nubia Red Magic 6S Pro review

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
• Xiaomi Black Shark 4
  97
• nubia Red Magic 5S
  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.