Latest news with #Redmagic
Forbes
4 days ago
- Forbes
Redmagic 10 Air Stands Out As A Thin Gaming Smartphone
Redmagic 10 Air The current trend for smartphones is to go thin. It's been a general design cue in many new handsets launched in 2025, the recently launched Galaxy S25 Edge makes that explicit, and the upcoming iPhone 17 Air will put the 'Apple Stamp' onto the form factor. Can a thin handset ever be more than fashion? The team behind the Redmagic 10 Air certainly think so. Nubia's Redmagic series of phones is focused on gaming. They are not out-and-out gaming phones, there's enough in the subtle styling that helps the 10 Air blend into the background and be suitable for general use, but gaming features are to the fore. Which is where the benefits of going for a thin and light are most noticeable. Redmagic 10 Air One of the knock-on effects of having a small gaming phone is that you have a light gaming phone. While you can have long periods of day-to-day use on a phone (think reading social media, browsing the web or triaging emails), you don't have to be holding the phone in a specific way, or contort your hands to grip the phone in a particular way. It's the opposite when you are running the complex titles a gaming phone screams for. You'll hold your phone in a specific way for extended periods, working your thumbs around the screen, index fingers along the top spine for the shoulder buttons. Gaming phones have typically sported more mass with more volume, which could lead to fatigue in long sessions. Going thin, and implicitly going light, gives the Redmagic 10 Air an advantage over the competition… which is comfort. Redmagic 10 Air Every smartphone is a compromise; gaming phones even more so. There's more value placed on a fast-refreshing screen with a high sampling rate than a comprehensive and highly specced camera; while battery endurance is a consideration, getting more performance out of the processor is higher up the list; and the ergonomics play a larger part. The lower weight already covers the latter, but the other factors are accentuated by the thin design. The camera is often one of the first elements to fall back when compared to the competition. The selfie camera needs to work well as a webcam for the occasional in-game chats, but you are not buying a gaming phone for a high-end photographic experience; there are phones where that is maximised, but that is not the role of the Redmagic gaming phones. With less space in the Redmagic 10 Air's chassis, there's even less space to cram in the latest camera technology without building out a massive camera island at the rear of the phone. If there was, the balance of the phone in hand would be off and there would be an increase in weight. So, rightly, the Redmagic 10 Air doesn't even need to try. Going thin gives Redmagic permission to focus away from the camera, and consumers the argument as to why the camera may be weaker than the competition. Redmagic 10 Air Yet the Redmagic 10 Air's push towards thin and light must be considere in context. It has an edge over the gaming competition at 205g and 7.85mm thick. But over the Galaxy S25 Edge? Samsung's fashionable phone comes in at 163g and 5.8mm. Even its entry-level Galaxy S25 is lighter and smaller at 162g and 7.2mm. If the Redmagic 10 Air is compared to its fellow gaming smartphones, it's the svelte one. For everyone else, we have a phone that is a shade bigger than an everyday phone, with a focus on comfortable gaming of high-end titles. Coupled with the mid-range price (the entry-level model is £439 here in the UK), there's a small but suitable audience for such a phone. Redmagic 10 Air Now the latest smartphone headlines in Forbes' weekly Android news digest...
Irish Daily Mirror
13-06-2025
- Irish Daily Mirror
Redmagic 10S Pro gaming phone review: I tested world's most powerful handset
Redmagic is the world-renowned gaming smartphone brand that offers more superior performance for gamers along with plus points such as the highest frame rates, sharpest graphics and the longest battery life. It is a global leader in this category, offering similar specs as the Asus ROG Phone series but at much more affordable prices. Late last year, Redmagic 10 Pro was the first phone to market with the blazing fast high-end Snapdragon Elite chip that has powered all of the main 2025 Android flagship smartphones. Now comes Redmagic 10S Pro which is powered by an even more powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite Leading Version chip and enhanced ICE-X cooling. The amazing new handset offers stellar features such as