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Introduction
Click here for our full and extensive review of the vanilla Red Magic 6, which the Red magic 6S Pro is based on.
For a gaming device like the ZTE Nubia Red Magic 6, keeping up with the latest silicon releases comes with the territory. Gaming phones have to offer buyers the latest and greatest hardware since if they don't, the competition definitely will.
This is the same rat race that spawned the latest ROG Phone 5s pair into existence and the very same one that is behind nubia's decision to create the Red Magic 6S Pro, which we have for review today.
The Nubia Red Magic 6S Pro is essentially a Red Magic 6, with an upgraded Snapdragon 888+ chipset and souped-up display touch sampling. Just like the ROG Phone 5s is, to the vanilla ROG Phone 5. ZTE does also claim the new revision includes internal cooling improvements, which could actually turn out to be the most important part of the update, at least going by our impressions from the ROG Phone 5s Pro.
The thing is that the Snapdragon 888 already got a bad rep for running quite hot and siphoning plenty of power. The Snapdragon 888+ takes all of that and, among other things, bumps up the maximum frequency of the Prime Kryo 680 CPU core from 2.84 GHz up to 2.95 GHz. With that, inevitably, introducing more heat and more battery drain. Not exactly ideal in your typical smartphone - essentially a thermally-isolated and closed system, with a fixed power and heat envelope, as well as limited battery capacity.
That being said, the Nubia Red Magic 6S Pro is not exactly your typical smartphone. An active, built-in cooling fan has been a staple of the Red Magic line for some time now, and it is also present here. The built-in fan means the Red Magic 6S Pro has active cooling, and it is not a closed, passively-cooled system. So we might see the heat part of this equation having less weight here.
That's arguably the most important task the Red Magic 6S Pro has to pull off - keep the Snapdragon 888+ well-cooled, with as little thermal-throttling as possible. The Snapdragon 888+ is mostly a "flex" on paper rather than a source of actual, better in-game performance over the Snapdragon 888 but it does run hotter. This is evident from specs alone but also became really clear after we tested the ROG Phone 5s Pro after its upgrade to the same Snapdragon 888+ chip.
In that sense, the Red Magic 6S Pro has its work cut out for it - tame the Snapdragon 888+ and its heat output to the best of its abilities and for extra points, do it better than the ROG Phone 5s Pro.
We have our work cut out for us as well - since the Red Magic 6S Pro is essentially the same as the Red Magic 6 in terms of design, exterior, as well as most of its other specs, aside from the chipset, we need to focus on performance - burst and sustained, thermal-throttling behavior and battery endurance on the new model. Since there are some upgrades to the 6.8-inch display, we also need to test its performance.
For every other aspect of the Red Magic 6S Pro, head over to our full and extensive review of the vanilla Red Magic 6.
What's different on the Red Magic 6S Pro and hardware overview
The current Red Magic 6 lineup is a bit confusing. There is the vanilla Red Magic 6, as well as a Red Magic 6 Pro. The obvious difference between the duo is the memory configurations: 128GB/12GB and 256GB/12GB are available for both models, while vanilla also has a 128GB/8GB tier, and the Pro has two higher ones - 256GB/16GB and 512GB/18GB.
The real kicker, however, is with the Chinese version of the Pro, which has a smaller 4,500 mAh battery, compared to the 5,050 mAh on every other model and also advertises 120W charging, compared to the 66W max on all other Red Magic 6 models. That's a pretty weird difference already, and things get weirder still, since some models seem to be offered as Tencent exclusives, which often have extra Tencent logos and sometimes have different LED lighting setups.
Left: Red Magic 6S Pro; Right: Red Magic 6
Enter the Red Magic 6S Pro, which we currently have for review at the office. Nubia wasn't particularly clear about its new lineup and different variants that might be available, as well as potential differences between global and Chinese models. In any case, all of the new models will be rocking the new Snapdragon 888+ chipset. That much is certain.
The unit we have is designated as a "Pro", yet it does not have RGB lighting on the back panel, just the red logo on the bottom. It has 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage, which makes it the lowest available tier. That explains the lack of RGB lights.
Turns out that the Red Magic 6S Pro is available in a standard Black color, which we have, in either the 12GB/128GB tier or a 16GB/256GB one.
Then there is also a transparent variant, which, besides a color change, also has RGB lights on its internal fan and is only available in the higher 16GB/256GB tier. It also has a new touch control area on the back panel, above the red logo, which is referred to as M key.
Beyond this, all Red Magic 6S models are a bit lighter at 215 grams, compared to their vanilla siblings at 220 grams and do technically have a slightly different sized body, measuring 169.9 x 77.19 x 9.5 mm - a minor change, not even enough to break compatibility with existing cases, but still a noteworthy one.
Left: Red Magic 6S Pro; Right: Red Magic 6
Despite the different proportions and weight, the Red Magic 6S Pro unit we got still has a 5,050 mAh battery, capable of charging at up to 66W. However, the provided charger in the box caps out at 30W, just like on the vanilla Red Magic 6.
ZTE nubia Red Magic 6S Pro specs at a glance:
- Body: 169x77.19x9.5mm, 215g; Glass front, glass back, aluminum frame; Pressure sensitive zones (450Hz touch-sensing), Built-in cooling fan (with RGB lights on transparent edition); Colors: Black, Transparent.
- Display: 6.80" AMOLED, 1B colors, 165Hz, 630 nits (typ), 1080x2400px resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio, 387ppi; 720Hz multi-touch sampling rate.
