A couple of years ago, when smartphones started pushing the 7-inch screen size, we thought that small tablets were done for. And they did slowly wither away, leaving the scene open to their bigger 10-inch and above relatives.
Now we're looking at the RedMagic Astra and can't help but wonder, is there really a place for a sub-10 inch tablet on the market, and especially for a gaming tablet? Because that's what the Astra is – a 9-inch gaming tablet with some interesting tech inside and cool looks.
With its price tag of around $500 (499 euros in Europe), the device is quite attractive and actually aims to challenge the iPad Mini that carries the same price and is very similar in size. But at the end of the day, it's a dedicated gaming device, and we shouldn't forget that.
Let's dive deep and find the ins and outs of the RedMagic Astra gaming tablet.
Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite (3nm) Adreno 830 at 1.1GHz
Software Android 15, Redmagic OS 10.5
Cameras 13 MP main camera 9 MP front camera
Battery Size 8200 mAh
Charging Speeds 90W wired No wireless
Storage and RAM 12/256GB 16/512 GB 24GB/1TB
RedMagic Astra Design and Display
Compact and stylish
The overall aesthetics of the RedMagic Astra fall in line with the latest members of the RedMagic 10 family. There's a transparent strip of glass on the back housing the camera, the RGB fan and RedMagic logo, as well as some faux-schematics of the internals of the tablet, including the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, the vapor chamber cooling, etc.
We got the black version of the Astra, which relies on a matte black finish, and in this color, the design looks extremely cool. The aluminum unibody has an ever-so-slight radius to the sides and feels premium to the touch.
In terms of buttons, we have a slightly recessed power button on the left side, a volume rocker on the top left, and the red slider called Magic Key that activates the GameSpace mode. There are also two stereo speakers on both sides and a USB-C port.
RedMagic boasts a 4.9 mm uniform bezel around the screen, which sounds quite thin, but with such a compact device, it just looks normal. This kind of a bezel would've looked amazing on a 12-inch tablet.
The retail box isn't as lavish as we've been used to when it comes to RedMagic devices. Normally, you would find a charging brick inside, some kind of a cover or a case, and sometimes even additional accessories.
In this case, though, you're getting the tablet, some stickers and a USB-C cable, and that's it. It's a bit disappointing, especially given the gaming nature of this beast, but it is what it is. Let's move to the screen, which kind of redeems the modest retail box.
The Astra comes with a 9.06-inch OLED panel that can refresh at 165 Hz (mainly during gaming) and also boasts 1600 nits of peak brightness (1100 nits typical). It's not unusual to see OLED screens on tablets nowadays, but some, if not most, still use LCD panels to keep the cost down.
The resolution is 2.5K (2,400 x 1,504 pixels), which at this screen diagonal equals around 312 PPI pixel density, pretty good for a 9-incher. RedMagic also claims that the Astra's display covers 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut with precise color accuracy of ΔE < 1, and we're about to test all those claims.
The CIE 1931 xy color gamut chart represents the set(area)of colors that a display can reproduce,with the sRGB colorspace(the highlighted triangle)serving as reference.The chart also provides a visual representation of a display's color accuracy. The small squares across the boundaries of the triangle are the reference points for the various colors, while the small dots are the actual measurements. Ideally, each dot should be positioned on top of its respective square. The 'x:CIE31' and 'y:CIE31' values in the table below the chart indicate the position of each measurement on the chart. 'Y' shows the luminance (in nits) of each measured color, while 'Target Y' is the desired luminance level for that color. Finally, 'ΔE 2000' is the Delta E value of the measured color. Delta E values of below 2 are ideal.
The Color accuracy chart gives an idea of how close a display's measured colors are to their referential values. The first line holds the measured (actual) colors, while the second line holds the reference (target) colors. The closer the actual colors are to the target ones, the better.
The Grayscale accuracy chart shows whether a display has a correct white balance(balance between red,green and blue)across different levels of grey(from dark to bright).The closer the Actual colors are to the Target ones,the better.
