nubia Red Magic 8S Pro review

Introduction and specs

With Qualcomm making its overclocked version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC available, OEMs are updating their top-tier smartphone lineups with the latest and greatest. Nubia is also sticking to its usual schedule and has recently introduced the Red Magic 8S Pro lineup - successors to the Red Magic 8 Pro series from earlier this year.

As one would expect, the most notable upgrade is the SoC itself. Now, the Red Magic 8S Pro and 8S Pro+ run on the SM8550-AC Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 silicon, which in turn is an overclocked version of the original SM8550-AB Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. The SM8550-AC, in particular, was previously exclusive to Samsung Galaxy devices and was known as "Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy".

The upgrade promises 5% CPU and 5.7% GPU performance gains over the last generation, while the 8S Pro series upgraded its ICE cooling system to version 12 to keep up with the sustained load demands.

ZTE nubia Red Magic 8S Pro specs at a glance:

Body: 164.0x76.4x9.5mm, 228g; Glass front (Gorilla Glass 5), glass back, aluminum frame; Pressure sensitive zones (520Hz touch-sensing), Built-in cooling fan, Aviation aluminum middle frame.
Display: 6.80" AMOLED, 1B colors (China only), 120Hz, 1300 nits (peak), 1116x2480px resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio, 400ppi.
Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (4 nm): Octa-core (1x3.36 GHz Cortex-X3 & 2x2.8 GHz Cortex-A715 & 2x2.8 GHz Cortex-A710 & 3x2.0 GHz Cortex-A510); Adreno 740 (719 MHz).
Memory: 128GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 16GB RAM; UFS 4.0.
OS/Software: Android 13, Redmagic OS 8.
Rear camera: Wide (main): 50 MP, f/1.9, 25mm, 1/1.57", 1.0µm, PDAF; Ultra wide angle: 8 MP, f/2.2, 120˚, 13mm, 1/4.0", 1.12µm; Macro: 2 MP, f/2.4.
Front camera: 16 MP, f/2.0, (wide), 1.12µm, under display.
Video capture: Rear camera: 8K@30fps, 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/120/240fps; Front camera: 1080p@30/60fps.
Battery: 6000mAh; 80W wired, PD3.0, 100% in 35 min (China), 65W wired, PD3.0, 100% in 40 min (International).
Connectivity: 5G; Dual SIM; Wi-Fi 7; BT 5.3; NFC; 3.5mm jack.
Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, optical); stereo speakers.

Other improvements to the Red Magic 8S Pro reside in the design as now the RGB lighting isn't exclusive to the premium option only. We have the 8S Pro for review, which boasts a bigger 6,000 mAh battery than its more expensive sibling but settles for slower 65W charging as opposed to 165W charging on the 8S Pro+.

Everything else is pretty familiar, except for the memory options - the 8S Pro gets an extra 12GB/512GB configuration, while the 8S Pro+ now offers 16GB/256GB by default and caps at 24GB/1TB.

Despite the small changes in the formula, the Red Magic 8S Pro deserves a review of its own, and we dive deep into the improved performance, cooling, and the updated Redmagic OS 8 to see what new features it has to offer.

Unboxing the nubia Red Magic 8S Pro

The handset comes in a standard box containing the usual user manuals along with a USB-A to USB-C cable for charging and data transfer and a 65W wall charger.

Nubia provides a protective case as a bonus. It's transparent, so it doesn't take away from the nice design.

Design and ergonomics

The new nubia Red Magic 8S Pro borrows the 8 Pro's design with just a couple of changes. For instance, the LED-illuminated cooling fan is no longer limited to the more expensive Plus version, so the standard 8S Pro also has RGB lighting. The material finishes, and color schemes are different, too. The new 8S Pro has a Midnight Black, Platinum and Aurora colorways, with the latter being a semi-transparent back cover.

Anyway, we have the Platinum version, which looks awesome. It has that industrial vibe to it, and it's basically a huge, brushed slab of metal. The ergonomics remain unchanged - flat side frame, sharp corners and edges, and flat front and back. The Platinum version doesn't seem to be fingerprint friendly, and it remains clean to the naked eye.

While it's nice to look at, it's not the easiest phone to handle. It's a big device with a huge 6.8-inch display, sharp edges and a relatively slippery metal chassis. Then again, it makes sense when holding it horizontally during gameplay. It feels secure and comfortable to hold during gaming.