- Chipset: Qualcomm SM8350-AC Snapdragon 888+ 5G (5 nm): Octa-core (1x2.95 GHz Kryo 680 & 3x2.42 GHz Kryo 680 & 4x1.80 GHz Kryo 680); Adreno 660.
- Memory: 128GB 12GB RAM, 256GB 16GB RAM; UFS 3.1.
- OS/Software: Android 11, Red Magic 4.5.
- Rear camera: Wide (main): 64 MP, f/1.8, 26mm, 1/1.72", 0.8µm, PDAF; Ultra wide angle: 8 MP, f/2.0, 120-degree, 13mm, 1/4.0", 1.12µm; Macro: 2 MP.
- Front camera: 8 MP, f/2.0, (wide), 1/4.0", 1.12µm.
- Video capture: Rear camera: 8K@30fps, 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/120/240fps; Front camera: 1080p@30fps.
- Battery: 5050mAh; Fast charging 66W - International model, Power Delivery 3.0, Quick Charge 4.
- Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, optical, Gen. 7); NFC; 3.5mm jack; Stereo speakers.
All of the new Red Magic 6S models also get an upgraded, speedier 720 MHz multi-finger touch sampling rate on their 6.8-inch, 165Hz, FHD+ AMOLED display. The change seems to be to the actual touch controller rather than the display panel itself, which could be the same.
Speaking of latency improvements, Nubia claims that its two Cypress shoulder triggers now sample at 450Hz, instead of the previous 400Hz, thanks to dual, independent controllers. Again, this should apply to all Red Magic 6S models.
All new models should also be getting an upgraded 7th generation under-display fingerprint reader. It claims to monitor for a pulse, on top of verifying the print itself, which should make it more secure as it can't be fooled easily with a fake fingerprint. We didn't notice any reduction in its performance due to this. It is still snappy and very accurate.
Last, but not least, Nubia is boasting a redesigned internal cooling solution, meant to handle the extra heat from the Snapdragon 888+. Rumors hinted at a graphene sheet of some sort, and there is at least one layer of that material present in the phone. However, it doesn't seem to be the new addition to the cooling setup. That would be mysterious "aerospace-grade phase change materials", which apparently can store a lot of heat and release it gradually to improve surface temperature and hand comfort.
Honestly, the advertising message here confuses us a bit, since Nubia seemingly can't decide if the improvements were made to keep the internals cooled better or for the sake of user comfort. The press materials we have also don't make it abundantly clear if all versions of the Red Magic 6S get this new special extra material or not. Here is a table that should sum up the changes going from the Red Magic 6 to the 6S, as best we can work them out.
| nubia Red Magic 6 | nubia Red Magic 6 Pro | nubia Red Magic 6S Pro | nubia Red Magic 6S Pro Transparent edition |
| 169.9 x 77.2 x 9.7 mm - 220 grams | 169.9 x 77.2 x 9.7 mm - 220 grams | 169.9 x 77.19 x 9.5 mm - 215 grams | 169.9 x 77.19 x 9.5 mm - 215 grams |
| Display touch sampling: 500Hz - single touch, 360Hz multi-touch | Display touch sampling: 500Hz - single touch, 360Hz multi-touch | Display touch sampling: 720Hz multi-touch | Display touch sampling: 720Hz multi-touch |
| Shoulder trigger sampling: 400Hz | Shoulder trigger sampling: 400Hz | Shoulder trigger sampling: 450Hz (dual ic) | Shoulder trigger sampling: 450Hz (dual ic) |
| VC cooling + Graphite + Thermal Gel + Copper Foil + Cooling Aluminum + Cooling Air Duct | VC cooling + Graphite + Thermal Gel + Copper Foil + Cooling Aluminum + Cooling Air Duct | VC cooling + Graphite + Thermal Gel + Copper Foil + Cooling Aluminum + Cooling Air Duct + Phase change material | VC cooling + Graphite + Thermal Gel + Copper Foil + Cooling Aluminum + Cooling Air Duct + Phase change material |
| Logo light + RGB side light | Logo light + RGB side light | Logo light | Logo light + internal fan RGB lights |
| 6th gen under-display optical fingerprint reader | 6th gen under-display optical fingerprint reader | 7th gen under-display optical fingerprint reader with pulse detection | 7th gen under-display optical fingerprint reader with pulse detection |
| 5,050 mAh battery + 66W charging | 5050 mAh battery + 66W charging or 4,500 mAh battery + 120W charging (China) | 5,050 mAh battery + 66W charging or 4,500 mAh battery + 120W charging (China) | 5,050 mAh battery + 66W charging or 4,500 mAh battery +120W charging (China) |
| 128GB 8GB RAM, 128GB 12GB RAM, 256GB 12GB RAM | 128GB 12GB RAM, 256GB 12GB RAM, 256GB 16GB RAM, 512GB 18GB RAM | 128GB 12GB RAM, 256GB 16GB RAM | 256GB 16GB RAM |
| - | - | - | M key touch area on the back |
Clearly, there is an unfortunate amount of guesswork involved with the Red Magic 6S lineup, even down to the unit we received. In fact, we aren't exactly sure if we got a Chinese or a global one, since the particular software it is running is full of funky translations, plenty of Chinese text, and some menus and options are clearly mismatched, compared to our international vanilla Red Magic 6 unit and others are clearly misplaced, like a full-featured RGB control menu that does nothing and some other options that straight up crash on us when we atempt to use them.
