Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro vs Nubia Red Magic 10 Pro: which gaming phone is best?

Mobile gaming is massive, but when it comes to smartphones purpose built for playing games, there are really only two players on the field: Asus and Nubia.

The Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro and the Nubia Red Magic 10 Pro represent the latest efforts from both companies, launched within days of each another in late 2024. Fascinatingly, while we handed out the same positive 4 out of 5 score for both phones, they take very different approaches to gaming phone mastery.

This makes a straight comparison invaluable. It also means that, depending on your budget and your specific requirements, we're confident that these two devices can cover all of the gaming phone bases between them.

So how do these two giant gaming phones compare? Which is the best for most people? Before we dive into the finer points, let's run through the key specifications for both.

Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro vs Nubia Red Magic 10 Pro: specs comparison

When comparing these two gaming titans on paper, they seem quite similar. It's only when to get to the experience of actually using them that some major differences manifest themselves.

Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro vs Nubia Red Magic 10 Pro: price and availability

As we mentioned earlier, these two gaming phones launched within days of each other. The Nubia Red Magic 10 Pro was technically first, arriving in select markets on November 18, 2024, while the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro came along two days later on November 20. Global availability for both phones strayed into December.

There's no such commonality when it comes to pricing, which is perhaps the most eye-catching difference between these two bespoke gaming phones.

The Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro starts from $1,199 / £1,099.99 / AU$1,999 for 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Bumping that up to the ROG Phone Pro Edition with 24GB of RAM and 1TB (and an AeroActive Cooler X Pro fan in the box) will cost $1,499.99 / £1,299.99 / AU$2,499.

We should point out that there's also an Asus ROG Phone 9 out there, which loses a couple of features (only 12GB RAM, no telephoto camera, a simpler rear display) for $999.99 / £949. For the purposes of this piece, though, we'll be focusing on the Pro.

Regardless of the ROG Phone 9 Pro model, there's no getting around the fact that the Red Magic 10 Pro is much, much cheaper. Pricing starts at $649 / £579 for the model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. Levelling up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB costs $799 / £709, and there's also a range-topper available with 24GB / 1TB for £879 / $999.

If money is your deciding factor, Nubia's phone wins hands down.

Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro vs Nubia Red Magic 10 Pro: design

These are two big phones with broadly similar dimensions. At 8.9mm thick and with a weight of 227g, the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro comes in 0.1mm thinner and 2g lighter than its rival. We're talking fractional differences between these two gaming behemoths.

Other than a general sense of bulk and the odd shared splash of colourful lighting or gamey decal, however, these two phones couldn't look or feel more different.

The Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro wears its premium pricing proudly, with a much classier and more refined look. Where the Red Magic is blocky and garish, all RGB lighting and faux-transparent casing, the ROG is gently rounded with a stealthy soft touch finish.

There's lighting on the ROG Phone 9 Pro, but it's completely invisible until you activate it in the Settings menu. Even then, its AniMe Vision display feels quite sophisticated in its own way, showing up knowingly retro-inflected notifications according to your specification. You can even play games on this secondary display, though none of them are very good.

Talking of playing games, both phones give you capacitive shoulder buttons, which can be mapped to in-game controls wherever such a feature is supported. Both phones show off their own unique gamer-friendly flourishes, however.

The Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro gives you a secondary USB-C port on its left hand edge, which makes charging while gaming in landscape view more pleasant. It also facilitates the additional AeroCooler fan(s) that can be clipped on, further improving sustained performance as well as adding physical shoulder buttons and a handy kickstand.

The Red Magic 10 Pro hits back by not needing a clip-on fan – it has an internal one of its own, complete with side vents. This makes the Red Magic more practical for sustained intense gaming sessions on the go, but it also makes it more vulnerable. Only the Asus gives you a proper IP68 water and dust resistance rating, bringing home the fact that it's the more usable phone day to day.

One other thing the Red Magic gives you that the ROG Phone doesn't is a dedicated slider switch for entering Nubia's Gamespace UI. It makes the phone feel more like a proper gaming device, though it's arguably unnecessary. You can access both gaming UIs through the respective Quick Settings menus.

