data and calls work just fine. Calls are clear, and I never have trouble loading sites or streaming music anywhere around my city. The phone works as intended, but your mileage may vary as not all US bands are present in the device.

What I like about the Redmagic 9S Pro

It looks awesome and performs like a champ

As an 80s child, I love the entire boxy design language of the Redmagic 9S Pro. It reminds me of tape players and radios of that age, bold and unapologetic, and Redmagic absolutely leans into this with its flush rear cameras. The second I took the smartphone out of the box, the square brick made its size known.

I have no complaints about this. Sure, it’s an incredibly thick phone, which is exactly how Reddmaigic managed to get the cameras flush and slip in an internal fan, both of which I’m a fan of.

Another interesting aspect is the edge-to-edge screen; there is no camera notch or hole. It is all screen. The front camera is hidden under the screen, just as Redmagic has done in many past models, which I appreciate so games can shine on this gaming phone. A tiny bit of a bezel surrounds the screen, with the bottom edge slightly more prominent, so they aren’t entirely even, but pretty dang close.

The square display’s corners are rounded ever so slightly for a polished look, and the edge of the screen’s glass is ever so slightly curved so that the square shape doesn’t dig into your hand. The pre-applied screen protector accounts for this, which I’m very happy I didn’t have to apply myself.

Something I never thought I would say: I’m happy to see Redmagic move all buttons, including the finger-trigger touchpads, to one side of the device. When you tilt the phone sideways to play games or media in landscape, all the buttons and triggers are on top, which makes sense.

Everything you need to interact with physically is placed together. This also means everything is on the right side when holding the phone in portrait, which is handy since your thumb can easily reach everything. This leaves two ports on the top and bottom, the headphone jack up top, and the USB-C on the bottom, which are easily accessible and never confused.

Redmagic has improved the chip with the 9S, now offering a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Leading Version, which overclocks the chip from the previous model while reducing power consumption, with some AI benefits packed in to boot. Of course, this is all fancy marketing talk, so I put the chip to the test against a few of the more demanding Android games out there. What I discovered wasn’t surprising: few games made the phone buckle. I had to pull out the big guns to even see the phone sweat, so I installed Zenless Zone Zero and saw a consistent 60FPS on high settings. Not too shabby.

I’m also happy to report that the internal fan is pretty dang quiet, which pleases me greatly. If there is one thing that really bothers me about my PC gaming handhelds, it is that there’s no getting around fan noise. So it’s certainly a delight to see the tiny fan in the 9S spinning away during my gameplay without making disruptive sounds. It was refreshing.

Another hardware feature I love is that the touch-sensitive triggers now offer LEDs inside. Yep, the triggers light up, which is a fine enough look when gaming, making them easy to locate with sight. But as cool as these programmable triggers are, the LEDs inside pull double duty, as they can also be used for notifications.

As someone who dearly misses the notification lights found on older devices, I am greatly pleased to see the triggers blinking when I have pending messages. Sure, you could use the included AOD feature to display notifications on the screen, but I’m old school and prefer blinking lights.

I also find the rear cameras work well. No, you won’t be confusing most shots with those taken on a high-end Galaxy or Pixel, but they are plenty fine in good lighting, which is really all I request from my gaming phones.

Sacrifices have to be made to sell a $650 smartphone with the latest and greatest Snapdragon. I’m more than happy with the shots below, and if I wanted something better, I’d pull out my mirrorless, as I’m a firm believer in purpose-built devices. A gaming phone should excel at playing games, which the Redmagic 9S Pro unmistakably accomplishes.

What I didn’t like about the Redmagic 9S Pro

Fingerprints and bezels, a tale as old as time

Similar to Jon’s complaint when he reviewed the Redmagic 9 Pro, there is one big downside to the flush cameras: fingerprints. Since the back is even with the lenses, you will absolutely accidentally touch the lenses throughout the day pulling your phone out of your pocket or purse.

If you want clear shots, you’ll need to wipe your lenses often, which is a little bit of an inconvenience. Of course, if you don’t buy gaming phones for their cameras, this is moot. I know I, for one, will rarely use them, but of course, everyone is different, so if you can’t stand accidental fingerprints on your smartphone camera lenses, you’ll likely have a bad time here.

I also didn’t find the speakers impressive, at least not for music. The positioning isn’t great, and they aren’t even with one another, leaving your hands to easily cover one or both. The side-firing sound simply isn’t anything that will blow you away.

While the edge-to-edge screen lends itself well to showcasing games, I think I’d prefer a larger bezel that affords two front-firing speakers that face the user. This always results in better sound and a more cinematic experience. If the bezels were bigger, you could also stick the front-facing cam in one. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have a better media experience on my gaming phones than superficial things like edge-to-edge screens.

The reason I’d prefer a camera in the bezel brings me to my next point: the front-facing camera in the Redmagic 9S Pro results in hazy shots thanks to the screen that sits above it. Much like the rear cameras, it’s good enough if you don’t plan on using the selfie cam for anything other than utilitarian streaming with family and friends when gaming. However, for glamor shots, anyone who is into selfies for Instagram is not going to like the results. But don’t take my word for it; here’s my ugly mug as proof.

Oh, and if I had to stretch for one more issue, some of you may not enjoy all the hardware buttons sitting on one side. Despite using a circular button for the power to differentiate between the volume button and the Redmagic slider, it can be easy to get lost and hit the volume instead of power or vice versa. The tradeoff for easy use when in landscape is worth it, but not everyone will agree.

Should you buy it?

Much like we concluded with the Redmagic 9 Pro, I’m finding the Redmagic 9S Pro to be a bargain. The performance is off the charts without having to spend more than a grand on a high-end device. Redmagic has always managed to put together phones that chew through games without breaking the bank, and yes, that does come with compromises to the cameras and software support. But to me, the trade is worth it; it’s fun using Redmagic devices, and while the company will never measure up to the likes of Samsung and its unbeatable seven years of support, you certainly get a lot of bang for your buck if you like to play demanding games on Android.

Redmagic 9S Pro isn’t a perfect phone, but few, if any, are. It’s a fine phone and an excellent gaming machine. Slap a controller on it like the Razer Kishi, and now you have an actively cooled Android gaming handheld, which is the perfect use case for such a device. The true edge-to-edge screen begs for media to be played on it, and thanks to the high refresh rate, everything looks smooth as butter. I know I’ll be using mine long after this review, and that’s because it fits me better than the competition, which often costs a lot more.