ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro vs ZTE Nubia RedMagic 10 Pro: Ultimate Gaming Phone Showdown!

Ready Player One? Here we have the two best gaming phones in the market right now. On this side, we have the Red Magic 10 Pro in the Dusk configuration, and on this side, we have the Rogue Phone 9 Pro in the Edition version. We're gonna take a deep dive into the design, screen, performance, cameras, and battery to find out which one of these is the best gaming powerhouse out there. Hey, I'm Olive, your host here at Versus.com, and press start. Starting with the Red Magic 10 Pro, it features an angular shape with a matte aluminum frame and only slightly rounded corners. At the bottom, there's a centered USB-C port and a speaker. On the left side, you will find an air intake for the built-in cooling fan, while the right side houses the fan outtake, two shoulder triggers, and the GameSpace switch next to the power and volume buttons. Up top, there's a 3.5mm headphone jack next to a second speaker for stereo sound. Flipping to the back side, the phone sports a transparent glass panel offering a view of the underlay, which includes an RGB illuminated logo and a cooling fan. There's no camera bump at all, meaning it should fit into third-party controllers without any issues. However, while the back design looks cool, it's a fingerprint magnet. The Red Magic 10 Pro weighs 230 grams and lacks IP certification against water and dust, quite probably because of the integrated cooling fan. It's available in four color options. You've got shadow, light speed, moonlight, and dusk. The ROG Phone 9 Pro features a more rounded form factor with a matte aluminum frame, offering a more comfortable feel. At the bottom, you'll find an off-centered USB-C port, a single speaker, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. On the left side, there's a second USB-C port designed for charging while using a game controller or for attaching the first-party Aereo Active Cooler X Pro. Of course, we tried plugging in two charging cables at the same time, but don't worry, the phone won't explode. It simply prioritizes charging through the side port. On the right side, you'll find the volume and power buttons, along with two air triggers. Flipping to the back side, it sports a matte coated glass panel with a chunky camera bump positioned at the top left. But the back has a hidden trick up its sleeve, and we'll get to that in just a bit, so stay tuned. The ROG Phone 9 Pro weighs 228 grams and has an IP68 certification. It's available exclusively in Phantom Black. Both phones look really cool in their own unique way, so choosing the best one really comes down to your personal preference. Under the hood, both of these machines pack the latest and greatest Snapdragon 8 Elite, paired with a whopping 24GB of RAM. As for storage, both our units come with an impressive 1TB. The Red Magic 10 Pro runs Red Magic OS X based on Android 15, while the ROG Phone 9 Pro also runs ROG UI, also based on Android 15. Unfortunately, the Red Magic 10 Pro offers only one major Android update and three years of security updates. However, the ROG Phone 9 Pro doesn't fare much better, providing only two major OS upgrades and five years of security updates. The main highlight of the Red Magic 10 Pro is its signature red slider, which activates Game Space. In this mode, you can access your game library, tweak performance settings, enable game plugins, and even activate Diablo mode, which unleashes the device's maximum performance. As mentioned earlier, it also features an integrated cooling fan and a vapor chamber for efficient heat dissipation. The software, however, isn't without its quirks. You'll notice some slow animations, a fair amount of bloatware, and surprisingly, it still uses the classic Android 4.4 KitKat lock and unlock sounds. On the ROG Phone 9 Pro, you get Armoury Crate, your go-to hub for games and performance settings. Here, you can enable Advanced Mode to push the processor and GPU to their limits for maximum performance. This phone also features a vapor chamber. However, you'll only get an attachable cooling fan Beyond gaming, the ROG Phone also includes new AI-powered features for the camera, personalization, and more. And remember that cool feature we teased earlier about the back of the phone? Well, it's Anime Vision. This light panel displays information like charging percentage, camera timers, music, animations, and even lets you create your own custom designs. But that's not all. You can also play basic games using Anime, Play, and the Air Triggers. We put these devices to the test with some demanding games and video editors to check their real-world performance. For our testing, we used the highest performance modes available, Diablo Mode on the Red Magic and Advanced Mode on the ROG Phone. First, we fired up GRID Autosport, and interestingly, the game doesn't fully support the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor yet, as in both phones, it defaulted to low graphics with no option to change them. Of course, the game ran super smoothly, but that's mainly because it's capped at 30 FPS. Next, we tested Call of Duty Mobile at max graphics, and both phones handled it flawlessly. We hit a steady 60 FPS on both devices, with the Red Magic reaching a max temperature of 39 degrees Celsius, while the ROG Phone stayed cooler at 36 degrees Celsius. Finally, we launched Withering Waves and cranked the graphics all the way up. While the Red Magic has plenty of power, it might need some optimization, as we only managed to get around 45 FPS, plus it got pretty