Left: Red Magic 6S Pro; Right: Red Magic 6R
For the sake of thoroughness, at least we can say with absolute certainty that the Red Magic 6S Pro has little to do with the Red Magic 6R, which has a totally different display, along other things.
Unboxing
Since we already touched on the accessory package briefly, we should take a quick look at the retail box of our Red Magic 6S Pro unit. The box itself differs quite a bit from the one the vanilla Red Magic 6 shipped in. It is a smaller and simpler two-piece one.
Inside it - a 30W charger and a nifty, braided, red Type-C to Type-C cable. Like we already mentioned, the Red Magic 6S Pro supports up to 66W of charging, but you need to get the needed charger separately. Even so, the one provided in the box is actually a versatile, compact unit great for travel since it not only does 30W of PD with PPS support, but can also do Qualcomm Quick Charge.
There is also a nice and thick, transparent TPU case in the box. A nifty addition, even if most of the back of the case is actually missing, presumably to accommodate better heat dissipation on a phone that does tend to get toasty since it prioritizes cooler internals, overhand comfort.
Familiar 6.8-inch, 165Hz AMOLED, now with faster touch sampling
A great display is essential for a great gaming experience, and the Red Magic 6 already had a solid panel. It was a 6.8-inch, FHD+ one with a maximum and industry-leading 165Hz refresh rate and a snappy 500Hz touch sampling rate to match.
Nubia claims the main display upgrade in the Red Magic 6S is the touch sampling rate. The Red Magic 6S Pro advertises 720Hz, particularly for multi-finger input. This definitely sounds like a hefty boost from the previously advertised 500Hz, even if it's just with a single-finger input.
However, it is one of those specs that is hard to measure, harder still to compare and almost impossible to translate into actual latency within the entire input and output chain of the devices. That is to say, the time from touching to screen all the way to getting a change in the image on screen as a response.
Since we can't realistically test this particular display upgrade in any meaningful way, it is a case of "more means better" and we just have to take Nubia's word that things have been improved even further, without needlessly digging too deep into what are likely PR-motivated numbers and stats.
On to things we can test then and display brightness - a bit of an issue on the vanilla Red Magic 6, which only managed 444 nits and clearly improved for the Red Magic 6S Pro, where we measured at 529 nits on the slider.
That's still a far cry from modern flagship territory, and not particularly close to the advertised 700 nits. Though, to be fair, the latter figure was likely achieved on a smaller screen test area.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, |
White, |
||
| 0 | 1023 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 1001 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 943 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 922 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 840 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 822 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 806 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 805 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 725 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 694 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 634 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 588 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 529 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 514 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 511 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 504 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 498 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 492 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 489 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 479 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 458 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 457 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 444 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 439 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 437 | ∞ | |
The extra brightness could be due to some software improvements in brightness behavior, which were much needed on the original Red Magic 6 we tested. Though, the Red Magic 6S Pro still seems to lack a max auto mode for bright conditions. On the flip side, the higher number could hint that the Red Magic 6S is using a different panel.
Color accuracy was a problem on the vanilla Red Magic 6, and once again, our tests on the Red Magic 6s Pro didn't come anywhere close. Instead, the Red Magic 6S Pro consistently hits double-digit deltaE values for both sRGB and DCI-P3 color spaces, regardless of the selected color mode. And the vast selection of available modes on the phone (including ones that clearly mention a certain color space) plus the custom white point adjustment options are all sort of a slap in the face since no combination managed to turn out even remotely color-accurate output.
Display settings
Still, in "normal" and "vibrant" modes, colors look nice and punchy on the Red Magic 6S Pro and its lack of a punch-hole selfie camera, plus powerful stereo speaker setup all add up to a very pleasurable multimedia consumption experience.
Unfortunately, HDR is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, the OS reports support for HDR10, HDR10+ and HLG, which is great, but Netflix didn't want to offer HDR content. That, however, is likely down to the Red Magic 6S Pro being absent from certain support lists, since we are reviewing an early unit. We even had to sideload the Netflix app, since it was blocked in Google Play Store.
Widevine and HDR capabilities
By the way, the early nature of our unit is one of the reasons why we won't be focusing on software too much. But, we digress.
Battery life
The Red Magic line has, unfortunately, been struggling a bit in the battery life department. The Red Magic 5S was hit pretty hard by the lack of good automatic refresh rate switching. Once set to its maximum of 144Hz, basically everything was running at 144Hz all of the time, essentially wasting energy. As for the vanilla Red Magic 6 - its battery was tanked by bad standby battery endurance.
We are very glad to say that the swap to the Snapdragon 888+ or perhaps some other software change has managed to address the standby endurance, and the Red Magic 6S Pro performs very much in line with the other Snapdragon 888+ device we recently tested - the ROG Phone 5s Pro.
In fact, all battery endurance tests fall in line pretty nicely with those on the Asus, as long as we correct the numbers to account for the different battery capacity - 5,050 mAh on the Red Magic 6S Pro and 6,000 mAh on the ROG Phone 5s Pro.
Compared to the vanilla Red Magic 6, the 6S pro does a bit worse in calls, but not by much, within what we would consider the margin of error. Same goes for its web browsing test. It was done at the maximum 165Hz refresh rate. On the other hand, the Video test gets a notable endurance boost, which we also have an explanation for. While the vanilla Red Magic 6 only managed to drop down to 90Hz for this test, the Red Magic 6S Pro consistently triggered 60Hz refresh, effectively saving some battery in the process.
