We Pit These Two Weird-Looking Android Gaming Phones Head to Head

From a design perspective, the OnePlus 15 And RedMagic 11 Pro are almost completely opposite. OnePlus aims to evoke premium design and sleek aesthetics, while the angular and futuristic RedMagic 11 Pro looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.

However, these powerful Android phones share almost identical internal specifications and are both heavily focused on gaming. The OnePlus 15 aims to be a flagship phone that also offers a solid gaming experience, while the RedMagic 11 Pro is primarily a gaming phone that also handles everyday smartphone tasks.

They are both incredibly powerful and each makes different compromises to deliver a unique and distinct experience.

Display

Large, beautiful and fast screens are at the forefront here and are impressive both technically and visually. The RedMagic 11 Pro houses an almost perfectly rectangular 6.85-inch AMOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate. OnePlus has opted for a 6.78-inch OLED panel with a 120Hertz refresh rate that can reach 165Hz during supported games.

The RedMagic 11 Pro’s AMOLED panel displays better colors and the higher refresh rate gives it the edge here. Additionally, RedMagic has been hiding its selfie cameras under the display for a few years now, so the screen is truly edge-to-edge, with no cutout for the camera. It’s a little more tilted than most other phones, but not uncomfortable, and the huge, beautiful screen is wonderful to look at.

Performance

The RedMagic 11 Pro and the OnePlus 15 have almost identical technical sheets. Both house the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 with similar storage configurations of 12GB or 16GB RAM and 256GB or 512GB storage. RedMagic has an advantage here, offering a maxed out version with 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, but most people won’t need that much power. However, given that this version is the same price as the 16GB and/512GB edition of the OnePlus 15, this is a value-driven point for RedMagic.

Both RedMagic and OnePlus designed proprietary processors to accompany Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 to improve gaming performance, and the result is two phones that simply steal. I never experienced any slowdowns or stutters in the software. No matter what I did, neither phone seemed to slow down.

Battery and charging

Both phones have massive batteries, with the OnePlus 15 having a capacity of 7,300 mAh and the RedMagic 11 Pro producing slightly more juice at 7,500 mAh. Both will easily get you through two days, as long as you keep the games to a minimum.

Luckily, both devices support fast charging, and it’s one of the fastest in the industry, especially in the US. Each can charge at speeds of 80 watts via wired charging, and both come with an 80W charger in the box, which is unfortunately rare these days. OnePlus charges according to the proprietary SuperVooc standard, which means you’ll need to use the included power adapter to achieve the phone’s fastest speed. Meanwhile, RedMagic uses the more universal USB-PD standard, so its charging brick can quickly charge other devices as well.

Wireless charging is available on both devices – a first for RedMagic. What’s even more impressive is how quickly they can charge wirelessly. OnePlus was the first (and still is the only) company to introduce 50W wireless charging in the US a few years ago. RedMagic claims the 11 Pro can charge up to 80W wirelessly. This is an absolutely absurd claim and one that I unfortunately cannot test, as the only 80W wireless charger I could find is made by Xiaomi and therefore is not available here in the US. OnePlus achieves this faster speed using the AirVooc standard – again, you’ll need the OnePlus-made wireless charger to get the faster 50W speed. While we can’t test the 80W wireless charging claim, we do know that the phone works with the more universal Qi wireless charging standard.

Games

RedMagic has built its entire philosophy around mobile gaming, and the 11 Pro is the epitome of that. The lack of a bump on the camera means it lies perfectly flat, allowing it to fit better in the hand and adapt better to mobile controllers. There are touch-sensitive shoulder triggers on the right side that can act as a touch point on the screen. For example, by setting the left one to aim and the right one to shoot in Call of Duty: Mobile, the phone easily feels more like a gamepad. There’s even a dedicated cooling fan built into the side to keep the phone cool during longer gaming sessions.

The pinnacle of it all is a feature that is still rare on all but high-end gaming PCs: a self-contained liquid cooling system. On the Nightfreeze and Subzero models, you can actually see the electric blue coolant inside the phone. Turn it on and liquid will literally flow through the internal components to help maintain peak gaming performance longer than ever.

This all might seem a bit over the top (and it absolutely does to almost everyone), but it really sets RedMagic apart.

OnePlus is taking a different approach, aiming to be a more traditional smartphone that still excels at gaming. On the OnePlus 15, dedicated touch sampling and Wi-Fi processors, along with a proprietary internal cooling system, are specifically designed to extract as much performance as possible during gaming.

And it works. Highly demanding games like Call of Duty: Mobile, Genshin Impact, PUBG, and Wuthering Heights — among others — all ran flawlessly on the OnePlus 15. In Call of Duty, I very rarely went below 165fps, which is significantly higher than the average gaming PC can handle.

Both companies are also adding software features to enhance the gaming experience. OnePlus offers a pre-installed app called Game Assistant that lets you change settings for each game. RedMagic takes it a step further by giving you a hardware button that launches Game Space. It’s basically a separate launcher that almost turns your phone into a mini console. It also lets you change settings, but it offers many more options to tweak, including an in-game overlay where you can install plugins and macros for extremely granular customization.

Software

In addition to their very different aesthetics, the software experiences are also very different. OnePlus took several elements of Apple’s Liquid Glass design language for OxygenOS 16, but the overall experience remains very fast, very smooth, and pretty close to Google’s intended version of Android. It’s still one of my favorite versions of the operating system.

The RedMagic 11 Pro knows it’s a gaming phone through and through. Fortunately, RedMagic has significantly toned down the extremely over-the-top gaming-focused design elements over the years, but they are still clearly visible throughout the software. The company also preloads the phone with an unacceptable amount of bloatware and unnecessary apps, some of which cannot be uninstalled.

CNET Editor-in-Chief Mike Sorrentino felt rather disappointed with the software experience on the RedMagic 11 Pro during his testing, but personally I didn’t find it too unbearable. Almost all of the problems he and I have with the software are the same ones I’ve had with Samsung’s software for years – and, as it turns out, most of them are pretty easy to avoid.

But without a doubt, this one goes to OnePlus.

Pricing and availability

The prices of RedMagic and OnePlus phones have risen steadily over the years, to the point where both are squarely in flagship territory. The OnePlus 15 starts at $899 for 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage and goes up to $999 for the 16GB and 512GB versions. The base model only comes in black, but OnePlus usually offers the higher-end models at a lower price at launch.

The RedMagic 11 Pro starts at $749 for the 12GB RAM and 256GB model and also goes up $100 to $849 for the 16GB and 512GB model. The top-end 24GB RAM and 1TB storage configuration costs $999, the same price as the less capable OnePlus 15.

Both devices will be available in most regions. The OnePlus 15 will be on sale at Best Buy, Amazon and the OnePlus websitealthough the ultraviolet color option is only available in limited quantities on Amazon and OnePlus. THE RedMagic 11 Pro will be available on the RedMagic website and on Amazon.