hot, with the phone's body reaching 50 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, the ROG Phone handled things way better, running at a stable 60 FPS, and staying surprisingly cool at just 36 degrees Celsius. Moving on, we created a 3-minute 4K video and rendered it at 4K 30 FPS in multiple video editors. In Adobe Rush, both phones performed almost identically, with only a difference of 1 second between them. In InShot, the Red Magic proved to be the quickest, rendering the video under 5 minutes, getting a 38-second advantage over the ROG Phone. Lastly, in CapCut, both phones performed pretty similarly, with only about a 10-second difference between them. This time, the ROG Phone was the quicker one. In addition to these real-world scenarios, we also ran some benchmarks. In Geekbench 6, the Red Magic delivered much better single-core performance compared to the ROG Phone. However, in multi-core performance, while the Red Magic still came out on top, the gap between the two devices was noticeably smaller. In 3DMark, we ran two rounds of the Wildlife Extremes test, one with the cooling fan turned off on both devices, and another with the cooling fan turned on to see if they actually make a difference. With the fan off, the Red Magic started strong, with a higher best loop score. But after a while, the processor got heavily throttled, bringing the overall stability down to just 36.8%. On top of that, it got burning hot, reaching a scorching 60 degrees Celsius. On the other hand, the ROG Phone was much more stable, with a higher lowest loop score and a way better stability of 68%, all while keeping temperatures relatively cool at 46 degrees Celsius. Once we turn the cooling fan on for the Red Magic and attach the external fan to the ROG Phone, we still see the Red Magic pulling off a better highest loop score, but once again, performance takes a hit after a while due to throttling. Meanwhile, the ROG Phone stays even more stable than before, with a higher lowest loop score and even cooler temperatures. So as you can see, the cooling fans do make a difference, especially when it comes to performance stability over time. However, software tuning still plays a huge role, because raw power alone doesn't always mean a phone will perform better in real-world use. In Antutu, the ROG Phone came out on top with a significantly better score compared to the Red Magic. That said, Red Magic's score is not bad at all. Finally, we ran the cross-platform disk test to check how well the storage performs on both phones. Sequential write and read basically means the device processes data in a fixed order, like when you're watching a video. Random write and read, on the other hand, deals with scattered data across memory, which is important for things like loading apps. Finally, data copy is just moving or duplicating a block of data from one place to another on the disk. As you can see, the ROG Phone was way faster at both writing and reading data in sequential and random modes. It also handled data copying much quicker. This means it should perform better when handling large video files or playing heavy games. All in all, while both phones are pretty similar in performance, the Red Magic definitely packs the best raw power of the two. However, the ROG Phone does do better when it comes to sustained performance and software optimization, even without the cooling fan attached, which means you can enjoy longer gaming sessions without worrying about performance drops in really demanding games. And hey, don't tell anyone we told you, but these two phones are excellent devices for emulation. Moving on to the screens, the Red Magic features a 6.85-inch display, while the ROG Phone comes with a slightly smaller 6.7-inch screen. Both are AMOLED panels, but the Red Magic has a slightly higher resolution and pixel density. Both screens support variable refresh rates, with the Red Magic maxing out at 144Hz, while the ROG Phone reaches 185Hz. We tested the maximum touch sampling rate, which is how fast the screen reacts to the touches. The Red Magic achieved 923Hz, whereas the ROG Phone reached 731Hz, both in automatic refresh rate but high sampling rate mode. Honestly, we didn't notice much difference during gameplay, as both sampling rates are already pretty high. For our peak brightness test, we simulated full direct sunlight with over 100,000 lux, using a 100% white window to measure brightness. The Red Magic reached 988 nits, while the ROG Phone achieved a higher 1,730 nits. For screen protection, the Red Magic has an unspecified version of Corning Gorilla Glass, while the ROG Phone comes with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2. Both devices support HDR10, but the ROG Phone also supports HDR10+, which dynamically adjusts brightness and color on a scene-by-scene or even frame-by-frame basis. Both also support Hybrid Lock Gamma, a format that ensures compatibility across SDR and HDR displays. Additionally, both phones come equipped with under-display optical fingerprint scanners. So overall, both screens are excellent and offer incredibly high refresh rates. However, the Red Magic truly stands out with its impressive 95% screen-to-body ratio, thanks to, if you haven't noticed yet, its under-display front camera, eliminating any distractions during gameplay. By the way, can you guess which Pokemon are featured on these wallpapers? Drop your guesses in the comments below. For audio, both phones come with stereo speakers. However, the Red Magic has its speakers mounted on the top and bottom in the frame, while the ROG Phone features one speaker at the bottom in