Overall, while 97 hours of total endurance is still not great, even for a gaming phone, we have to commend ZTE for fixing the standby power draw issues that have been plaguing the vanilla Red Magic 6 and the 6S Pro.
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.
Video test carried out in 60Hz refresh rate mode. Web browsing test done at the display's highest refresh rate whenever possible. Refer to the respective reviews for specifics. To adjust the endurance rating formula to match your own usage patterns check out our all-time battery test results chart where you can also find all phones we've tested.
Charging
Like we mentioned, the Red Magic 6S Pro ships with a 30W charger even though the phone itself supports up to 66W of charging.
The 30W unit which we got manages a full top-off in about 1 hour and 10 minutes. Interestingly enough, the Red Magic 6S Pro was a bit slower to charge than its vanilla sibling. Frankly, we can't exactly say why, but it probably has something do to with an intermittent error message we kept getting while charging saying something along the lines of - "charging has stopped. Charging voltage is too high, replace charger", regardless of what charger or cable we used.
Once we got our good 100W PD charger and hooked that up to the Red Magic 6S Pro, charging was a lot speedier, which is great to see. Chances are that you might already have a 65W PD charger in your home, or alternatively, picking one up now would be a good investment going forward anyway.
30min charging test (from 0%)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Black Shark 4
100% - Realme GT Master
100% - Realme GT Explorer Master
96% - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
89% - nubia Red Magic 5S (55W)
87% - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (66W)
75% - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro
71% - Asus ROG Phone 5
70% - nubia Red Magic 6
63% - nubia Red Magic 6R
62% - Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G
54% - Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
50% - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (30W)
49% - Asus ROG Phone 3
43% - Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
43% - nubia Red Magic 5S (18W bundled)
33%
Time to full charge (from 0%)
Lower is better
- Xiaomi Black Shark 4
0:19h - Realme GT Master
0:30h - Realme GT Explorer Master
0:33h - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
0:37h - nubia Red Magic 5S (55W)
0:39h - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (66W)
0:53h - nubia Red Magic 6R
0:58h - nubia Red Magic 6
1:01h - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro
1:03h - Asus ROG Phone 5
1:05h - Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G
1:11h - Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
1:21h - Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
1:23h - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (30W)
1:50h - Asus ROG Phone 3
1:50h
Synthetic benchmarks
Let's get down to the nitty-gritty of the new Snapdragon 888+ chipset. It is essentially the same as the vanilla Snapdragon 888, with a total of eight Kryo 680 CPU cores and an Adreno 660 GPU, built on a 5nm process. That hasn't really changed at all.
Most of the cores are set up the same in the Snapdragon 888+ as well. That includes the "small" four Kryo 680 cores that go up to 1.8 GHz, as well as the three "big" ones, clocked at up to 2.42 GHz.
The only difference in CPU configuration is with the single "prime" core, which can go up to 3.0 GHz on the Snapdragon 888+, while it is limited to 2.84 GHz on the vanilla Snapdragon 888. That being said, Nubia has decided to run the Prime core a bit slower, capping it at 2.95 GHz instead. This seems like a small difference, but going through our benchmark scores, it could actually be beneficial to the overall performance profile of the Red Magic 6S Pro, compared to its closest current rivals, like the ROG Phone 5s Pro, which does allow the Prime core to go up to its max 3.0 GHz. We'll dig more into that in a bit.
A higher clock speed generally means higher power draw and more heat output. Both are things the Red Magic 6S Pro has to deal with. As far as heat management goes, Nubia claims that they have beefed up the internal cooling setup to accommodate the Snapdragon 888+. It is called the "ICE 7.0 Multidimensional Cooling System with Built-in Turbo Fan" and promises improvements over the regular Red Magic 6, thanks to graphene sheets and aero-grade phase change materials (PCM). This cooling upgrade is something Asus did not deem necessary for its switch to the Snapdragon 888+ in the ROG Phone 5S Pro, which can be interpreted in any number of ways, though.
It is worth noting that our Red magic 6S Pro review unit has 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 125 GB of UFS 3.1 storage, while the ROG Phone 5s Pro results we have for comparison are from the 18GB/256GB model.
We have three separate scores sets from the ROG Phone 5s Pro - Dynamic mode, X Mode and X Mode with the AeroActive cooler attached and running.
For the Red Magic 6s Pro we essentially did the same, but with two sets of numbers - one in the regular performance mode, with the built-in cooler off and the other in the max performance "infinite" mode and the fan set to max, for the best possible cooling.
Enough beating about the bush, though, let's look at some numbers, starting with pure-CPU testing and GeekBench.
