The first gaming phones powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 are here, and these are from Red Magic. The Red Magic 8 Pro and Red Magic 8 Pro+ are now official in the Chinese market, and this time, the brand went for a complete design overhaul as these new phones do not look anything like the previous Red Magic phones. Interestingly, the starting price of these phones remains the same as the Red Magic 7S series. This means the Red Magic 8 Pro starts at ¥3999 and the 8 Pro+ at ¥5199.
The two phones are not significantly different in terms of specifications and design. In terms of design, it is hard to differentiate the two. Both phones feature a boxy design with flat sides, a flat display, and a selfie camera placed under the display. Both the phones come in two looks – Black & Transparent. The transparent variant lets you see the cooling fan with RGB lights.
On the right side, there are shoulder buttons and one of the two vents for the airflow. The other vent is on the left side. The company did not skip on the necessary ports, so you get a 3.5mm headphone jack on both phones. The USB Type-C port is a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port.
Both phones have dual speakers and dual x-axis linear motors.
There is a 6.8-inch display, and it is a 120Hz OLED panel with a Full-HD+ resolution. It is a 10-bit panel with 1300 nit peak brightness. The side bezels are 1.48mm, the top bezel is 1.68mm, and the bottom bezel is 2.28mm. Overall, the screen-to-body ratio is 93.7% which is one of the highest on any smartphone and probably the highest on a gaming phone.
Under the hood, there is Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset paired with LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage. For better thermals, there is the ICE 11.0 cooling system which includes various layers such as a Vapor Chamber, Graphene, copper foil, cooling fan, etc. Overall, this cooling system reduces the temperature by 16 degrees.
The Red Magic 8 Pro gets up to 12GB RAM & 256GB storage, whereas the Red Magic 8 Pro+ gets up to 16GB RAM and 1TB storage.
The company also used its R2 chip in both of these phones, which enhances the gaming experience.
The most significant difference between the two phones is in battery size and charging speed. Red Magic 8 Pro has a 6,000mAh battery and supports 80W fast charging. On the other hand, Red Magic 8 Pro+ has a 5,000mAh battery and supports 165W fast charging. So, while the battery is smaller, the Pro+ variant gets more than double the charging speed.
The cameras are the same on both phones. There is a triple-camera setup that includes a 50MP primary Samsung GN5 sensor, an 8MP ultrawide, and a 2MP macro camera. For selfies, there is a 16MP under-display camera.
Both phones have the RedMagic OS 6.0 and a 7th-generation under-display fingerprint scanner with heart rate detection.
Here is the price of the Red Magic 8 Pro in the Chinese market –
- 8GB + 128GB – ¥3999 (~$574)
- 8GB + 256GB – ¥4399 (~$632)
- 12GB + 256GB – ¥4799 (~$689)
Here is the price of the Red Magic 8 Pro+ in the Chinese market –
- 12GB + 256GB (Black) – ¥5199 (~$747)
- 12GB + 256GB (Transparent) – ¥5399 (~$775)
- 16GB + 512GB (Black) – ¥5799 (~$833)
- 16GB + 512GB (Transparent) – ¥5999 (~$862)