Redmagic 12 Pro review: You’ve never gamed on a phone like this before

The Redmagic 12 Pro impresses with a Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 processor, liquid cooling, a fan, plus a massive 8,400mAh battery to keep the games going for hours and hours. As I sat in my living room with my family, playing Monster Hunter Outlanders together on the Redmagic 12 Pro, I completely forgot I was playing on a phone. The game looked perfect. It ran at a locked 60FPS and hadn’t dropped frames since I began playing over an hour ago. It just felt like I was back in college, playing Monster Hunter Freedom on my PSP with my friends in the same room. Most other phones at this point would have throttled hard. What began at 60FPS almost certainly would have been 40FPS tops after 30 minutes or so; the frame drops during heavy fights would have been even worse, but the Redmagic 12 Pro didn’t skip a beat. Even after a solid hour of playing, the battery had only dropped 10%, completely erasing all concerns about using my phone as a gaming console. Preorder the Redmagic 12 Pro before Nov 17 and get freebies This thing is the real deal, and while I’ve used plenty of high-performance phones and gaming phones over the years, none have quite nailed it as this one has. Now, with my Redmagic 12 Pro and my trusty GameSir G8 Galileo, I can game whenever and wherever I want without battery anxiety or thermal problems. Redmagic has gotten really good at this gaming thing. Sustained gaming performance is difficult to pull off on a phone, which is why the Redmagic 12 Pro features two types of active cooling: a fan and liquid cooling. This design builds on last year’s with a larger liquid cooling system and a more efficient fan. The intake and exhaust vents are on the sides of the phone, not the back, ensuring these shouldn’t get easily blocked. Despite this, the phone is IP68 and IP69 rated. Most modern phones have huge camera islands that make them awkward to use in controllers, but the Redmagic 12 Pro features a completely flat build that fits perfectly in *any* controller. I don’t usually like overly flat builds, but it actually suits this phone’s purpose. Redmagic 12 Pro specsDetailsProcessorQualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6Display6.85-inch 185Hz BOE X1 OLED, 2688 x 1216 resolution, 1,900/5,000-nit peak brightness, DC dimming/2160Hz PWM dimmingRAM & Storage12GB/256GB, 16GB/512GB, 16GB/1TBBattery & Charging8,400mAh, 80W wired and wireless, 22.5W reverse wirelessFront Camera16MP 9th-gen under display cameraRear Cameras50MP main, 50MP ultrawideOSRedmagic OS 12 based on Android 17. 2 years OS updates, 3 years security updatesConnectivityDual-band 5G, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0, USB-C 3.2 Gen 2Size and Weight163.03mm x 75.96mm x 8.55mm, 223gProtectionIP68, IP69, Gorilla Glass 7i front and back glassSpecial featuresAquaCore Cooling System 3.0, Dual-Loop Liquid Cooling, RGB lightsColorwaysNightfreeze, Subzero, Skyfrost (launching later this year) This should mean the phone does exceedingly well in benchmarks, but I have the distinct feeling the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 processor inside is making that overly difficult. I don’t have any other SD8 Elite Gen 6 phones just yet, but rumor has it that this is one *hot* chipset. I saw the phone hit 50C during testing, so that definitely seems to be the case. In 3DMark Solar Bay Extreme, a benchmark that stresses ray-tracing performance over 20 minutes, the Redmagic 12 Pro started at 2065 points and ended at 1169 on its last run. That’s a 43% drop in performance over a 20-minute period, which is in line with passively-cooled phones like the Galaxy S26 Ultra. Regardless, the initial performance is nearly double the S26 Ultra, while the 1169 end score matches the S26 Ultra’s best score and is roughly 35% higher than the S26 Ultra’s sustained performance score of around 860. Actual gaming seemed to fare better in my testing, where I saw sustained performance consistently outperform any Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 phone I have in my possession. When running Wanderstop through the phone’s built-in Steam emulation (more on that soon), the Redmagic 12 Pro averaged 72FPS at the highest settings. Other phones with SD8 Elite Gen 5 processors scored half that, at best. Native Android games like Monster Hunter Outlanders worked even better. But it’s not just performance that sets