GeekBench 5 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Asus ROG Phone 5 Ultimate (X Mode+ FAN)
3729 - Asus ROG Phone 5 Ultimate
3728 - vivo iQOO 7 Legend
3715 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode + FAN)
3672 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode)
3667 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (Infinite mode)
3664 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro
3660 - OnePlus 9 Pro
3636 - Asus Zenfone 8
3604 - nubia Red Magic 6
3586 - ZTE Axon 30 Ultra 5G
3582 - Realme GT 5G
3555 - Sony Xperia 5 III
3549 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro
3521 - Sony Xperia 1 III
3515 - nubia Red Magic 6R
3486 - Xiaomi Black Shark 4
3448 - nubia Red Magic 5S
3386 - Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
3244 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
3191
GeekBench 5 (single-core)
Higher is better
- Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode + FAN)
1175 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode)
1175 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (Infinite mode)
1163 - vivo iQOO 7 Legend
1142 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro
1140 - Realme GT 5G
1139 - Sony Xperia 1 III
1130 - Asus ROG Phone 5 Ultimate (X Mode+ FAN)
1129 - nubia Red Magic 6R
1128 - Asus ROG Phone 5 Ultimate
1128 - OnePlus 9 Pro
1126 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
1126 - nubia Red Magic 6
1124 - ZTE Axon 30 Ultra 5G
1124 - Asus Zenfone 8
1118 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro
1117 - Sony Xperia 5 III
1117 - Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
1109 - Xiaomi Black Shark 4
1029 - nubia Red Magic 5S
927
Just as expected, the higher maximum clock of the Prime core in the Snapdragon 888+ results in notably higher single-thread performance numbers. In the case of the Red Magic 6S Pro, in particular, we also get a small, but notable increase in multi-threaded workloads, which is noteworthy, sine this is not the case with the ROG Phone 5s Pro. That being said, Asus still seems to be managing to outpace Red Magic phones in these tests, essentially leading the pack. That likely stems from the higher-still 3.0 GHz max Prime core clock adopted by the ROG Phone or, alternatively a more aggressive CPU governor or perhaps a different approach to thermal management curve and power allocation.
The thing is, we can only make educated guesses as to what is going on behind the scenes since there are just too many variables. What we know for sure, however, is that any chipset, in this case, the Snapdragon 888+, has a few rather rigid constraints it works under, mainly a thermal envelope and a power envelope. Simply put, that means that there is a limit to how much heat the available cooling solution can handle and that changes on a curve as heat builds up and there is also a limit to the power the chip can draw as a whole.
AnTuTu 8
Higher is better
- nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (Infinite mode)
758329 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro
757176 - Asus ROG Phone 5 Ultimate (X Mode+ FAN)
745994 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode + FAN)
743021 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode)
734067 - nubia Red Magic 6
708853 - Asus ROG Phone 5 Ultimate
708579 - nubia Red Magic 6R
708156 - Realme GT 5G
703986 - ZTE Axon 30 Ultra 5G
703270 - OnePlus 9 Pro
691055 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
688720 - Asus Zenfone 8
676001 - Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
657273 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro
630726 - Xiaomi Black Shark 4
617456 - Sony Xperia 1 III
607423 - nubia Red Magic 5S
557210
AnTuTu 9
Higher is better
- nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (Infinite mode)
870708 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro
866437 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode + FAN)
844901 - nubia Red Magic 6R
823354 - Realme GT 5G
810433 - ZTE Axon 30 Ultra 5G
804626 - Asus Zenfone 8
799738 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
794016 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode)
761334 - Sony Xperia 1 III
749132 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro
735588 - Sony Xperia 5 III
708394 - Xiaomi Black Shark 4
605569
Looking at AnTuTu scores, we start to get a picture that is more favorable towards the Red Magic 6S Pro, which is essentially the leader of the pack. AnTuTu is a much more compound benchmark that takes into account things like memory and also does GPU testing.
Moving on to GPU tests, we definitely notice a pattern of higher average performance from the Red Magic 6S Pro, both compared to the vanilla Red Magic 6 and the ROG Phone 5s Pro, despite the fact that all of these phones are running the same Adreno 660 GPU.
GFX Manhattan ES 3.0 (offscreen 1080p)
Higher is better
- nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (Infinite mode)
182 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro
181 - OnePlus 9 Pro
174 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
174 - Realme GT 5G
171 - ZTE Axon 30 Ultra 5G
167 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode + FAN)
166 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode)
166 - nubia Red Magic 6
165 - Asus Zenfone 8
164 - nubia Red Magic 6R
160 - vivo iQOO 7 Legend
160 - Sony Xperia 5 III
155 - Sony Xperia 1 III
150 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro
144 - Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
142 - Xiaomi Black Shark 4
139 - nubia Red Magic 5S
124
GFX Manhattan ES 3.0 (onscreen)
Higher is better
- nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (Infinite mode)
151 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro
149 - nubia Red Magic 6R
135 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode + FAN)
130 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode)
128 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro
128 - Asus Zenfone 8
119 - vivo iQOO 7 Legend
117 - ZTE Axon 30 Ultra 5G
116 - Xiaomi Black Shark 4
113 - Sony Xperia 5 III
107 - Sony Xperia 1 III
98 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
96 - nubia Red Magic 6
91 - Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
86 - nubia Red Magic 5S
60 - OnePlus 9 Pro
60 - Realme GT 5G
60
GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)
Higher is better
- nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (Infinite mode)
128 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro
127 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode + FAN)
120 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode)
120 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro
120 - OnePlus 9 Pro
119 - ZTE Axon 30 Ultra 5G
118 - Asus Zenfone 8
117 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
116 - vivo iQOO 7 Legend
114 - Sony Xperia 5 III
113 - Realme GT 5G
112 - nubia Red Magic 6
111 - nubia Red Magic 6R
111 - Sony Xperia 1 III
111 - Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
109
97
89
GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (onscreen)
Higher is better
- nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (Infinite mode)
109 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro
107 - Asus Zenfone 8
105 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro
103 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode + FAN)
102 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode)
102 - nubia Red Magic 6R
101 - vivo iQOO 7 Legend
101 - ZTE Axon 30 Ultra 5G
93 - Sony Xperia 5 III
92 - Sony Xperia 1 III
91 - nubia Red Magic 6
86 - Xiaomi Black Shark 4
85 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
60 - Realme GT 5G
60 - nubia Red Magic 5S
59 - Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
58 - OnePlus 9 Pro
57
Unfortunately, there is no reliable way to monitor the current GPU clock using standardized Android tools. Neither manufacturer has advertised reaching anything different than the default 840MHz the Adreno 660 inside the Snapdragon 888+ is officially capable of, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's the case.
GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)
Higher is better
- nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (Infinite mode)
75 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro
74 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode + FAN)
71 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode)
71 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro
70 - OnePlus 9 Pro
70 - vivo iQOO 7 Legend
70 - nubia Red Magic 6R
69 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
69 - Asus Zenfone 8
69 - ZTE Axon 30 Ultra 5G
69 - Sony Xperia 5 III
69 - Sony Xperia 1 III
68 - Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
66 - Realme GT 5G
65 - nubia Red Magic 6
63 - Xiaomi Black Shark 4
59 - nubia Red Magic 5S
54
GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)
Higher is better
- nubia Red Magic 6S Pro
62 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (Infinite mode)
62 - vivo iQOO 7 Legend
62 - Asus Zenfone 8
61 - nubia Red Magic 6R
59 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro
59 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode + FAN)
58 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode)
58 - Realme GT 5G
55 - ZTE Axon 30 Ultra 5G
54 - Sony Xperia 1 III
54 - Sony Xperia 5 III
53 - nubia Red Magic 6
50 - Xiaomi Black Shark 4
50 - OnePlus 9 Pro
36 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
34 - Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
33
We can clearly see the Red Magic 6S Pro's lead getting smaller as the difficulty of the GPU test runs ramps up, but it is still unquestionably there. Both in on-screen and off-screen runs, with the latter eliminating screen resolution from the equation.
GFX Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)
Higher is better
- nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (Infinite mode)
45 - Asus Zenfone 8
45 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro
44 - nubia Red Magic 6R
43 - Asus ROG Phone 5 Ultimate (X Mode+ FAN)
43 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode + FAN)
42 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode)
42 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro
42 - ZTE Axon 30 Ultra 5G
41 - nubia Red Magic 6
40 - Realme GT 5G
38 - Xiaomi Black Shark 4
34 - Sony Xperia 5 III
29 - OnePlus 9 Pro
27 - Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
25 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
25 - Sony Xperia 1 III
24
GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (onscreen)
Higher is better
- nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (Infinite mode)
42 - Asus ROG Phone 5 Ultimate (X Mode+ FAN)
41 - Asus Zenfone 8
41 - nubia Red Magic 6R
40 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro
40 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro
40 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode + FAN)
39 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode)
39 - ZTE Axon 30 Ultra 5G
39 - Realme GT 5G
39 - nubia Red Magic 6
37 - Sony Xperia 5 III
37 - Sony Xperia 1 III
36 - Xiaomi Black Shark 4
34 - OnePlus 9 Pro
24 - Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
23 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
23
GFX Aztek Vulkan High (offscreen 1440p)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Black Shark 4
34 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro
32 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (Infinite mode)
32 - nubia Red Magic 6R
31 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode + FAN)
31 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode)
31 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro
31 - OnePlus 9 Pro
31 - nubia Red Magic 6
30 - Asus Zenfone 8
30 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
29 - ZTE Axon 30 Ultra 5G
29 - Realme GT 5G
29 - Sony Xperia 5 III
29 - Sony Xperia 1 III
28 - Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
25
GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (offscreen 1440p)
Higher is better
- nubia Red Magic 6S Pro
29 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (Infinite mode)
29 - nubia Red Magic 6
28 - nubia Red Magic 6R
28 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode + FAN)
28 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode)
28 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro
28 - OnePlus 9 Pro
28 - Realme GT 5G
28 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
27 - Asus Zenfone 8
27 - ZTE Axon 30 Ultra 5G
27 - Sony Xperia 1 III
27 - Sony Xperia 5 III
27 - Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
25 - Xiaomi Black Shark 4
24
We do have a few guesses as to what is happening and why the Red Magic 6S Pro has a notable lead in synthetic GPU numbers. Thanks in part to the improved cooling solution and perhaps the lower maximum prime CPU core frequency of 2.95 GHz, the Snapdragon 888+ inside the Red Magic 6S Pro, as a package has more thermal or power headroom left to allocate to its GPU, potentially clocking it a bit higher. Then again, there could be some software improvements to thank for here. Though, we would be hesitant to attribute any such accomplishments to the particular software our review unit is running, given its poor overall state of polish. It could also be that we were given a cherry-picked engineering sample, since the unit is definitely not retail.