Speaking of, the right side accommodates two pressure-sensitive shoulder triggers with 520Hz polling rate and 7.4ms response time. There's also the physical switch for entering the gaming mode, which nubia calls Game Space. More on that later.

The right side is also home to the exhaust vent for the cooling fan and the power button. On the left, we have the air intake and the volume rocker. The bottom houses the USB-C connector, and the main speaker grille, whereas the top has the other speaker grille and the 3.5mm audio jack.

nubia Red Magic 8S Pro

Around the front, the Red Magic 8S Pro impresses with an uninterrupted full-screen display and razor-thin bezels all-around. All bezels look symmetrical, while the under-display selfie camera can't be noticed at all.

nubia Red Magic 8S Pro

In terms of overall aesthetics, the Red Magic 8S Pro in Platinum is quite different from before. The styling is very neutral with the subtle RGB LED-illuminated piece next to the cooling fan giving it away.

Even the camera design is pretty simple - just three lenses sticking out from the back. So if you are not a fan of the usual gamer aesthetics, the Platinum colorway is probably your best bet.

6.9-inch OLED running at 120Hz

The Red Magic 8S Pro features the same display as its predecessor. It has an unorthodox 1116 x 2480px resolution and has almost all of the bells and whistles. We say almost because there are no official HDR certifications, but the 120Hz refresh rate is at hand. In theory, the display should support HDR10 content at the very least, and we found it to be true in the YouTube app, but no support HDR10+ or Dolby Vision content on Netflix and Amazon Prime, though.

The advertised 1,300 nits of peak brightness may very well be possible when displaying HDR content, but we weren't able to see the panel peak above 785 nits with 75% APL, while a manual slider adjustment got us up to 529 nits. Although this isn't industry-leading, the display offers a comfortable outdoor viewing experience even on a bright sunny day. It's also a huge improvement over the previous generations, which didn't offer a brightness boost.

In terms of color accuracy, the display isn't amazing right out of the box. The whites and grays are too blue-ish, but opting for the Soft color preset fixes them to some extent and even lowers the average dE2000 to just 2.2. That's a solid improvement.

High refresh rate handling

The device offers four modes in total - 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz and Auto. The first three serve as a cap to the refresh rate, while the latter leaves the system to decide the appropriate refresh rate given the current scenario. The adjustment is pretty straightforward, though. The system will always go for the maximum refresh rate, be it system or third-party apps and system menus. Leaving the phone alone for a couple of seconds will reduce the refresh rate to 60Hz to preserve power. Running full-screen videos does the same as you don't really need 120Hz to watch a 24, 30 or 60fps video.

When it comes to gaming, the phone detects games automatically and boosts the refresh rate to 120Hz. However, there are a few nuances that we will cover in the performance section of the review. But the key takeaway is that only a few games can saturate the full 120Hz refresh rate.

Battery life

Since the Red Magic 8 Pro and 8S Pro share the same hardware - almost identical chipsets, the same display and battery pack - it's no surprise we got similar, if not identical, battery results. The differences are mostly due to statistical error.

Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating denotes how long the battery charge will last you if you use the device for an hour of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. More details can be found here.

Either way, the battery endurance is excellent. Phones with a big OLED and flagship-grade SoC rarely reach over 110 hours of overall endurance score, let alone 130 hours. The big 6,000 mAh battery definitely helps, though.

Charging speed

We are once again surprised by how fast the 6,000 mAh battery charges with the provided 65W charger. A full charge took only 35 minutes, while a 15-minute cycle replenished 56% of the battery. The Red Magic 8S Pro seems to charge a couple of minutes faster than its predecessor, although statistical error could explain the difference. It's negligible, after all.

The battery menu hides a couple of interesting features, including Turbo Charging and, more importantly, "Charge separation". This one is pretty neat. It redirects the power from the charger directly to the hardware and bypasses the battery. This saves the battery in the long run if you often play games when charging. It reduces the heat on the battery and mitigates overcharging.

Battery features

Speakers

The Red Magic 8S Pro is equipped with two five-magnet stereo speakers. One at the bottom and one at the top that doubles as an earpiece. Sound comes out of the earpiece grille and the opening on the top side of the frame. DTS:X Ultra sound tuning is also at hand, just like on the Red Magic 8 Pro.

We got almost identical loudness of -24.3 LUFS, which is enough for a "Very Good" score. We are pretty sure nubia used the same speakers, as these sound identical. The highs and mids are a bit screechy at maximum volume, but turning the volume down a notch makes everything sound better and more balanced. The bass is pronounced and clear vocals.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.