the frame, with the second one integrated into the earpiece. Here's an audio sample so you can judge the quality for yourself. Both phones can produce really loud audio. However, the Red Magic offers more treble and clearer voices, while the ROG Phone delivers a lot more bass, though the voices can sound a bit muffled. Of course, you can always plug in wired headphones for gaming with zero audio lag. Now, let's be honest. Cameras aren't really the strongest suit for these phones, but we still want to give you a quick look at how they perform. Starting with the main camera, both phones come with 50-megapixel lenses. As you can see, the ROG Phone nails white balance way better, keeping things more accurate, while the Red Magic tends to make colors too warm. And it's not just a one-off, as here, once again, the ROG Phone captures the most accurate colors, keeping things consistent. For ultra-wide shots, the Red Magic comes with a 50-megapixel camera, while the ROG Phone has a smaller 13-megapixel module. But despite the difference in megapixels, we're seeing more of the same here, with the ROG Phone having more accurate colors and more sharpness. Even though the white balance is pretty similar in these two shots, the ROG Phone still does better, with more detail in the shadows. Portrait mode isn't really the Red Magic's strong suit, as the edge detection looks overly fake. The ROG Phone, while not perfect, definitely does a better job. In this second shot, well, the Red Magic completely messed it up. The ROG Phone, once again, produces a more natural-looking result. Both phones can shoot video at a maximum of 8K 30fps, but for our tests, we always stick to 4K 30fps. With the wide lens, you can see that the Red Magic lifts the shadows too much, resulting in a flat video, whereas the ROG Phone delivers a much more accurate video in terms of color and exposure. With the ultra-wide lens, the Red Magic struggles with dynamic range, clipping both bright and dark areas. The ROG Phone, once again, does a better job at handling exposure and color. At the front, as mentioned previously, the Red Magic comes with an under-display 16-megapixel camera while the ROG Phone has a bigger 32-megapixel lens. Here, there's absolutely no competition, as the Red Magic's front camera is just flat-out terrible. On the other hand, the shot from the ROG Phone is actually pretty decent for a gaming phone with good skin tones and nice illumination. Here, only the ROG Phone has a tele-lens, this being 32-megapixels and having a 3x optical zoom capability. At 3x zoom, interestingly enough, even though the Red Magic lacks a dedicated telephoto lens, both photos look pretty similar in terms of sharpness. However, once we push it to 10x zoom, the ROG Phone does capture more detail. Only the Red Magic comes with a dedicated macro lens, however, this is tiny at only 2 megapixels. Here, you can see just how close you can get with the Red Magic compared to the ROG Phone. While not bad, we think adding a telephoto lens would have been way more useful, but hey, that's just us. So, while these phones aren't exactly the best for photography, the ROG Phone proves to be a pretty capable device in multiple scenarios. On the other hand, the Red Magic's cameras are pretty lackluster, with the front camera being especially bad, but hey, at least it's hidden under the display, giving you more screen real estate for gaming and media. Now, let's talk batteries. The Red Magic 10 Pro comes with a massive 7,050 milliamp hour dual-cell battery, while the ROG Phone 9 Pro has a smaller 5,800 milliamp hour one. As for charging, the Red Magic can hit an impressive 100 watts wired charging speed, while the ROG Phone is slower at 56 watts, but to be fair, the ROG does offer wireless charging, even if it's only 15 watts. Both phones also have a handy battery bypass feature, which you can turn on anytime to protect the battery and keep things cool while gaming. During our testing, while it might be obvious, the battery on the Red Magic did last longer than the one in the ROG Phone, despite all of our tests. At the end of the day, though, battery life really comes down to how you use your phone, whether it's for watching videos, social networks, or hardcore gaming. But yeah, all this performance does come at a price. The Red Magic 10 Pro in the Dusk configuration with 24 gigabytes of RAM and one terabyte of storage will set you back around $1,169. Meanwhile, the ROG Phone 9 Pro in the Edition version with the same 24 gigabytes of RAM and one terabyte of storage comes in at a pretty hefty $1,499. Honestly, that kind of makes the Red Magic feel like a total bargain, especially when you think about how much power it's packing. So putting all the pieces together, we could say that the Red Magic 10 Pro is the best choice between these two if you're looking at it from a price to performance perspective. Flawless victory. But of course, it's not all perfect. The Red Magic does come with its fair share of software quirks and a pretty lackluster update policy. On the other hand, the ROG Phone, while definitely more expensive, really shines when it comes to software optimization. So if you've got the budget, we definitely recommend going for the ROG Phone since it also offers better long-term software support. Before you go, don't forget to give us a big thumbs up if you enjoyed this video and hit subscribe as we're always testing out new devices to help you make the best choice. Links to both of these devices mentioned in the video can be found in the description below. We'll see you in our next video. And remember, the cake is a...