3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)
Higher is better
- nubia Red Magic 6S Pro (Infinite mode)
5896 - vivo iQOO 7 Legend
5873 - Realme GT 5G
5872 - nubia Red Magic 6S Pro
5865 - Sony Xperia 1 III
5807 - Asus ROG Phone 5 Ultimate (X Mode+ FAN)
5761 - Asus ROG Phone 5 Ultimate
5745 - Sony Xperia 5 III
5742 - nubia Red Magic 6
5714 - ZTE Axon 30 Ultra 5G
5714 - OnePlus 9 Pro
5701 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
5676 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode + FAN)
5669 - nubia Red Magic 6R
5667 - Asus Zenfone 8
5666 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro (X Mode)
5659 - Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro
5556 - Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
5547 - Xiaomi Black Shark 4
4212
Whatever the case may be, we have to conclude that the Red Magic 6S manages to make good use of the Snapdragon 888+, arguably even better than its main rival - the Asus ROG phone 5s Pro. Of course, these are just synthetic loads, not representative of real-world use. Plus, achieving great burst performance for a short time to go through a benchmark is one thing, but what really counts in practice is the way you handle heat accumulation over time, like what you get with a long gaming session.
Thermal throttling
Thermal throttling is generally speaking an inevitability at some point in a closed and passively cooled system, like a smartphone. As far as smartphones go, however, the Red Magic line, with its built-in active fan arguably has the most "non-passive" cooling solution out there. This makes out extreme 60-minute-long torture runs with the CPU throttling test app all that more interesting.
We start off with the Red Magic 6S Pro in its default performance mode with the internal fan turned off.
CPU Throttling test: default performance mode without fan
The Red Magic 6S Pro seems to handle heat buildup quite well, even if not perfect. 77% retained performance is actually quite high, given the nature of the overclocked and extra-hot Snapdragon 888+ chipset. The performance curve is also fairly gradual. The thing you really want to avoid is sudden drops down in performance since those tend to manifest as stutters in-game. While our test unit never actually experienced a massive drop (those are marked in red), the few yellow drops are could have been handled better as well.
CPU Throttling test: infinity performance mode with fan on maximum
Putting the Red Magic 6S Pro in its highest "infinity" performance mode clearly boosts both maximum, as well as average numbers reported by CPU Throttling test. More importantly, however, when the internal fan is blasting at full speed, the phone managed to retain a whopping 94% of its performance after a whole hour of unreasonable 100% all-core load. This is an incredible achievement, especially with the Snapdragon 888+ chipset.
For context, here are a pair of CPU throttling test runs from the vanilla Red Magic 6.
Red Magic 6: Cooling fan ON vs OFF
For even more context, the Red Magic 6S Pro's behavior is arguably even better than what the ROG Phone 5s Pro managed in its maximum performance mode with its cooler blasting.
CPU Throttling Test: ROG Phone 5s Pro X Mode+ with AeroActive Cooler 5
Granted, the ROG Phone 5s Pro managed a higher maximum score and also delivered an impressively smooth curve, but it also throttled to 87% of its max performance.
And to be clear, just like its Asus sibling, the Red Magic 6S Pro got unpleasantly hot during its torture test. So much so that we got worried about the surface it was sitting on. That's just a fact when a thermal solution is designed to dissipate heat first and foremost and only then worry about in-hand feel and comfort, all other conditions permitting. If there is one thing gaming smartphones do differently than their mainstream counterparts in terms of squeezing performance out of otherwise standard components, it's this.
High refresh rate gaming
Benchmarks are great for what they are and all, but don't exactly translate well into data on actual gaming. Since that is likely the reason to get a Red Magic phone in the first place, we feel like a few data points on actual games could be more important than any benchmark.
Before we do that, though, a few words about how the Red Magic 6S Pro handles its high refresh rate panel. There are four refresh rate settings to choose from: 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz and 165Hz.
60Hz and 90Hz modes act more or less like refresh rate locks. Switch to 90Hz and the phone would stick to it throughout the UI and most apps unless the app explicitly demands 60Hz like Google Maps or when you have a video playing.
The 120Hz and 165Hz modes tend to stick to those numbers only in the phone UI and most games. If any particular game lowers its refresh rate down when you don't want it to, adding it to the Nubia Game Space launcher seems to fix that and force the selected max refresh rate.
For most non-gaming apps, the default behavior in these two modes is to switch down to 90Hz. The premise being striking a nice balance between smoothness and responsiveness and battery life. Not a bad setup, though one that can still benefit from a per-app refresh rate setting interface.
Conveniently, the Red Magic 6S Pro has a built-in FPS counter on top of the refresh rate meter, available through the Android developer menu. Between these two and the phone's own indication of the current display refresh rate setting, we can easily go through a few popular games and see what frame rate we can actually get in practice.
Garena Free Fire running at 60fps, 120Hz
Genshin Impact running at 60fps, 120Hz
Mobile Legends Band Bang running at 60fps, 120Hz
Arena of Valor running at 60fps, 120Hz
Asphalt 9 running at 60fps, 120Hz
Clash of Clans running at 60fps, 120Hz
Most popular AAA games we tried actually ran the Red Magic 6S Pro's display at 120Hz, instead of its maximum 165Hz. This is seemingly decided on a per-game basis and we found no way to overwrite the phone's decision. Not that we would necessarily want to anyway, since, very few of these titles actually managed to run at more than 60fps anyway, mostly due to engine restrictions.
PUBG running at 60fps, 60Hz
PUBG even ran at 60Hz, further optimizing battery usage and saturating that refresh rate fully, by running at 60fps.
Some bigger game titles do manage to push beyond the 60fps mark, but these are more of a rarity rather than the norm. Once again, it is a game engine limitation more than anything else. Call of Duty Mobile, for instance, has a high refresh rate mode, which actually managed to push the game to around 90fps.