Redmagic OS 8 based on Android 13

The Red Magic 8S Pro comes with an upgraded Redmagic OS version 8, compared to version 6 on the previous 8 Pro. However, the differences between the new and the old version of the system are small. We did find some missing features in the new version and changed iconography around the system menus. The software feels more polished.

The UI overhaul came with the Red Magic 8 Pro, so Redmagic OS is now more in line with stock Android and is simpler-looking, in a good way. There are still tons of features and customizations to go through and it's still heavily customized ROM, not your typical vanilla Android.

Home screen, notification shade, recent apps, settings menu

Pretty much every aspect of the UI is customizable and can be tuned to your liking. It has tons of customizable clock styles for the lock screen, themes, icon adjustments, etc.

Customization options

ZTE phones have always had special attention to their Always-on display functionality. You can even set looping, cool-looking GIFs and videos. Naturally, this would consume more power.

AoD options

The rather subtle LED lighting on the back can also be customized to your liking.

RGB lighting customizations

What you can do in terms of two-app multitasking is enable split-screen view. That is done from a special icon in the recent apps carousel. Interestingly, the floating window function is no longer available in this version of the software.

Split-screen

The fingerprint reader works as well as ever. It's fast, reliable and accurate. It also doubles as a heart rate monitor. It can be surprisingly accurate but is a bit inconsistent for our taste.

Game space and screen casting

The Game space in-game overlay has experienced a major redesign with Redmagic OS 6. It now consists of two large, symmetrical menus on each side of the display. Most of the functions are readily accessible with a single tap, which is greatly appreciated. You can monitor your CPU and GPU frequency as well as, crucially, in-game fps using an overlay. There are some quick access shortcuts for supported messenger apps as well for more convenient window-based chatting while in game.

Most of the interesting and powerful settings are located in their own sub-menu within the overlay. You can adjust CPU and GPU performance profiles, screen sensitivity and sampling rate, and enable a particular visual profile for the display to make certain game elements more easily visible.

In-game overlay

Game Shorthand is a brand new feature within Game Space; it is basically a library where you can store game screenshots and attach notes to them. You can then quickly view up to 50 of these at a time - great for things like point-and-click adventure games for remembering clues and puzzles.

Plugins are a relatively new addition to the Red Magic Game Space. Unfortunately, like many other parts of the UI, these suffer from poor and incomplete translations, and it is somewhat difficult to discern what each one does.

Game Space and game plugins

X Gravity is the system nubia uses for mapping external devices like a controller or keyboard and mouse to on-screen controls. This is something that the Red Magic 8S Pro lets you easily do out of the box, which might be considered a bit controversial for competitive play since it offers a major advantage.

Auxiliary line is a way to define on-screen circles that appear around your character and signify things like the area of effect of certain skills or attacks - particularly useful for MOBA games. Stopwatches give the player an array of on-screen stopwatches to quickly time things like a skill or spell cooldown on enemies.

The Crosshair feature is particularly useful for shooters. Not only does it draw a crosshair overlay on the screen, but it can also zoom into a particular area of the image.

Of course, there are the shoulder triggers - one of the best gaming features of the Red Magic 8S Pro by far. They provide a really nice experience for racing and first-person shooter games. The software lets you map certain controls to the triggers and adjust the pressure sensitivity to avoid mistouches.

Shoulder triggers

Circling back to X Gravity and the ability to map in-game, on-screen controls to physical accessories like a joystick or keyboard and mouse, it should be considered how major of a feature this is on the Red Magic 8 Pro. The phone itself offers several convenient ways to connect to peripherals. First off, there is USB alt mode. Using a supported dongle, you can easily get an HDMI or DP output out of the Red Magic 8 Pro and USB inputs back into the phone. This is a great way to connect it directly to a monitor or TV.

If that seems too cumbersome for you and you would rather just use a PC to play your mobile games, then there is Redmagic studio - a Windows app that lets you screencast over Wi-Fi or USB cable connected directly to the PC. It works at a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. The whole pairing process with the desktop app is seamless and extremely easy. You can set up different mapping profiles for all the games you play, and the keyboard/mouse input is pretty solid.

