RedMagic 11S Pro review

Unchanged 6.85-inch 144Hz OLED display

The RedMagic 11S Pro inherits the same 6.85-inch OLED display as its last few predecessors. The panel offers 1,216 x 2,688px resolution and a 144Hz refresh rate. Nubia doesn't mention anything about HDR, but we can confirm that it works on YouTube.

As is the case for a few generations now, the display is symmetrical with razor-thin bezels measuring 1.25mm in thickness. There's also no cutout for the selfie camera as it uses an under-display camera. A standout feature that delivers a true full-screen experience.

RedMagic 11S Pro under-display selfie

Surely, the camera quality isn't great, but if your priority is multimedia consumption and gaming, the trade-off is worth it. We leave the camera quality assessment for the Camera section of the review.

There are no surprises when it comes to performance. The display performs just like last year. With a white patch taking up 75% of the screen estate, the display can boost up to 1,587 nits, which is more than enough for comfortable outdoor use even on a bright sunny day. With a 10% white patch, the display reached 1,964 nits. That might explain why there are no HDR certifications, but it's good enough for basic HDR content on YouTube.

The lowest brightness we were able to record was 3.2 nits, which might not be dim enough for some users using their phones in a pitch-black room.

Refresh rate

The refresh rate options are as follows - 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz, 144Hz and Intelligent adjustment (Auto). The latter is the default option, switching between 60 Hz and 120 Hz, depending on the scenario. For instance, on YouTube and Netflix, it will dial down to 60Hz or when the screen is not in use.

The 144Hz option acts as the auto mode but boosts the refresh rate up to 144Hz instead of 120Hz. So, if you are looking for the smoothest possible experience, you should use the 144Hz mode, as it seems efficient enough.

Battery life

The RedMagic 11S Pro sports largely similar hardware compared to the 11 Pro. We have the same 7,500 mAh battery on board and the same 6.85-inch display, but this time they are paired with a higher-clocked version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset. Still, this shouldn't affect battery life as much, and the figures confirm it.

The Active Use Score of 20:18h is almost identical to the 11 Pro's from last year. The discrepancy in our battery life scenarios on the two handsets is likely due to statistical error or minor tweaks in the newer software.

In any case, the battery life is solid and is in line with most other 7,000+ mAh smartphones on the market.

Charging speed

Since there's no change in the battery capacity and charging power, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the newer RedMagic 11S Pro posted the same charging times as its predecessor.

An 80-watt charger, which comes with the phone even in Europe, supplies the 7,500 mAh battery with juice and can fill the battery from 1 to 100% in 53 minutes. And in the first 15 minutes of the charging cycle, you can get 40% of the charge back, which is pretty solid.

Overall, the charging rate is reliably fast, but it's also a tad behind some competitors.

The handset also supports 80W wireless charging when paired with a compatible wireless charging stand.

Nubia provides a couple of charging settings that would potentially extend the battery's life cycle. For instance, you can set a charging limit or disable the fast charging altogether. More importantly, the phone supports bypass charging, meaning you can use your phone and it would just take enough to keep going without charging the battery, which lowers the heat buildup from the charging process (a potential dealbreaker for gaming performance).

Speakers

The RedMagic 11 Pro features a hybrid stereo speaker setup with a full-fledged speaker at the bottom paired with a smaller speaker that acts as an earpiece at the top. Naturally, the bottom one is louder than the hybrid speaker at the top.

It looks like nubia didn't tweak the speakers this year, so we got roughly the same results. Loudness isn't amazing, as the phone scored -26.X LUFS, earning a "Good" loudness score.

Sound tuning is better than previous generations (pre-RedMagic 11 Pro), but still not ideal. The vocals and highs are a bit muffled, leaving more room for the bass, which in turn isn't great either.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable to our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.