REDMAGIC 12 Pro review – seriously powerful but pricier than before

In 2026, the gaming phone niche feels as small as it has been in a long time. Asus called it quits back in January, and Acer dipped out of the market way before that. There are still some players left, though, and one of the most notable is REDMAGIC. Now, the Chinese brand is back with its latest flagship Android phone, the REDMAGIC 12 Pro, and I’ve spent the last week or so putting it through its paces.

Considering that the REDMAGIC 11 Pro currently occupies the top spot in our guide to the best gaming phones, I went into this review expecting good things, and without ruining the rest of it, that’s what I got, for the most part. However, since this phone also boasts a price hike compared to previous generations, some of the usual misgivings are a bit more noticeable than before, and that complicates things. With that said, let’s get into the details.

Price and availability

Pre-orders for the REDMAGIC 12 Pro are now open, with official sales starting on November 18. In terms of pricing, there are a few different configurations to pick from, and you can check them out in the table below.

Whatever option you go for, the new REDMAGIC flagship is considerably pricier than in previous years. Even the cheapest version is significantly up from the REDMAGIC 11 Pro. The price rise isn’t a major shock, considering the current industry conditions, but it does make it feel like less of a steal. It also makes some of the issues more noticeable.

As for colors, the 12 Pro comes in either Nightfreeze or Subzero designs. For this review, we received the 512GB+16GB version of the phone in Nightfreeze.

Specs

Here are the REDMAGIC 12 Pro’s specs:

Performance and gaming

Given that the REDMAGIC 12 Pro is an out-and-out gaming phone, it lives or dies by its performance capabilities. Fortunately, that’s exactly where it excels. Thanks to its powerhouse Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chip, day-to-day tasks are a breeze; no matter how many tabs you have open, everything runs smoothly. On the gaming front, it might be even more impressive.

Every game I tested on the 12 Pro ran like a dream, from the demanding visuals of Honkai Star Rail and PUBG Mobile to more casual games such as Marvel Snap and Candy Crush. You can pick out your favorite from our guide to the best mobile games, download it, and turn the settings up as high as they’ll go, and the 12 Pro takes it in its stride. Admittedly, that’s what I anticipated, given the power of the Snapdragon chip, but it’s still pretty impressive.

Not only does the 12 Pro offer elite performance, but its powerful cooling system also means that the phone never gets too hot to handle in the palm of your hand. You can’t ask for much more than that on the performance front.

Features and software

The REDMAGIC 12 Pro runs on the new REDMAGIC OS 12 skin of Android 17, and compared to previous REDMAGIC operating systems, it’s pretty clean and easy to use. It’s not going to blow you away – not that many operating systems will – but it’s also less confusing than previous iterations, and I didn’t experience any instances of small software bugs or mistranslations.

As for gaming-specific software, REDMAGIC’s Game Space is back. Here you can tinker with settings, choose some useful in-game plug-ins, and more. It’s part of the phone’s selling point: you’re not just getting great gaming hardware, but software, too. It might be a bit overwhelming for some, but the default settings are usually fine, and there’s room to toy with the performance and GPU settings if that’s your bag. Basically, everyone’s a winner.

The big new addition, though, is a PC emulator via the Gravity X menu, which enables you to sign into Steam and play your PC games on the 12 Pro. It hasn’t quite got the power for fully loaded triple-A games, but it handled Balatro and Slay the Spire 2 handily when I tested it out. This feature alone is the phone’s biggest selling point as far as I’m concerned, especially when you consider this year’s Steam Deck price hike.

One thing worth pointing out is that the REDMAGIC 12 Pro only comes with two guaranteed Android version updates and three years of security support outside the UK and Europe. For context, the latest Samsung and Google Pixel flagships come with seven years of support, which is more than double. You get five years of support in the UK and Europe, which is better, but the number of Android updates stays at two, so it still lags behind the pack, and that’s a major fly in the ointment.

Design

On the design front, the REDMAGIC 12 Pro continues the brand’s design ethos for its last few flagship phones. Essentially, it’s a big ol’ sleek rectangle. Not much has changed with the latest few iterations of REDMAGIC’s flagships. You’ve got the flat transparent panel on the back, giving you a better look at the RGB lighting and cooling system, and slightly rounded-off corners so it doesn’t dig into your hands. It’s a solid design, which is likely why it hasn’t changed much.

