RedMagic Astra Review: Easily the best Android tablet for gaming

Introduction

Just under a year ago, I tested out RedMagic’s first-ever gaming tablet, and I liked it a lot. Now, a new tablet has arrived. I was expecting a similar experience with a newer chip inside – but this is something completely different.

Unlike last year’s RedMagic Nova, which had a spacious 10.9-inch display, the new Astra tablet is much more portable with a 9.06-inch panel. It may not sound like a huge difference, but it is. This tablet is significantly smaller, with a footprint akin to an iPad mini.

The RedMagic Astra promises to be much more comfortable for long gaming sessions, and also much easier to travel with. As you might expect, it has Qualcomm’s best inside, the Snapdragon 8 Elite, and it’s actively cooled, too.

Once again, we’re dealing with one of the fastest tablets ever made, but is it worth your hard-earned cash? After gaming on it for the past week, here’s what I think.

Design 

• 207 x 134.2 x 6.9 mm, 370g
• Aluminium frame and rear
• IP54 rated

Aesthetically, the RedMagic Astra is very similar to last year’s Nova, only scaled down in size. It still has an aluminium unibody design, and there’s still a section designed to look like a window to the internals running across the rear.

At a glance, it’s a convincing effect, but upon closer inspection, this decorative strip is just printed to look something like a PCB, rather than an actual window to the inside.

You get the same fan, complete with rainbow-coloured LEDs, and the RedMagic logo is backlit too. You can’t change the colour of the fan LEDs (you can only turn them off), but the RedMagic logo is highly customisable, with multiple colour options and animation styles.

The power button/fingerprint reader is placed on the top (when held vertically), the volume rocker and dedicated gaming switch are on the right side, and the USB-C port is on the base.

I like that the USB-C port has been shifted to the right slightly, rather than being in the centre. It means that, when playing a game in horizontal orientation, the charging cable is well out of the way of your palms. I could see the positioning being beneficial for some clamp-style controllers, too, but unfortunately, my trusty GameSir grip doesn’t stretch wide enough to accommodate this slate.

There’s no headphone socket on this model, and that’s nothing unusual for a tablet in 2025; however, it is unusual for a RedMagic device. With such a focus on gaming, I expected a audio option, but alas.

The Astra is available in two colours, Starfrost and Eclipse. These essentially equate to light grey or dark grey, and I have the darker option in for testing. I think both look pretty nice, but my test unit is very fingerprint-prone, which doesn’t look great. I think the lighter option will probably fare better in that regard.

This model has an IP54 rating for dust and water resistance, which is impressive considering it has an active cooling fan, which needs an intake and exhaust to function. Of course, this doesn’t mean it’s fully immune, but a bit of dust and the odd splash of water should do no harm.

As mentioned in the introduction, the biggest change compared to last year’s model is the physical size, and I think it’s a change for the better. While large tablets are great for watching movies and YouTube videos, I find them hard to play games on. Since this is a gaming tablet, it makes perfect sense to scale things down and keep touch controls comfortably in reach.

I think RedMagic may have landed on the perfect size with this release. It’s large enough to offer a tangible benefit over phones (even most foldables), but small enough to be comfortable. I can imagine it working well with a clamp-style controller, too. It’ll be a big device with the controller attached, but still not as wide as the Steam Deck, so it might make sense for some users.

Screen 

• 9-inch 165Hz 1504×2400 LTPO OLED
• Corning Gorilla Glass
• 1600 nits peak brightness

While the screen may be smaller than last year’s model, it’s also much more impressive. For starters, it’s an OLED panel, rather than IPS, so the contrast and black levels are in a whole different league.

It also features a 165Hz refresh rate, up from 144Hz, and is equipped with an LTPO panel that can adjust its refresh rate as low as 1Hz to conserve battery life.

The bezels are slimmer, which makes sense on a smaller tablet, as it’s much easier to hold. It’s also covered with Corning Gorilla Glass, although RedMagic hasn’t specified exactly which version. My unit is still looking pristine and scratch-free, but only time will tell how it fares in the long term.

The screen has a 16:10 aspect ratio, and I think that’s a nice middle ground on a tablet like this. It allows you to see more of web pages and games, while still keeping black bars to a minimum when watching full-screen TV shows and movies.

RedMagic claims a peak brightness of 1600 nits, which is a massive leap compared to the Nova’s 500 nit output. It’s still not as bright as a typical flagship phone, but it’s bright enough to be used outdoors, and it makes HDR content look brilliant.

Cameras 

• 13MP main camera
• 9MP selfie camera

Cameras are never the main focus of tablets, but they’re crucial for video chats, scanning QR codes, and the like. As such, the RedMagic Astra comes equipped with a modest 13MP camera on the rear and a 9MP selfie camera.

The resolution of each has dropped pretty significantly compared to last year’s effort, but the quality is acceptable for the intended use. At the very least, the front-facing camera rivals and often outperforms most laptop webcams.

