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Thank you to Red Magic for sponsoring this video. This is the Red Magic 12 Pro, and on paper it could be the most powerful smartphone in the world right now. With the new 5GHz Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 processor, up to 16GB of RAM, and a dedicated gaming chip for frame interpolation and scaling. But beyond that, it's also one of the few smartphones to offer two types of active cooling: a built-in fan spinning at over 25,000 rpm and a true liquid cooling system. This means that the phone can not only run Android games at the highest settings, but is also capable of playing PC games right out of the box thanks to the built-in emulator. Of course, in everyday tasks like opening TikTok, you won't notice much difference
compared to other flagships. In fact, even in programs like Adobe Acrobat and Lightroom, the 12 Pro didn't have a significant advantage over the S26 Ultra. However, it was faster in other tasks, like exporting 4K video for editing on Instagram. The same was true for unpacking the same 6-gigabyte file. But, frankly, peak performance is not the main thing about this phone, because the main goal here is stable performance. So for testing, we ran the 3D Mark X Wildlife Extreme benchmark. Interestingly, the iPhone 18 Pro Max actually showed the highest result in the first cycle. But already in the second cycle, Red Magic began to break ahead. And as the tests continued, the gap only
grew, so at the end the 12 Pro scored 1,000 points more than the iPhone, 2,000 points more than the Galaxy, and, well, significantly more than the Pixel. The reason the 12 Pro did a better job of maintaining performance probably comes down to two factors. First, Red Magic could simply be letting the phone heat up more before lowering the frequency, which, given the case temperature, is entirely possible. Second, of course, is the cooling system itself: in addition to the fan, the 12 Pro has a dual-loop liquid cooling system that uses a tiny pump to circulate dielectric fluid through two separate circuits-one for the chipset, the other for the
battery, so the phone can maintain higher FPS for longer. And at least in practice, that's exactly what we see. Playing Call of Duty on this device is a pleasure, everything runs as smoothly as possible. And while the game is limited to 165 FPS, the 12 Pro with a refresh rate of 185 Hz is able to display every one of those frames. But when it comes to games like Genshin Impact on Android, you're unfortunately still limited to 60 FPS. What's cool is that thanks to the Red Core gaming chip in the 12 Pro, frame interpolation allows you to double the FPS to 120 or even increase it to 185 to fully utilize the display's capabilities. However, it is important to note that frame interpolation is far from perfect. It can definitely lead to
some artifacts. In addition, it does not work with all Android games. Currently, it is only supported in a few projects. But you know, when it works, it's a really cool feature. But so far we've only talked about Android games, and that's just the tip of the iceberg of what this smartphone is capable of. Thanks to the built-in Red Magic emulator, you can play games from your PC: just log in to your Steam account, download the games-and you can start playing right on your phone. The first game I tried was my favorite, the original Halo. And although the anti-cheat doesn't allow you to play online, the ability to complete the campaign on your phone is just great.
I also ran GTA V, which runs surprisingly well. I was getting 55 to 70 FPS when running natively on high graphics settings. And with frame interpolation, the rate exceeded 100 FPS. But Far Cry 4 became my favorite experience: I was getting a stable 50-60 FPS even on high settings. And while interpolation allowed for over 100 FPS, I noticed more visual artifacts in this game, especially around the crosshairs. So I often turned it off, because, you know, 60 FPS was quite satisfactory for me But in Cyberpunk, frame interpolation is actually necessary, because without it I was only getting 20-30 FPS, which is not bad for a phone, but, you must admit, not very convenient for the game.
But with Frame Gen you can get around 50 or even 60 FPS. And you know, while it's far from perfect, it's definitely better than running the game natively. Of course, not every PC game will work perfectly through emulation, right? The result may be mixed: some games do not launch at all, or have errors and compatibility issues. But at least with the games I tried, it was a really cool experience. I mean, I still can't believe we're playing AAA games like this on a phone now . Of course, running such games requires a lot of energy, especially when you're putting so much strain on the hardware. And the good news is that Red Magic has equipped the 12 Pro with a gigantic 8400 mAh battery To see how important this is, we
compared it to the Galaxy S26 Ultra in our gaming battery test, where instead of running a benchmark or simply playing a video, our robots played League of Legends on each device. The difference turned out to be quite significant. The Galaxy ran out of juice after 6 hours and 2 minutes of gaming, while the 12 Pro still had about 33 percent charge- enough to last not one, not two, but exactly 3 hours longer, shutting down after only 9 hours and 2 minutes, which is pretty impressive considering the fan and entire cooling system were running the entire time. So I assume it could last even longer with normal everyday use.
Speaking of everyday tasks: it's interesting that a phone like the 12 Pro has many advantages for gaming, like a large battery, that also make it a good phone overall. Take, for example, the display. You get the benefit of a 185Hz refresh rate, as well as a 96.3% screen-to-body ratio with ultra-thin bezels and an under-display camera for a completely seamless display. The speakers here are also quite good, using the same 1115E speaker located on the bottom for the earpiece. Just listen for yourself and compare it to the S26 Ultra. I would definitely prefer the Galaxy for volume and clarity, but interestingly, as seen in our spectral analysis, the
12 Pro puts out more energy in the lower midrange, which may have been intended by Red Magic to give explosions and gunshots a little more power during gameplay. On the other hand, although gaming smartphones have certain advantages, they also have their drawbacks. And in the case of the 12 Pro, I think one of the biggest ones is the camera system. For example, the front camera under the display is great because the screen is not covered by anything, but the image quality suffers noticeably because of this. And on the back, since Red Magic made the cameras flush with the body, which is convenient for gaming because the protrusion does not interfere with holding the phone, this means that there is less space left for large sensors and optics
than in other flagships. That's not to say that the Pro's main and ultra-wide cameras can't take decent photos-they can, but they're not up to the level of the iPhone or Galaxy. What surprised me when reading the specifications was the IP68 and IP69 water and dust protection-I never thought I would see that in a device like this. But there is a nuance to this rating. It only applies to the phone itself. The cooling fan duct only has an IPX8 rating, so there's no dust protection certification there, which makes sense, right? This is an open duct, so you need to be careful with dust and especially sand to keep the fan working properly. And finally, regarding the software: Red Magic
has improved significantly in recent years. They added a bunch of specific game features. But the software is still not perfect. There is pre-installed unnecessary software, which, of course, can be removed in a few minutes, but the main disadvantage is the duration of support. Red Magic only promises two years of OS updates and three years of security patches. However, I think Red Magic's main goal is to offer maximum performance at the lowest possible price. And since the 12 Pro costs less than $1,000, even in these times of
memory shortages, this trade-off may be justifiable for those looking for the highest performance and best gaming experience. Well, that's all for me. Big thanks to Red Magic for sponsoring this review. Thank you all for watching, and as always, see you in the next episode.