this phone apart; it’s the gaming features. Redmagic has fully leaned into the mobile gaming power user angle with its software. Pressing and holding the red button on the right side of the phone launches Gravity X, the built-in game launcher that keeps all your games in one place. It even features an embedded Steam emulator, so all you need to do is sign in with your Steam account and download anything in your library. Overall performance on Steam games is impressive, but like any emulation, not everything is going to work. Hogwarts Legacy worked near-flawlessly at medium settings, but titles like Star Wars Galactic Racer wouldn’t run at all. Other apps that run Steam games, like DroidDeck and Game Native, also work, but the Adreno 850 GPU doesn’t have official support on those apps yet, so compatibility is very hit or miss (mostly miss) for now. The Redmagic 12 Pro’s in-game menu is also unlike anything you’ve ever seen. It’s not just jam-packed with information, but has a boatload of bespoke features. One custom mapping tool lets you map the triggers (yes, this phone has capacitive triggers on the side) to any on-screen virtual key. Another utility records all the time, Xbox/PS5/Switch style, and saves a clip at the touch of a floating button. Yet another features on on-screen AI anime character that can interact with your games and even give you gameplay feedback. You can even enable frame gen and Super Resolution in any game. It’s wild. All this is wrapped up in an incredibly impressive hardware package, with loud, clear speakers, an excellent 185Hz AMOLED display (that uses DC dimming and 2160Hz PWM for eye comfort), with 5,000-nit peak brightness. I measured the actual HDR brightness at 2300-nits, so this can get nice and bright when it needs to. If there was ever a phone that could play games and still get you through a full day’s normal phone usage, it’s this one. Passthrough charging is also supported, too, so you can keep the battery from getting overcharged or overheated while gaming for hours. Redmagic 12 Pro camera samples: As is the case with many laser-focused devices like this, the camera is the low point of the experience. It’s got a 50MP rear camera and a 50MP ultra wide. Both get the job done, but they’ll never impress you. The 16MP 9th-generation under display camera looks impressive on the surface — you can’t see it at all, even with light shining off the display — but the results are still far from good. Redmagic uses an AI algorithm to substantially enhance the overall quality, which cleans up the image nicely but exhibits lots of hallucinations. Just look at my eyes in the above picture. It’s not good. Thankfully, the Android 17-based Redmagic OS 12 software is quite good. Visually, it reminds me of a mix of AOSP and Samsung’s One UI. Lots of expected features are here — an AI wallpaper generator, call screening, recording with transcripts, writing help, etc — plus all the awesome gaming-focused tools and quite a bit of customization across the OS. It’s a great overall experience, but Redmagic only offers software updates for 3 years, so this one won’t stay around as long as some other phones. If you’re more interested in mobile gaming than anything — especially if you want a phone that can easily run Steam games in addition to mobile stuff — this is an impressively good choice. Redmagic 12 Pro 12GB/256GB — $949 USD/$1,299 CAD/€899/£799 (Nightfreeze colorway only) Redmagic 12 Pro 16GB/512GB — $1,049 USD/$1,449 CAD/€999/£889 (Nightfreeze an Subzero colorways) Redmagic 12 Pro 16GB/1TB — $1,199 USD/$1,749 CAD/€1,199/£1,059 (Nightfreeze an Subzero colorways) If gaming is your thing, it doesn’t get any better than the Redmagic 12 Pro. A next-gen processor is cooled by liquid cooling and a fan, and the OS gaming features are unrivaled. Battery life and charging speeds are superior to Samsung and Google, but the phone will only receive 3 years of software updates. The build is perfect for controllers, but a lack of a camera island means mid-level camera hardware. Pros Excellent battery life and very fast charging Amazing software gaming features Top notch sustained gaming performance Gorgeous 185Hz OLED display with DC and 2160Hz PWM dimming Built-in Steam game support and a gaming AI agent Cons Cameras are mediocre Completely flat design can slide off the table easily Only gets 2 OS upgrades and 3 years of security updates FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.