Gaming using the Red Magic Studio PC app

The streaming feature works in all menus of the phone and apps, not just games so it may come in handy for more than just gaming. The gestures and keyboard typing feel native. You can even use the phone itself as a trackpad for touch input or alternatively opt to have it entirely autonomously functional so you can cast one app to a TV or monitor while using your phone for something entirely different. The whole system is extremely flexible and works surprisingly well. Props to nubia.

Red Magic Studio

The handset can also be used as a touchpad or just use the app for screen casting.

Screen casting via Red Magic Studio

In terms of under-the-hood gaming-related features, the Red Magic 8 Pro has a dedicated secondary "gaming" chip called the Red Core 2. It is primarily meant to handle things like audio and haptic feedback processing and RGB lighting control so that these tasks can be offloaded from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 main chipset for better performance.

The Red Magic 8 Pro also includes something called a "cube performance optimizer" (CPO), which promises to smooth out in-game frame rates without increasing power consumption. We assume it is a sort of MEMC chip, though nubia isn't particularly descriptive when it comes to its nature.

The Red Magic 8 Pro also does something nubia calls quintuple buffering for generated game frames using a system called "MAGIC GPU". The idea here is that different systems like screen recording or casting might want to access GPU frames concurrently and, without sufficient buffering, might interfere with the frame count that actually ends up on display. This system prioritized display frames before anything else.

Syntehtic benchmarks

The handset runs on the SM8550-AC version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. This isn't an entirely new chipset as it was exclusive to Samsung's Galaxy S23 lineup and was named Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy. Even Qualcomm hasn't listed this as a Plus version of the silicon on its website. And it makes sense because it's not even a refresh. Just a higher clocked chip.

The only real advantage of the new SoC over the standard SD8 Gen 2 is the main core's clock speed. The Cotex-X3 core is now ticking at 3.36 GHz instead of 3.2 GHz, while the rest of the cluster cores remain unchanged - 2x2.8 GHz Cortex-A715 & 2x2.8 GHz Cortex-A710 & 3x2.0 GHz Cortex-A510. Another improvement is the GPU, as the Adreno 740 is now running at 719 MHz, up from 680 MHz.

The faster clock speeds should roughly translate to a 5% gain in CPU performance and 5.7% in GPU performance.

This time around, the chip is paired with 12G/256GB of memory for the Midnight color, 16GB/512GB for the Platinum and Aurora versions. UFS 4.0 storage is used for all configurations while RAM is of the LPDDR5X variety.

Without further ado, let's take a look at the benchmarks.

As you can see, the Red Magic 8S Pro fully utilizes the new Snapdragon 8+ Gen 2 SoC and, in most cases, outperforms similarly-priced flagships. The handset even outpaces the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, which sports the exact same chipset.

Keep in mind that the 8S Pro is capped at 60fps on almost all onscreen GPU-intensive benchmarks, so we suggest looking into the offscreen tests for more reliable comparison across models.

Cooling system and sustained performance

Even though this isn't a generational upgrade, nubia says the cooling system is improved over the Red Magic 8 Pro. It's now called ICE 12 cooling system as it adds an additional graphene layer positioned under the display for improved heat dissipation. This sheet is said to improve the cooling of the battery during charging too.

In addition to the graphene layer, the system incorporates 11 other layers that include a big vapor chamber, composite graphene sheet, aluminum frame in the middle, copper foil, etc. Thе cooling surface area is 2,068mm2 and is aided by the well-known cooling fan with shark fins design. It can go up to 20,000 RPM, and as we've established in previous reviews, it's not just a gimmick. It helps improve sustained performance quite a bit.

The cooling fan's effect is demonstrated. But before we get into that, take a look at how the device performs during long workloads without the fan. It's able to keep steady clock speeds at 100% CPU load for an hour. The system retains 77% of the CPU's theoretical performance, which is an excellent result considering the demanding Snapdragon 8+ Gen 2.

CPU throttle test w/o cooling fan: 30 min • 60 min

Swiching on the cooling fan makes the graph even smoother, and the system utilizes 88% of the CPU's capabilities in the same time frame. Exceptional result.

CPU throttle test with cooling fan: 30 min • 60 min

In both cases, however, the phone felt pretty warm, which is to be expected given the all-metal chassis.

All in all, it looks like nubia has indeed improved the cooling system of the 8S Pro, compared to the 8 Pro from earlier this year.

