RedMagic 7 Gaming Phone Review 2022 (Its OVERKILL!)

The Charger and Charging Experience

I was able to recharge my phone from zero percent to 98 in just over 30 minutes, which is probably due to using a dual 4 500 milliamp per hour double cell battery. A similar technique is also used in the OnePlus 10 Pro, which also charges at 65 watts in the US and as fast as 80 watts in the international model. The phone's charger also can bypass the battery to power the phone, which would be nice to see come to other phones, especially when your battery is otherwise dead and you don't want to wait for it to charge up to three to five percent.

In the case of the Red Magic, it allows the phone to also keep the battery cool and extend its battery's lifespan by letting it run off the charger instead when available. This feature is particularly useful in situations where you don't want to wait for your battery to charge up fully before using your phone.

Gaming Tests

While you can launch games like any other Android phone, the Red Magic includes a hardware switch in the top left that launches a gaming-specific launcher. Some games are automatically added to this launcher when you download them, but if it misses a few games, you can also add them directly. When the Red Magic recognizes that you're launching a game, it automatically starts its built-in cooling fan and launches several software enhancements. It also displays a little stats window that shows data like how many frames per second the game is actually running at.

You can also swipe in from the corners of the screen to select from different power modes and to change the refresh rate. There are also features for recording your gameplay and then sharing it to Discord or other messaging apps. The side of the Red Magic also has a touch-sensitive area that can act like a shoulder button, and you can configure those buttons to tap on specific sections of the screen.

For example, in Apex Legends Mobile, I set up the touch-sensitive area to shoot. The phone didn't appear to chug at all despite warnings provided by the game that the phone may need to be paired up with a cooling system. This gaming performance was consistent across other games I tried, although more casual games expectedly peaked at 60 frames per second like in Mario Kart.

Other Gaming Features

The Red Magic includes a case in the box so you don't have to hold the phone directly while playing. The fan also kicks on while you're charging the phone to help keep things cool during its fast charging. I also liked how the fan of my review unit has a rainbow lighting effect, which doesn't help with cooling things down but still a nice touch.

Other highlights of the Red Magic include dual stereo speakers that were helpful when my hand covered one of the speakers while playing. The inclusion of a headphone jack is always notable. The phone includes a 64-megapixel main rear camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor camera. The front-facing camera is an 8-megapixel camera.

Camera and Display

The rear cameras are fine and include a night mode for photography and video recording at up to 8k resolution at 30 frames per second along with 4k at 60 frames per second. However, the phone being so gaming-focused this likely isn't going to be the device to get if you're hoping to take lots and lots of photos and video.

I am surprised that the front-facing camera isn't at 13 or 60 megapixels though to help with live streaming and perhaps this is one of the ways that the phone gets its price. The phone runs on Red Magic OS 5.0, which is based on Android 12. This take on Android 12 isn't my favorite; it initially places all of its apps on the home screen like iOS, but a few quick setting changes can bring back the app drawer if you'd rather have that in place.

The launcher also defaults to the next web browser, which again can be easily flipped to Chrome, Firefox, or any other browser you prefer.