Both phones give you 3.5mm headphones jacks, which is a decidedly gamer-friendly inclusion. You have to buy specialist wireless earphones if you want a low-latency audio experience, while a bog standard set of wired headphones gives you zero lag.

Both phones go fairly minimal on display bezels, which I'd argue isn't massively gamer-friendly. It precludes twin front-firing speakers, for one thing, but it's also less ideal for holding the phone in landscape orientation. Nubia wins points for clarity, however, with its under-display selfie camera offering a cleaner picture than the ROG Phone's hole-punch notch.

Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro vs Nubia Red Magic 10 Pro: displays

The fundamental differences in design continue over to differences in display technology, with both phones having points in their favor..

On the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro we have a 6.78-inch FHD+ (1080 x 2400) AMOLED with a 185Hz refresh rate and a 2,500-nits peak brightness.

The Nubia Red Magic 10 Pro gives you a 6.85-inch '1.5K' (1216 x 2688) AMOLED with a 144Hz refresh rate and a 2,000-nits peak brightness.

To summarize their differing strengths, then, the ROG Phone's screen is faster and brighter, while the Red Magic's is bigger and sharper. They're both strong panels for gaming, though we should mention again that the Red Magic wins some extra points for getting around that annoying notch problem – albeit with an unwelcome knock-on effect that we'll come to in the next section.

Asus's screen is arguably a little more future proof thanks to its unusually rapid 185Hz refresh rate, though in truth modern mobile games haven't quite reached that level of fluidity as of yet.

More consequential in the here and now is that the ROG Phone screen is slightly less pixel-packed. That makes for a slightly sharper picture, with a trade-off being that it places slightly more strain on the GPU. As with that refresh rate point though, it makes little difference in practice.

Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro vs Nubia Red Magic 10 Pro: cameras

Just as it is with foldable phones, the adage goes that you don't buy a gaming phone if you're looking to take nice pictures.

However, Asus has done more than any other manufacturer to prove that wrong. The ROG Phone 9 Pro camera setup isn't competitive with non-gaming phones of a similar price (such as the iPhone 16 Pro Max and the Pixel 9 Pro XL), but it is much better than the that of the Red Magic 10 Pro.

Asus's 50MP main sensor, accompanied by an unusually steady 6-axis gimbal system, takes sharp, vibrant shots in a variety of lighting conditions, not to mention freakishly stable video.

Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro camera samples

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The Nubia Red Magic's 50MP equivalent does an acceptable job, but it can't compete with its rival. It's a lower-mid-range performer, while the Asus hits more of an upper-mid-range or even lower-flagship standard.

Nowhere is this more strongly felt than when you consider the supplementary cameras in both phones. Asus gives you a solid 13MP ultra-wide with a freeform lens, along with a dedicated 32MP 3x telephoto camera. Nubia only gives you a pretty mediocre 50MP ultra-wide, with a superfluous 2MP macro camera in place of any optical zoom capability.

Then there's the selfie provision. Asus's 32MP front camera is far from the best in the field, but it serves to supply adequate selfies. That's more than can be said for the Red Magic. Thanks to that 16MP under-display camera, selfie shots look extremely soft and fuzzy, with poor detail and contrast.

Nubia Red Magic 10 Pro: camera samples

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All in all, the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro takes better pictures in every scenario, often by a large margin. It's this kind of non-gaming competence that Asus was shooting for, and it's why the phone costs twice the money.

Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro vs Nubia Red Magic 10 Pro: performance and software

Asus and Nubia might have very different ideas about what a modern gaming phone should constitute, but they clearly agree on one basic essential. These things need to be fast.

It's no surprise, then, to find that both phones run on Qualcomm's cutting edge Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, and that this is paired with an excess (up to 24GB in both cases) of fast RAM.

Unsurprisingly, these two phones performed about the same in most of our tests. We're talking margin-of-error differences in benchmark terms.

Indeed, as we move into 2025, these are the two of the fastest phones on the market, with about 40% better CPU performance compared to the previous Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 class, and about 24% better GPU performance.