Call of Duty Mobile running at around 90fps, 120Hz
Some games won't always behave in an expected way, unfortunately. For instance, Super Mario Run launches with 120Hz refresh rate and saturates that in the menus, with 120fps. However, the actual gameplay seems to be capped at 60fps. Alto's Odyssey on the other hand is a game we have tested and verified in the past can run beyond 60fps. However, even though it triggered 120Hz refresh mode on the Red Magic 6S Pro, the actual gameplay was locked at 60fps.
Super Mario Run and Alto's Odyssey
If you look hard enough you can find games that can run at 165Hz and saturate that refresh rate with 165fps. These tend to be lighter, casual games. PAC-MAN and 1945 Air Force are a couple of examples.
PAC-MAN and 1945 Air Force running at 165fps, 165Hz
Gaming features and software
Our Red Magic 6S Pro review unit is running Red Magic OS 4.5 on top of Android 11. The vanilla Red Magic 6, back when we reviewed it, was actually on Red Magic 4.0, so some differences are to be expected. That being said, the particular build on our unit looks unfinished and unpolished, with plenty of missing menus, bad and outright missing translations and even crashing menus and misplaced options. For example, there are RGB light controls for what is entirely absent RGB.
This is just one of the reasons why we won't dig deep through the entire UI. The other major one being that there is hardly any substantial change, compared to what we experienced on the vanilla Red Magic 6 and its Magic OS 4.0. You can read more about it in more detail here.
One potentially significant change we did notice on our review unit is a slight refresh to the UI of the REDMAGIC Game Space. The main launcher itself hasn't been altered too much. At least as far as we managed to make out, since most menus and entries on our units are in Chinese.
Game Space launcher
The actual in-game overlay does, however, look different on the Red Magic 6S Pro, compared to what we saw on the vanilla Red Magic 6. Most of the options are still there, just moved around a bit and perhaps with slightly more polish to their appearance. However, some of the options are entirely different, like a new set of performance mode controls, while other options are a bit hidden away and not exactly more convenient to find in our opinion.
Game Space in-game overlay
Just to reiterate, the particular build our Red Magic 6S Pro review unit is running is clearly an early one in an unpolished state. We hope that retail units either end up shipping with the regular Magic OS 4.0, as seen on the vanilla Red Magic 6 or a fixed-up 4.5 build.
The Red Magic UX has never really been the most logical, well-organized or user-friendly experience out there. Far from it, in fact, and we frankly don't expect any major changes on that front in the short run. The minor polish Magic OS 4.5 seems to offer is definitely not a major redesign. Then again, despite certain UI and UX issues, we can't complain, especially with the performance numbers Red magic OS manages. In that sense, it is perhaps best to wait patiently on an eventual Android 12 update and hope it brings about a UI redesign as well.
Final thoughts
Click here for our full and extensive review of the vanilla Red Magic 6, which the Red magic 6S Pro is based on.
The Red Magic 6S Pro is likely intended as a drop-in replacement for the existing Red Magic 6 and Red Magic 6 Pro models. In fact, both of these are already Out of Stock on the EU store at redmagic.gg - the direct sales store Nubia runs.
Then there is the matter of pricing. The preliminary MSRP for the Red Magic 6S Pro models goes as follows: USD/EUR 599 and GBP 519 for a 12GB/128GB Black unit, USD/EU 699 and GBP 609 for a 16GB/256GB Black model and USD/EUR 729 and GBP 629 for the top-tier 16GB/256GB Transparent model. That's the one with the RGB internal fan. That essentially means the new model will cost the same as its predecessor, making a replacement strategy even more likely.
So, essentially, Nubia has decided to take the exact same steps Asus did with the new ROG Phone 5s Pro - adopt the new Snapdragon 888+ chipset into a mostly-unchanged existing design and offer that to users, going forward to stay relevant on the market. Both companies do also throw in a few "extras" or small upgrades to "sweeten" the deal even further, again, mostly to be more competitive on the market, more than anything else. Even so, we can't complain about things like the 720Hz multi-touch sampling rate on display, the 450Hz sampling rate on the shoulder triggers, the upgrade of the under-display fingerprint reader or the addition of RGB on the internal fan and an extra M touch key area on the Transparent Red Magic 6S Pro model, in particular. All of these are, to a different degree, kind of "free upgrades".
The new model also gets a few notable upgrades, not mentioned on the official specs sheet that our test revealed, like better battery endurance and a brighter display.
Most importantly, however, there is a lot to be said about how the move to the faster but also hotter and more power-hungry Snapdragon 888+ chipset was handled. ZTE and nubia engineers arguably did things better on the Red Magic 6S Pro than the Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro - the most direct and obvious competitor. Whether through beefing up its internal cooling solution through the advertised addition of phase change materials, or a better-balanced power and clock speed distribution between the CPU and GPU cores inside the chip, or likely a combination of the two, the Red Magic 6 arguably handles the Snapdragon 888+ better than its rival.
Whether or not that's enough to make the Red Magic 6S Pro the better phone overall is an entirely different question, though. One that involves the pricing, the perceived value calculations and, in no small part, important additional aspects of the experience, like UI and support. Depending on your personal priorities, that comparison can easily swing in one direction or the other. Speaking in more quantifiable terms, though, the Red Magic 6S Pro seems to be squeezing the best possible performance, for now, out of what is currently the top-dog Qualcomm chipset and translating that into the most frames on-screen. That definitely counts for something.
The Red Magic 6S Pro deserves praise for being a product refresh made by the book - it keeps its competitive position in its product category, and it improves its predecessor in several key aspects, all while selling at the same price.
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