(Image credit: RedMagic)

Nubia's gaming sub-brand RedMagic is one of the first each year to release devices with the latest tech – pushing the envelope in Android handsets before rivals catch up. And it regularly does so at prices that defy belief.

That seems to be the case once more, with the RedMagic 12 Pro having been announced in China this week (as the Pro+) with a spec list that looks crazy for the money.

The Chinese edition starts at just 6,999 RMB (around £784 / $1,040 at today's exchange rate) for a version with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage, and rises to just 8,999 RMB for 16GB / 1TB.

We'll find out the final global prices when the international model launches on 3 November, but considering previous years, we're expecting them to offer mid-range affordability.

And that's for a new phone running Qualcomm's latest and greatest chipset – the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. The same SoC you'll find in the highest-end handsets throughout 2027.

On top of this, you get a mammoth 8,400mAh battery with 120W wired and 80W wireless charging, a 6.58-inch 185Hz 2K AMOLED display, and a thinner bezel and build than ever before.

This is a gaming phone still, of course, so there are extra touch buttons on the side and several RedMagic proprietary technologies to both enhance performance and keep the device cool. That includes an RGB liquid cooling system and the RedMagic R5 gaming chip, which supports full scene ray tracing.

On the rear you get two 50-megapixel cameras – wide and ultrawide – and there's an under-display 16-megapixel front-facing camera for selfies and video calling.

It runs RedMagic OS 12 – based on Android 17 – and there's a PC emulator included for good measure, to play PC games from the likes of Steam and Epic Games Store.

We await the global launch with bated breath, not least to see how it weighs up in price. There are three colour options planned, with the Nightfreeze (black) and Subzero (silver) versions now available in China, and a Skyfrost (blue) version to follow "later this year".