For some reason, Nubia's phones don't play too nicely with the GPU-focused GFXBench app, yielding lower scores than you'd expect. This isn't reflected in practical gaming performance, however, where both phones run Genshin Impact and Wreckfest similarly impeccably on maxed out graphical settings.

Interestingly, both phones also scored almost exactly the same in 3D Mark's Solar Bay Stress Test, which runs 20 consecutive intensive minute-long GPU tests and scores them on stability. The Red Magic has that superior built-in cooling system, but it will clearly take something even more demanding (and more to the point, drawn out) than this benchmark test before any advantage manifests itself.

Asus notes that its clip-on AeroActive Cooler X Pro fan is there for those extended gaming sessions that exceed one hour, which is obviously something that the Red Magic doesn't require.

Asus's focus on everyday usability as well as gaming excellence extends to its software provision. It's much better than Nubia's game-centric approach.

Indeed, Asus is almost unique among phone makers in its provision of two UI options – one that offers its own heavily tweaked UI, and one that sticks closely to stock Android. The latter was my preference, with its clean Pixel-like menus and icons, but I appreciated the option to go another route.

Either way, Asus's software is cleaner and more refined than Nubia's. The latter's clumsy icons, silly cooling fan widgets, and juvenile car sound when plugging in a charger continue to grate.

The two are more finely balanced when it comes to the matter of playing games, with both manufacturers offering dedicated gaming UIs. In both cases, these let you fine tune your gaming experience, from performance levels to mappable controls.

Both companies are dabbling in gaming enhancements that can make certain games easier. Asus has an AI feature that will automatically pick up items when the prompt is detected, or speed up conversations. Nubia offers heads-up information like enhanced zoom and sound equalizers in shooters, which seem to border on cheating.

You shouldn't buy either phone if you're in it for the long haul, however. Asus will only commit to two major Android versions and five years of security patches, while Nubia will only stretch to one major Android upgrade and three years of security patches. Asus wins that one, but it's a very low bar, and the company should really do better given the higher asking price.

Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro vs Nubia Red Magic 10 Pro: battery

Both of these phones are absolute stamina champs with larger-than-average batteries. Asus fits its phone with a 5,800mAh cell, which sounds impressive until you consider the Red Magic 10 Pro's ginormous 7,050mAh battery.

In practical terms, both phones will get you through two days of moderate usage with ease. I'd be tempted to back the Nubia to last longer during a sustained gaming session, but don't forget that it's having to push more pixels around on that sharper display, not to mention a physical fan.

Both phones charge pretty quickly. The Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro gives you a 65W charger in the box, which can get you from empty to full in 45 minutes. Our review model of the Red Magic 10 Pro gave us a meaty 80W charger to go with its larger battery, and it got us to full in a slightly snappier 40 minutes. The international model ships with an even faster 100W charger.

Asus again shows that it's gunning for the mainstream by including wireless charging. It doesn't have any gaming applications, but it sure is convenient, and I missed it when switching over to the Red Magic.

Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro vs Nubia Red Magic 10 Pro: verdict

Considering there are only really two serious gaming phone options on the market these days, it's remarkable how far the two parties have gone to differentiate their latest offerings.

When it comes to the simple business of running the most demanding games as well as possible, it's a tie. These two phones are the fastest we've ever used, and both provide mappable trigger buttons with custom gaming UIs.

Sure, the Nubia Red Magic provides a larger notchless display, a dedicated fan cooling, and a slightly sharper display. But the ROG Phone gives you a more fluid and brighter screen, a landscape-friendly secondary USB-C port, and an optional external fan accessory that comes bundled in with the top spec model.

It's impossible to call from a pure gaming standpoint. The differences come everywhere else, and they mean that you need to think hard about your own priorities.

Do you simply want the best gaming experience at the lowest price possible? The Nubia Red Magic 10 Pro is as no-nonsense as they come, providing top level sustained performance at a scarcely believable mid-range price.

Do you care about having a phone that will serve you well outside of gaming, with a decent camera, a respectable design, and clean software? The Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro is the closest to that 'everything' gaming phone ideal that we've seen, but it comes with a price tag to match.

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