a 144Hz no-notch display and a gargantuan 7,050mAh battery with support for up to 80W fast charging. I've been testing it for several weeks and here are my experiences… Redmagic 10 Pro was one of the most powerful phones you could buy so the boosts in performance on 10S Pro are relatively minor compared to the jump from the 9 Pro to the 10 Pro. The Leading Version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite system-on-a-chip (SoC) is responsible for the step up, and this is because it overclocks the CPU and GPU. The two Orion Prime cores now run at 4.47GHz, up from 4.32GHz on the 10 Pro, while the six performance cores are the same. The Adreno 830 GPU, meanwhile, runs at 1.2GHz here, up from 1.1GHz on the predecessor. The gaming powerhouse now offers configurations with up to 24GB RAM (which is insane for a phone) and 1TB of superfast UFS 4.1 Pro storage. The model I reviewed included 512GB of storage and 16GB of RAM. The RAM is the latest LPDDR5T, which offers more bandwidth than the LPDDR5X used in the 10 Pro. In benchmark tests on Geekbench 6, AnTuTu 10 and 3DMark, the 10S Pro scores higher marks than the 10 Pro and all the current competition including big rival Asus ROG Phone 9. On the graphically demanding 3D Wild Life Extreme test, for example, the phone achieves the best score I've seen. The improvements over the 10 Pro are most noticeable when gaming, which is music to the ears of most people who will buy this handset. In everyday use, the phone handles high frame rates and graphics settings in AAA games easily. Redmagic 10S Pro naturally runs the firm's latest OS based on Android 15 which comes with Google Gemini for an AI-enhanced gaming experience. One of the key Redmagic features that ordinary flagship smartphones don't give you is designed to ensure you can enjoy marathon gaming sessions without any throttling of performance. The firm does this with clever cooling systems and on Redmagic 10S Pro it introduces an advanced 10-layer ICE-X cooling architecture featuring Liquid Metal 2.0 with the sort of impressive thermal conductivity you normally find in high-end gaming PCs. Redmagic had added liquid metal to the 10 Pro. It is an alloy that melts at a low temperature and has high thermal conductivity. It's often used for gaming PCs and laptops and this is because it performs better than a typical thermal compound. On the 10S Pro there is 30 percent more liquid metal in direct contact with the chip and this guides heat to a vapour chamber that spreads the heat around. On top of this, for gaming you can enable the 23,000rpm fan which sucks in cool air from outside and pulls it over the chipset before expelling warm air out the other side. Like all of RedMagic's handsets, the 10S Pro includes a suite of gaming optimisation software that lets you adjust settings such as the power consumption of games, the option to force titles to run in vertical or horizontal orientation, and customisable controls that include using shoulder-button-style sensors or a virtual joypad with buttons. On top of all this you get a 6.85in 1.5K AMOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate, 2,000 nits of peak brightness, and a super responsive touch sampling rate of up to 2,500Hz and multi-finger 960Hz capabilities. It's one of the best looking screens on any phone currently, gaming or otherwise. I love how you can personalise the Redmagic 10S Pro fan's RGB lighting with up to 15 colors, adding a distinctive aesthetic to the device's sleek transparent and industrial-looking metal chassis. Redmagic 10S Pro, like its predecessors, is a contender for best smartphone design. My review unit came with a charging brick that had Chinese plug pins but I tested it with other charging bricks and found it could recharge at the 80W speeds claimed. The rear camera system includes a 50MP wide angle camera, a 50MP ultrawide and a 2MP camera that the firm said enhances photo quality in certain modes. What I love about the camera's lenses is they are flush with the phone's body and do not have a bump. Only Google Pixel 9a comes close to being as flat as this unique device. The firm said the phone will get three years of OS upgrades and three years of security updates which, while not matching the likes of Apple and Google, is decent support in the gaming phone arena. There is no better-spec immersive gaming smartphone experience on the market right now than Redmagic 10S Pro. Redmagic 10S Pro is on sale at and costs from €649 (for the 12GB/256GB configuration) up to €999 (for the 24GB/1TB configuration). You can also buy Redmagic 10S Pro on Amazon.
