r/RedMagic

Sorry to spread some negativity, but I recently switched away from Redmagic after around 2 years and 7 months and this is why.

Everything started out initially positive. When I got my first Redmagic (8 Pro) in March of 2024 used, it felt great. I switched to it from an S20 FE that broke, and I was starting to get into PC emulation with Winlator 7.1 and was very invested in android emulators like Yuzu, Dolphin, etc. I also played a lot of Genshin Impact, some WuWa, and other mobile games that justified the high performance. When I got the phone, the hardware was amazing, and the software, while worse, it wasn't that much worse. The main reason why it was so good is that I could use the full power of its Gen 2 without any thermal throttling. Even in hot places, it never throttled. I made a lot of videos with it during the Glibc Winlator era, and had a lot of fun with it. I beat quite a few games like Ghostrunner, Titanfall 2, and multiple Need for Speed games. I also played a lot of mobile games as well, and overall, I had a great time with the 8 Pro. But after a year, I wanted more power. Winlator was getting better with Bionic, Eden was making improvements, and games like FF7 Remake and Jedi Fallen Order were (at the time) too slow for me to finish because they would drop under 30fps in important areas. This is around the time where I also got my first PC handheld (Steam Deck) and noted that while it was a good amount faster, the 8 Pro was still better in a number of ways, that being its portability, much better screen, and better battery life playing older games. So instead of completely switching to PC handhelds, I got myself a Redmagic 9 Pro. And unfortunately, this is where the problems started.

When I got my 9 Pro, I was initially super excited. The fastest Snapdragon with Turnip support, meaning it'd be best for emulation. But when I first started to record my first video, I noticed something. The phone started to throttle. Hard, and after 5 minutes, it was basically running the same as my old 8 Pro. I was confused for a while and thought it was a software glitch, but it wasn't. And no, it wasn't because of dirty fans. I got this phone used, but the fans were pretty clean. It turned out that I had to get a fan in order to cool the phone so that it wouldn't throttle under load. And this completely changed the way I played games on my phone. What the throttling meant was that I couldn't use the full power of the 9 Pro, meaning that the Gen 3 was mostly irrelevant to my use cases. I could only use it in lower power states (up to 680-720mhz) in order to circumvent throttling. While it was faster than the Gen 2, it wasn't by a large amount. I still managed to finish Jedi Fallen Order and FF7 Remake, but those games have dynamic resolution that could kick in, and even then, at the end of FF7R, it was still getting under 30fps at times. Hell, I remember that later on in my phone's life, it could throttle to as little as around 500mhz, actually worse than my old Gen 2, which always stayed at 550. It meant that I couldn't use the Gen 3 unless I was making a video. It didn't matter if the 9 Pro could play Metro Exodus at 1080p and 30fps if it throttled to 15fps within minutes. What it meant that emulation went from which games could run at max power to which games could run with about 2/3 power in order to avoid throttling. And no, bringing a fan was not the option. The 15w cooler I bought wasn't powerful enought to cool the phone unless I put it directly on the CPU, which meant I couldn't use my Gamesir X4 Pro. Even if it did, I would have to bring a cable and a battery bank to power the thing, making it wildly unpractical. What this meant is that I switched from playing high end games to playing mainly older titles and indie games, usually with the eco mode. Not being able to properly play high end games led me to getting a better handheld, the Legion Go 1. And while it was good, it still had issues that made me keep the RM9. This is where the story would've ended, had it not been for the software issues.

Does anyone remember how bad Android 15 was on the Redmagics? It felt slower, had more bugs, and was just a worse experience. I remember when they completely broke the fingerprint sensor (which btw, the fingerprint sensors on Redmagic are legit the worst I've ever used on a smartphone somehow) for an entire month? I remember getting so mad that I wrote in the subreddit like "FIX THE FINGER SENSOR" out of pure hatred, and it's then that made me start to explore alternatives. I first got the Oneplus 12. Good price, better software, but worse battery life, and bad thermal performance made me sell it and keep the RM. This would be the case for a while, but during my time with the RM, my priorities for what I wanted in a phone shifted massively. I started playing mobile games less and less, quitting all gacha games and moving to just purely single player experiences. I used my RM a lot, but less for gaming, and more for normal tasks, aside from indie games and geometry dash. And I started using it more for normal tasks like just basic web browsing and watching YouTube, and this is where the experience started falling apart. YouTube Morphe had a lot of issues, and using normal YouTube is like walking through mud. I noticed how my mom's much slower phone (Helio G99) had less issues and occassionally loaded the app faster. In addition, I started using the cameras more, and what I despise about RMOS is the fact that there's no option to double tapping the power button to launch the camera, and no, using the switch is not a replacement.

But what led me to leaving fully was the Android 16 update. At first, it was great as they added the double tap to bring up the camera, but a few days after, they removed it??? For no reason??? And then, the phone just started turning off randomly. Whether I'm making a video or playing games or watching YT, it would just turn itself off sometimes and I could not find a fix for it. So I got sick of the phone, and the thing that made me look was getting messed up while actually playing GD. I believe it was Jawbreaker, got a new best prematurely cuz of the shitty RMOS. So I tried... another OP12. Yeah, I thought it'd be ok because maybe I messed up the first time, but no, still quite a few issues. So I sold it again (lol). Then I tried a Pixel 10a. Complete priority switch. While I did love the Pixel UI, it was just too small, too little storage, and too slow. The M*li gpu in this can't play really any games well, even the few indies I do play on the go now. Finally, I switched to the Moto Razr Ultra 2025, and this was surprisingly great. Same storage and ram, 8 Elite (although even with a 30w cooler it still throttles but great for indies) and the UI is actually great. Slightly worse than Pixel and OxygenOS, but still leagues ahead of RMOS simply for its simplicity and it actually working. The best part has been the cameras. I take a lot more photos now, and not only is the camera much better, but being able to use the ultrawide camera as a selfie camera is actually amazing. This is the phone I stuck with, and I did sell my RM9 shortly after accepting it.

So what do I game with now? Well... I bought the OneXplayer 3. Yeah, $1430 wasn't cheap at all. But it basically solves everything I had with my RM9 and Legion Go. Better battery life than both handhelds, OLED screen, better compatibility, and it basicially replaced both of them. Not cheap in the slightest, but absolutely worth it.

Overall, while I do miss my time with Redmagic, I'm pretty well off with my Motorola. My priorities have changed a lot since then, and while I have a lot of respect for the Redmagic team, it's hard to justify them as they have the worst software experience in modern android phones, while their main feature of cooling doesn't even work well. For the price of the RM11s, you can get a used Rog Ally Z1E that'll easily beat the 8 Elite Gen 5 (and likely the 6 as well) and a good android phone with far superior software support like the Pixel 10a or Galaxy A57. I loved my RM8, tolerated my RM9, but my life has changed a lot, and the software issues made me leave. I hope that they can find a way to stop their phones from severely thermal throttling without the use of an external fan, and get their damn software in check.

Why it shows almost all the time redmagic products are out of stock like whenever i go on their website it shows out of stock notify me