High refresh rate gaming performance

Historically, HRR gaming on Android is a hit or miss. Mostly a "miss". So it's no surprise that most games we've tried are capped at 60fps and can't utilize the full potential of the 120Hz display. We used Android's built-in screen refresh rate counter and Game Space's FPS counter to see which games actually reach more than 60fps.

While the phone forced some titles at 120Hz, most were stuck at 60fps, including PUBG Mobile, Genshin Impact, Mobile Legends, Asphalt 9, etc.

Some games were compliant, though. Call of Duty got up to 90fps while Air Force 1945, Sky Force: Reloaded and Real Racing 3 saturated the 120Hz display.

A familiar triple-camera setup with 50MP main shooter

The Red Magic 8S Pro sports a fairly new main camera sensor - it's the same one from the previous 8 Pro, but it's a huge upgrade over the last couple of Red Magic generations before that. The handset now uses a Samsung GN5 50MP ISOCELL sensor. It's 1/1.57" in size with 1.0µm pixels, and it's paired with an f/1.9 lens.

The secondary camera remains the same as before - 8MP, f/2.2, 1/4.0", 1.12µm with 120-degree FoV (13mm) ultrawide shooter. Last and least of all, there is a 2MP fixed-focus GalaxyCore GC02M1 macro camera on the back of the Red Magic 8S Pro.

The Red Magic 8 Pro has an under-display selfie camera. Nubia says it is a second-generation unit developed with BOE (the display manufacturer) to improve the camera's peak brightness and color accuracy. We can confirm that they've done a great job at concealing the camera. There's no way to notice it in day-to-day usage.

Regarding hardware, the selfie camera is the same 16MP OV16E1Q as found on the Red Magic 7 Pro and some other devices like the ZTE Axon 30 and Axon 40 Ultra. It is a 1/2.8" sensor with 1.12µm pixels and fixed focus.

Camera menus

The camera menu is business as usual. Camera modes switch with a simple swipe left and right in a carousel formation. The additional settings menu is placed in the upper-right corner of the viewfinder, and the dedicated Pro mode offers quite a few settings to tinker with.

Camera app

When shooting macro, you get a small magnifier, which you can move around the viewfinder, but more importantly - it has focus peaking. It allows you to hit the right focusing distance instead of guessing. We found this feature to be particularly useful since there's no autofocus support. We only wish that the macro camera gets a toggle of its own.

Interestingly, the Pro mode works not only with the main camera but also with the ultrawide, but not the macro cam or the selfie.

Daylight photos

Main camera

The main camera seems competent enough to produce nice stills with punchy colors, plenty of detail and good sharpness.

Daylight main camera samples

Interestingly enough, there's no 2x zoom toggle, so nubia probably doesn't want you to zoom crop from the main camera. You can still zoom in and out with pinch-to-zoom gestures. Here are some brief examples of the 2x zoom capabilities.

Daylight main camera samples

Ultrawide camera

As one would expect, the ultrawide photos are largely unimpressive. The tiny sensor can barely capture decent enough photos, and only if the lighting conditions are ideal. Either way, we are met with pretty soft-looking images with not enough detail and with limited dynamic range. Colors are quite dull, too, not even close to the main camera's processing.

Daylight ultrawide camera samples

Macro camera

The macro shots are okay to some extent. The tiny 2MP sensor struggles to deliver a good level of detail, and colors are washed out, but the sharpness is decent.

Macro camera samples

Low-light photos

Main camera

The nighttime photos are also pretty decent with good contrast, noticeable fine detail, good sharpness and punchy colors. Once again, though, we found the dynamic range to be limited as highlights are sometimes clipped, but the overly dark shadows are hard to miss.

Low-light main camera samples

The Night mode can be triggered automatically, although we didn't see that happening very often. You can always force it for better nighttime stills. Dynamic range is largely improved by lighting up the shadows and fixing the highlights. Unfortunately, the Night mode goes overboard with the sharpening and contrast, making everything look gritty and overprocessed. Overall, images look fine, but some may find them a bit too much.

Night mode main camera samples

UIltrawide camera

There's no Night mode on the ultrawide camera and the standard Photo mode just doesn't cut it. Images are extremely soft, dark and without any detail. It's hard to recommend shooting with the ultrawide at night.

Low-light ultrawide camera

Portraits

The portraits in good lighting are pretty solid. They have plenty of detail, they are sharp enough, and the colors are more or less accurate. The faux bokeh effect is convincing, and the edge detection is really good, even with more complex backgrounds.

