Redmagic, a sub-brand of Chinese company ZTE, has announced its new Redmagic 11 Pro smartphone for the Chinese market. It’d be cool enough to drool over even if it was only slated for launch in that country, but with a pending international launch on 7 November, we might see it somewhere outside of its home grounds at some point.
Why should we care about the 11 Pro? Two reasons — an absolutely massive battery, and the world’s first (available at retail) liquid cooling system. Will those features be entirely practical? Possibly. Were they developed solely to stand out from the rest of the smartphone market? Almost certainly. Still… it’s a liquid-cooled smartphone.
Redmagic 11 Pro. Tips?
Redmagic tends to do wacky things with its smartphones, previously launching almost hilariously overspecced gaming handsets. The company’s 11 Pro is no different, at least with regards to internal power. The 6.85in AMOLED display has a refresh rate of 144Hz, 2,000 nits of peak brightness, and 520Hz touch sensing. Haptic shoulder buttons reinforce the gaming monitor-like screen specs.
A Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 takes care of internal power, and users have either 12GB or 16GB of RAM at their disposal. Apparently, 24GB of the stuff was overkill. Redmagic offers 256GB or 512GB of storage, with RAM allocation tied to how much space you have. Bigger is better, obviously.
The cameras, as you might expect from a dedicated gaming phone, are almost an afterthought. But in this one’s case, the afterthought is at least a little thoughtful. Dual 50MP rear sensors, one wide and one ultrawide, are bolstered by a 2MP macro sensor (there’s the major sacrifice), with up to 8K video recording possible at 30fps. Generally, recording at that resolution would heat your device. That, and gaming, might be helped by the liquid cooling system.
It’s an active cooling system, powered by a ceramic micro-pump that distributes fluid around the phone. It wouldn’t be nearly as cool (heh) if you couldn’t show it off, so Redmagic has designed the 11 Pro so you can see the fluid circulating. Hey, bragging rights have to come from somewhere. The so-called AquaCore Cooling System is backed by “the Industry’s fastest turbo fan.” Make of that what you will.
Pricing for the international market isn’t known, but it’s estimated at about €600 (when converted from China’s currency). That pegs it at about R13,000, but that’s before it’s shipped halfway around the world, adding markups at each respective stop. If the Redmagic 11 Pro launches here, don’t expect it to be nearly so cheap.