The 12 Pro also boasts REDMAGIC’s gamer-friendly capacitive shoulder buttons, which are ideal for fans of racing and FPS games. I’m more of a mobile card games man, so I didn’t get much use out of them outside of a bit of PUBG Mobile, but they’re still a nice added touch for the mobile esports crowd. Speaking of buttons, there’s also the big red one on the side for opening Game Space, but now it’s a long press rather than a switch, which I prefer.

Display and audio

As with performance, the REDMAGIC 12 Pro shines in the display department. Its 6.85-inch 185Hz AMOLED display is the perfect fit for a phone with this much firepower, offering deliciously smooth visuals, vivid colors, and inky blacks. Better still, the selfie camera is invisible under the display. As we’ll get into later, this doesn’t make for great-quality images, but it does mean even more screen space. The bezels are also nice and thin, further maximizing your room for gaming visuals.

The REDMAGIC 12 Pro’s audio capabilities are more than decent, with stereo speakers delivering high-quality in-game music and sound effects. Like a lot of phones, it lacks a little in the lower regions, where bass resides, but otherwise, it’s solid enough for what most would want or need.

Cameras

I’ve been quite critical of the cameras on REDMAGIC phones before, and while there’s a bit of an improvement this time around, it’s a relatively similar story. The cameras are decent, but for a flagship phone, especially one that’s more expensive now than with previous iterations, they’re just not quite there. It’s most obvious with the selfie camera, but we’ll start with what’s on the back first.

On the back of the 12 Pro, there’s a 50MP main camera and a 50MP ultra-wide camera, and they’re both fine enough. The thing is, though, they’re more in line with what I’d expect from a mid-range phone rather than a flagship, especially when it comes to color, as both cameras struggle to accurately capture particularly vivid subjects. The zoom quality also isn’t there, and that’s a bit of a problem these days, when there are plenty of Xiaomi, Samsung, and Google Pixel alternatives with top-tier zoom capabilities.

Now, for the selfie camera. It just isn’t up to scratch. With great lighting and a bit of editing, you can make your selfies look decent, but only just about, and these days, that doesn’t cut it. It’s a compromise; the selfie camera being under the display makes the display better, but, as you’ve probably gathered, it makes for worse selfies. I’ll be honest, it’s not a big deal for me, as I rarely take pictures of myself, but if you do, it could be a deciding factor.

Battery

Okay, so the REDMAGIC 12 Pro’s cameras might not have blown me away, but the battery is a different beast altogether. The 8,400 mAh battery in this phone just keeps going. With sporadic use, it’ll go for three days, if not longer, and even if you’re going at it hard in terms of gaming, you’ll get a full day. It blows a lot of the competition out of the water, including some of its similarly beefy Chinese rivals.

Not only is the battery life great, but the charging speeds are impressive too. If you’ve got an adapter capable of 80W charging, you can get as much as a 50% boost from just half an hour or from flat to full in around 70 minutes. It also offers 80W wireless charging, which isn’t to be sniffed at. You don’t get a charger in the box anymore, though, as you did with REDMAGIC phones just a couple of generations ago, so that’s worth keeping in mind.

Should you buy the REDMAGIC 12 Pro?

If you want the highest level of gaming performance, plus a stellar display and long-lasting battery, I’d heartily recommend the REDMAGIC 12 Pro. On all those fronts, it delivers, and with little in the way of competition these days, I’d say it’s certainly the best gaming phone on the market at the time of writing, and honestly, I don’t feel like that’s going to change any time soon.

On the other hand, if you’re a big fan of taking selfies, or you’re intending to pick up a phone you can use for a few years with regular software updates, the 12 Pro isn’t quite as tempting a proposition. It’s also more expensive than previous generations of REDMAGIC flagships, so now that you’re paying almost as much as you would for one of the 12 Pro’s rivals, such as the Poco F9 Ultra or Samsung Galaxy S26, it’s harder to justify some of the issues.