Portrait samples

Here's how the primary camera on the nubia Red Magic 8S Pro stacks against the rest of the competition in the controlled environment of our Photo Compare Tool.

nubia Red Magic 8S Pro against the Asus ROG Phone 6D and the iQOO 11 in our Photo compare tool

Selfies

The selfie camera, being behind the display, produces sub-optimal images. Although far from unusable, there are glaring issues with the stills. The colors are off and softness is present all-around with an unsatisfactory level of detail. It appears that nubia was trying to tackle the issue by adding sharpness, but that's just not enough.

Selfies

Still, on a gaming-first phone like the Red Magic 8S Pro, we understand that an uninterrupted edge-to-edge display experience naturally precedes a great selfie camera.

Video recording

Just like its predecessors, the handset supports up to 8K@30fps video recording, while 4K videos can go up to 60fps. You have the option to turn off stabilization if you are shooting with a tripod and you'd need the extra field of view.

Starting with the 8K footage, it is pretty solid with little to complain about. It seems raw, though, as nubia hasn't applied any additional processing to the video.

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The 2160p video, for example, looks slightly sharper (albeit with less detail due to the lower resolution) and with more color to it. Once again, we would have wished for a wider dynamic range, and contrast seems just slightly off.

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Here are two videos with EIS and without to see the difference. We find the EIS competent as it smooths out the bumps quite nicely.

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Once you are done with the real-life scenarios, take a look at our video compare tool to see how the nubia Red Magic 8S Pro stacks against the other phones we've reviewed.

nubia Red Magic 8S Pro against the Asus ROG Phone 6D and the iQOO 11 in our Video compare tool

Competition

Although we are many generations into the niche Android gaming smartphone market, it hasn't matured yet, so the choice is somewhat limited. Sure, you can go for regular flagship phones running the powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, but the thing is, the Red Magic 8S Pro is pretty competitive in terms of pricing as well. You can even argue it's just an affordable flagship. Especially with the sleek new design, which could potentially appeal to non-gamers.

However, neither the camera nor the software experience is flagship-worthy. So if you've exhausted options like the Samsung Galaxy S23 lineup, the OnePlus 11, Xiaomi's 13 series, or even the iQOO 11 and you are dead set on getting a gaming-ready smartphone, then maybe the Asus ROG Phone 6 series will tickle your fancy. That's at least the first real competitor to the Red Magic 8S Pro we can think of.

vivo iQOO 11 • Asus ROG Phone 6D Ultimate • Xiaomi Black Shark 5 Pro

The vanilla Asus ROG Phone 6 is a nice start but if you want to get closer to the 8S Pro's price tag, then considering the ROG Phone 6D or the 6D Ultimate is a good idea. It runs on a very potent Dimensity 9000+ SoC and Asus' gaming lineup is known for its wide support for HRR gaming and big ecosystem of gaming accessories.

If you can get a hold of one of the few remaining Xiaomi Black Shark 5 Pro phones on the market, you may also want to consider this one. It has physical pop-up shoulder triggers, powerful hardware, although last year's, and all the bells and whistles you'd expect from a gaming phone.

Verdict

Nubia has plenty of experience with gaming phones at this point and it shows. The OEM knows how to put together a great gaming phone without much fluff. Despite its flaws like not-so-amazing camera experience, awkwardly translated UI and the lack of HDR support, the new 8S Pro is a solid gaming solution.

We still like the design carried over from the 8 Pro and even managed to improve upon cooling. The 8S Pro has by far one of the best, if not the best, cooling solution we've tested. Continuous and strenuous workloads are a non-issue for the 8S Pro, so long gaming sessions shouldn't be a problem too. Display is great and battery life is impressive, to say the least, especially considering that the cell has to power up the overclocked Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. And, of course, the gaming-centric features are, as always nice and thoughtful for the better part.

Pros

Unique flat, all-metal design.
Large and fast 120Hz OLED panel, the UD selfie camera is inconspicuous.
Unrivaled battery life, fast charging.
Plenty of gaming-oriented features, including pressure-sensitive shoulder triggers.
Flexible and well-executed external display and peripherals gaming experience.
One of the best internal cooling solutions around; the fan helps a lot.
Nice sounding stereo speakers.
Notably improved image quality on the main camera compared to past models.

Cons

The internal fan can be quite noisy.
Ultrawide camera quality is not very good, while the selfie camera quality is downright bad.
The software is still plagued by awkward English translations from Chinese.

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