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Yahoo
Redmagic 10 Air review: The gaming phone you can actually hold in one hand
Last year's Redmagic 10 Pro was one of the best gaming phones around with an unbelievable price point. I'm a fan of the Redmagic brand and while I disliked its take on Android, I enjoyed the premium hardware and the raw performance of the Snapdragon 8 Elite packed into that phone. I loved the $650 price tag even more, making it one of the best-valued powerhouse devices of the year. So when I got my hands on a brand-new Redmagic 10 Air, I was more than a little confused. After all, it looks almost identical to the Pro, but it is not as powerful. It uses an older Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip and has a smaller battery. It is also nearly the same price. Who is this phone for? I spent a few weeks with the Redmagic 10 Air, hoping to solve this riddle and understand what was behind Redmagic's thinking. I may have figured out the answer. There are three versions of the Redmagic 10 Air. The first version comes with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage and costs $549. The next step-up is 16GB + 512GB for $600. It comes in three choices of color: twilight, hailstone, and a special 'flare' version. The phone isn't available at any stores in the US, but Redmagic does have it available for free global shipping direct from their site. I've already touched on the older Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset inside the device. There's a 6.8-inch screen with 1.5K resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. It has the same liquid metal cooling that we saw in the Redmagic 10 Pro, but this device has no fan. It has a smaller 6,000mAh battery and supports 80W fast charging. Finally, it supports GSM, LTE, UTMS, and 5G, and I had no issues using it on my provider's 5G network up here in Canada. When I first took the Redmagic 10 Air out of the box, I was surprised to see that it looked almost identical to the 10 Pro. But looks can be deceiving. The Air instantly felt more comfortable to hold in my hand. It is only 7.85mm thick, and the edges are just ever-so-slightly curved, so it didn't cramp up my hand the way the 10 Pro did. I instantly liked the feel of this phone. That sentiment would grow as I used it. Holding this phone was a refreshing change from the boxy and heavy 10 Pro. At only 205g, the 10 Air is light, but not too much. It still retains a bit of heft, so you know you're holding it. Even more impressive was how Redmagic kept the screen practically bezeless. I don't like bezels nor do I like curved displays, and Redmagic has once again ticked all the right boxes when it comes to displays. The screen is decent. I wasn't blown away by it, but I wasn't disappointed, either. 120Hz is more than enough to keep everything slick, like watching YouTube and playing games. My latest obsession is Magic: The Gathering Arena, and this phone kept up with all the flying graphics and crazy colors. The dual speaker system works. They didn't blow me away, but they didn't let me down either. I played a lot of Call of Duty: Mobile on this device, and the speakers did their jobs. I need to give a shout-out to the battery here. Despite constant use, it lasted me 18 hours on a single charge. I was impressed with the 10 Pro's battery life, and I'm glad to see the little brother carry on the family legacy. The included 80W fast charger quickly brought the battery back up to 100% in a pinch. I also enjoyed some of Redmagic's software tricks to push the phone further. Charge separation is a big one, where I could set a cutoff charge level and let the phone redirect power to use the device. So, if I was gaming while the phone was plugged in, it would power the game without affecting the battery. Problems with the device began almost as soon as I powered it on and went through the setup process. The older Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 was really showing its age. Software took longer to load than I am used to, and sometimes I had to swipe away an app and then relaunch it to get it to work. I've used plenty of devices with the 8 Gen 3, and that was a fast chip, so I'm not sure what the issue was with the Redmagic 10 Air. But it gave me problems from the get-go. The phone comes preloaded with Google apps and little else (I appreciate the lack of bloatware on Redmagic devices). So I loaded all my usual go-to apps when I was first setting up the device: Firefox, Fastmail, Obsidian, ToDoist, VLC. The device did not like that. Opening and using these apps was a headache. They were laggy, and Obsidian in particular never fully loaded, an issue, I assumed, with its on-device storage system. In the end, I had to remove all of these apps and use only the pre-installed Google apps. At least they worked. That said, gaming was never an issue. The CPU never gave me an issue once I was in a game. Many of the problems I faced had to do with launching apps, and I don't know why. I thought it could be an issue with its cores, so I ran a Geekbench 6 test on it. It scored 2293 in single-core performance and 7203 in multicore. Those were great scores, so the issue wasn't there. I still cannot pinpoint what was causing so many problems with third-party apps. But performance was not my biggest complaint — the in-screen fingerprint reader was. It never worked. Not once did it ever manage to read my fingerprint and unlock the device, even after a few tries. Eventually, I got in the habit of using a four-digit password to unlock it, like it was 2014 or something. The cameras on this device are not great. It has a 50MP main shooter and a 50MP wide-angle shooter. They work for still shots at close range, which is good enough to capture memories when needed. But zooming in on a subject turns the photo into a pixelated mess, and while video is fine at 1x and 2x zoom, anything else becomes unwatchable. But this device isn't for photographers. I think I figured out who it is for. The Redmagic 10 Air is not meant for hardcore gamers. It's not meant for professionals on the go or camera jocks. And because it costs more than the Redmagic 10 Pro, at least at launch, I don't believe it's meant for the budget-conscious market, either. Instead, I think I found the perfect customer for this device: older kids. Think about it. It comes with everything a teen or tween needs. Google's software suite is built right in. It handles gaming wonderfully. The cameras are good enough for the crazy way kids take pictures, and the speakers are perfect for YouTube. Best of all, it fits in slightly smaller hands. Plus, it won't break the bank for those working part-time (or their parents).
