This Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 flagship smartphone will be the first of its kind for water resistance

The RedMagic 10 Pro — a stunningly pretty and super powerful smartphone — also featured a cooling fan, much like a few other gaming phones. However, this meant that the phone wasn’t particularly good at dust and water resistance, something that’s changing with the RedMagic 11.

The new phone, likely coming in October or November of this year, will also have a cooling fan. However, this time around, RedMagic has been able to score a rating of IP68, a significant improvement over the previous phone’s lack of a rating altogether. The RedMagic 11, according to a new report (translated source), will be the first ever phone to feature a fan and still come with an IP68 rating.

RedMagic phones were already pretty excellent devices, in my opinion. They often provide users with a lot better specs for the same price, and the RedMagic 10 Pro had a display that I wish every phone would have: completely free of any cutouts.

These phones are mostly focused around gaming, so sacrificing dust and water resistance was just a tradeoff for better cooling. With the RedMagic 11, however, even that one shortcoming has been rectified, which makes me think that it’s going to easily become one of the best smartphones of 2025.

In addition to the improved IP rating, the report also revealed something that I think many of us already expected. The RedMagic 11 will come with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 chipset, which will be one of the most powerful processors found on phones in 2026.

Samsung is also apparently planning to use this chipset for the upcoming Galaxy S26 phones, as its plans for the in-house 2 nm Exynos 2600 seem to have run into some trouble. Thanks to a recent listing for the Samsung Galaxy S26 Edge, we also know the performance scores of the Elite 2, and it’s quite a sight to behold.

The RedMagic 11 will likely debut in China around November, and release globally in December. Personally, I’m hoping for a few other phone manufacturers to take some cues from RedMagic, and start pivoting the industry back towards cutout-free displays.