If you want to take impressive pictures, though, this is not the tool for the job. Even the cheapest of budget phones will take better pictures than this tablet, and for some reason, there’s an excruciatingly long wait every time you press the shutter button.

Still, for the odd Zoom call, this will get the job done. The front camera can record video at up to 1080p, while the rear can shoot at 4K. 

Performance 

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite
• Up to 24GB RAM, 1TB storage
• Dual stereo speakers

The RedMagic Astra is powered by one of the most powerful chips on the market, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite, and it’s paired with a serious cooling system, too. RedMagic calls it the ICE-X system, which uses a liquid metal thermal interface, dual-layer sandwich vapour chambers and a high-speed active fan.

We already know how well the 8 Elite performs in a variety of form factors, and this advanced cooling solution should only help to push it further. To make matters even better, it can be configured with up to 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, though my test unit has a more modest 16GB + 512GB setup.

Our usual suite of benchmark tests shows that the Astra trades blows with the OnePlus Pad 3, one of the only other tablets we’ve tried with the 8 Elite at its core. Despite RedMagic’s cooling efforts, it doesn’t blow it out of the water, and the two are within spitting distance in most tests. In fairness, though, this is a smaller tablet, and therefore the vapour chambers are smaller, too.

Really, we’re just splitting hairs here; it might not be demonstrably faster than similarly specced competition, but it’s still incredibly quick. You’ll struggle to find a task that the RedMagic Astra can’t breeze through with finesse.

Want to play Wuthering Waves at max settings? No problem. 4K video editing in Luma Fusion? The Astra takes it in its stride. With this much power at your disposal, it’s quite challenging to find something that this tablet can’t do.

While the cooling doesn’t seem to equate to extra frames, it does make a difference elsewhere. After an hour of playing Wuthering Waves at the highest possible settings, the tablet barely got warm. This game turns some phones into a furnace, so that’s quite the accomplishment. 

The speakers are pretty impressive, too. They can get incredibly loud, and there’s a little bit of weight to the low end, which prevents them from sounding tinny. However, the positioning isn’t ideal. They’re on the left and right sides, which means they’re quite easy to muffle if you’re not careful with how you’re gripping it.

Software 

• RedMagic OS 10.5, based on Android 15
• RedMagic AI
• A massive suite of gaming tools

The Astra runs RedMagic OS 10.5, which is the brand’s customised version of Android 15. If you’ve used a recent RedMagic handset, you won’t be in for too many surprises here; it has similar aesthetics and features to the last few RedMagic devices I’ve tested.

If you’re less familiar, the OS is essentially split into two sections. There’s a fairly typical Android-style homescreen, albeit with a sci-fi aesthetic, which you can adjust to look less gamer-y if that’s not your thing. Then there’s the Game Space, which is accessed via the physical switch on the side of the tablet.

The Game Space is more of a console-like experience. You can use it to browse through and launch your games, as well as configure game-specific settings for performance, visuals, and control.

The Game Space launcher is an optional experience. You can still access a plethora of game enhancements and tweaks when you launch a game from the homescreen.  All you need to do is swipe from either edge of the display to bring up the dedicated gaming menu.

RedMagic continues to add more and more options to this menu; the tools range from simple things like notification blocking and network optimisation, to advanced tweaks, like the ability to force landscape games to play in portrait mode. Simply put, no other tablet gives you this many gaming options.

Outside of gaming, the tablet behaves like most other Android slates. There’s a tiny bit of bloatware when you first set it up, but it’s only a handful of apps, so cleaning it all up is easy enough. Multitasking options are solid, too, with options for displaying apps side by side or in floating windows.

Gemini is set as the default assistant; however, there doesn’t seem to be a way to activate Circle to Search. There’s no Google Discover feed when you swipe right on the home screen, either. Instead, you get RedMagic’s own Boards panel, which is filled with clickbait news stories. Thankfully, it can be disabled.

Battery life 

• 8200 mAh battery
• 80W charging
• No charger in the box

The RedMagic Astra has an 8200 mAh cell inside, considerably smaller than the Nova’s battery, but given that it’s a much smaller tablet, that shouldn’t be a huge surprise.

RedMagic reckons it’ll manage around 5.5 hours of Genshin, 4.5 hours of PUBG or 33 hours of movie playback on a charge. In my testing, these claims seem feasible. An hour of Wuthering Waves on max settings drained 25% of the battery, and that’s one of the hardest Android games to run, so lighter titles will make the battery last significantly longer.

It charges at up to 80W speeds, with the right adapter, but this is the first RedMagic product I have tested that comes without a charger in the box. So, if you don’t have a suitably fast charger, you’ll need to factor in that additional cost.

Using my Ugreen Nexode desktop charger, I was able to take the tablet from fully dead to 100% charged in about an hour and 20 minutes. Meanwhile, half an hour on the charger will net you a 50% charge.

Should you buy it?

FAQs