Forbes
11-04-2025
- Forbes
Android Circuit: Galaxy S25 Edge Disappointment, OnePlus Watch 3 Launch, Pixel 10 Pro Fold Plans
Taking a look back at this week's news and headlines across the Android world, including Galaxy S25 Edge disappointment, Pixel 10 Pro Fold details, OnePlus Watch 3 arrives, happy birthday Redmagic, CMD Phone 2 Pro announced, OnePlus's brave design choice, and Mediatek's updated flaghip chip… Android Circuit is here to remind you of a few of the many discussions around Android in the last seven days. You can also read my weekly digest of Apple news here on Forbes. Samsung may restrict the latest design flex to South Korea and China. The Galaxy S25 Edge is the fourth model in the S25 family announced at January's Galaxy Unwrapped event, but the only model not yet on sale. Given the presumably high manufacturing cost alongside the limited audience for such a fashionably thin and expensive device, the decision is understandable: 'It sounds like the Galaxy S25 Edge may share its fate with another limited-edition Samsung phone, i.e., the Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition, which debuted in Korea and China last year. Fortunately, the Galaxy S25 Edge should come to other markets down the line rather than staying limited to only two." (SamMobile) This week saw details on not only the Pixel 10 family pricing, but the future plans for the Pixel family over the next few years. In terms of devices, Google looks to be settled on a main line of the Pixel and Pixel Pro smartphones (with Pro and Pro XL models) in Q3, and the mid-range Pixel A Series in Q1. As for the Pixel Fold, it looks to have found a stable home: "It is also likely that the Pixel Fold model will continue to be released alongside the other Pixel flagship devices, as was the case in 2024 with the Pixel 9 series. This means we can look forward to seeing four Pixel devices released at the same time, every August, for the next few years. With the Pixel a-series launching in the Spring, as has been the case since the start of the Pixel a-series back in 2019 with the Pixel 3a series." (Android Headlines) OnePlus has released the OnePlus Watch 3 in the UK. Of note is the '60 second check-in' feature. This triggers the various biometric sensors to poll your body and offer a snapshot of data, including heart rate, ECG, blood oxygen, mental wellness, and temperature. As Matt Evans points out in his review, this is the current Wear OS many believe sets the standard: "As a Wear OS watch experience, functionally it performs as smoothly and as well as any Wear OS watch I've yet used, including the Google Pixel Watch 3. It's an option most Android phone users should consider, and it's sure to make its way into our best Android watches list in future." (OnePlus via T3). To celebrate its seventh anniversary of producing gaming phones, the Redmagic team have announced several special offers built around the current Redmagic 10, with flat discounts, bundles, and bonus discounts for returning customers. As for the Redmagic 10 itself, it has the high specifications a gaming smartphone needs, but that comes at a price: "For those looking to be as competitive as possible when playing, a new RedMagic phone is guaranteed to provide top-of-the-line hardware. But that competitive price comes with a cost… the number of software and security updates Nubia will provide. For me, this is the weakest point of the RedMagic 10 Pro package—it comes with just one Android update (taking the handset to Android 16 but no further), two years of UI upgrades, and three years of security updates." (Redmagic via Forbes). Nothing Tech's next budget-focused smartphone has been announced. Under the CMF brand, the CMF Phone 2 Pro will go on sale in the UK on April 28 alongside a refreshed set of accessories, including the CMF Buds 2, CMF Buds 2a and CMF Buds 2 Plus. While we don't have full specs for Phone 2 Pro, there are some intriguing possibilities: "Last year, the company released the CMF Phone 1, which sold for $199 and was a cool piece of affordable tech. Exactly what the meaning of Pro is in the name isn't clear — though I'd imagine it involves multiple cameras. Last year's model had two, so the Pro addition may indicate a third, as it did on the recent Nothing Phone (3a) Pro." (Forbes). Ahead of the OnePlus 13T launch in China, a significant design change has been announced on social media. While it has been attempted before (and reversed on subsequent handsets), OnePlus is once more looking to remove the iconic three-way Alert Slider: "Recently, we learned it will be a small phone with a 6,000+ mAh battery. And now, OnePlus has confirmed it will replace the signature 'Alert Slider' with an all-new button called Quick Key on this phone. A company executive revealed this new button on the Chinese website Weibo." (91mobiles). Mediatek has launched a mid-cycle upgrade to its flagship chipset. The Dimensity 9400+ bumps up the CPU speed and improves on the AI performance of the base model. Expect to see Vivo, Oppo and Realme phones use the new silicon, challenging Qualcomm and Samsung in the system-on-chip field. "The Dimensity 9400+ clocks its prime Cortex-X925 at 3.73 GHz vs 3.62 GHz on the regular Dimensity 9400. A Geekbench leak from earlier confirms its four Cortex-A720 cores get a boost to 2.4 GHz (vs 2.0 GHz). Otherwise, both chips are largely identical to each other on the CPU front." (Notebookcheck). Android Circuit rounds up the news from the Android world every weekend here on Forbes. Don't forget to follow me so you don't miss any coverage in the future, and of course, read the sister column in Apple Loop! Last week's Android Circuit can be found here, and if you have any news and links you'd like to see featured in Android Circuit, get in touch!