Looking at the test results above, most of the claims hold true. The Astra was able to output over 1000 nits at 100% APL (and pretty much the same number at 20% APL, which leads us to the conclusion that it's limited at this threshold), and that's quite good.
The cited under deltaE of under 1 was apparently measured at different brightness levels and settings than the ones we use in our test, but nevertheless, a result of 1.34 is impressive for a tablet and a gaming device. Minimum brightness is a bit high, so gaming sessions at night might require some ambient lighting, but all in all, the display of the Astra is pretty impressive.
Now, in terms of biometrics, the power button doubles as a capacitive fingerprint scanner, and you can also set up facial recognition. The latter relies only on one simple front-facing camera, so it's not as secure as other systems that employ ToF sensors and 3D facial scans.
RedMagic Astra Performance & Benchmarks
Super-cooled Snapdragon 8 Elite
The Snapdragon 8 Elite is the go-to silicon when it comes to high-intensity applications nowadays, and gaming is surely one such scenario. The RedMagic Astra comes with the regular version of the chip (no overclock to the performance core), but the Adreno 830 GPU has been clocked to reach up to 1,100 MHz (pretty much the graphics performance of the Leading Version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite we tested inside the RedMagic 10S Pro).
If you set the Astra to 165 Hz and leave it in high-performance mode, your day-to-day experience outside of gaming will be amazingly smooth. It makes the table a tad hot and also engages the cooling fan, but the performance is there. Let's check out the synthetic benchmarks for some data-driven proof of the above.
The benchmarks tell a pretty convincing story. The RedMagic Astra just obliterates the tablet competition, and only the iPad Mini is able to hang on with its great single-core performance. When it comes to graphics, though, the Astra and its overclocked Adreno 830 core are unbeatable.
Of course, the active cooling system with a tiny fan running at 20,000 RPM has something to do with the consistent 3D Mark score, as well as the Liquid Metal 2.0 material and the vapor chamber design.
This machine can run Genshin Impact at 165 Hz and max graphics without any problems, but more on this in the software section below. Finally, there are three memory configurations to choose from. The basic one has 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, then there's the 16GB version that also comes with 512GB onboard memory, and you can go all-out and get the 1TB model that also happens to have 24GB of RAM onboard (a bit of overkill, but extremely future-proof).
One thing we miss on the hardware side is capacitive triggers or shoulder buttons. There aren't any on the RedMagic Astra, which is a shame, really. The RedMagic 10S Pro features two of those with a very high touch sampling rate, but the Astra has to rely on screen input at all times.
RedMagic Astra Software
The Astra gaming tablet comes running Android 15 with RedMagic OS 10.5 on top. It's a straightforward distribution with minimal tweaks and bloatware and with a sprinkle of AI on top. Nothing groundbreaking, just some AI translation options, coupled with intuitive application selection for your most frequently used apps.
But the Game Space is the crown jewel when it comes to software tools and gaming tools in particular. You can trigger the mode with the red slider button, and it takes you to a dedicated gaming space (as the name implies).
You have complete control over many aspects of the Astra's hardware and software. You can choose the mode the CPU and GPU are using, add helpful software tools such as crosshairs, quick presets, and control notifications; add hardware periphery such as a mouse and keyboard; and more.
It's done in a very intuitive way; you can either choose from various performance presets or dive deep and tweak parameters yourself. For the gaming test we decided to use Genshin Impact, as it's one of the heaviest and most resource-demanding mobile games out there.
The Astra handled the game flawlessly – we set everything to maximum, and the game ran smoothly with no lag or any frame rate drops. To be fair, the tablet got a bit hot while playing, and the fan could be heard, but nothing too unpleasant to our ears or hands.
RedMagic Astra Audio Quality
There are just two speakers on both sides of the RedMagic Astra, but they are quite powerful and loud. The tablet supports DTS:X Ultra and various audio formats, including WAV, AAC, MP3, and FLAC.
There's no 3.5 mm headphone jack, which is a drawback if you want to game in public and not disturb everybody, but of course you can pair Bluetooth headphones and use them to isolate the sound from your surroundings or vice versa.
The haptic motor inside the Astra is quite strong and powerful, as well as precise. This is key when we talk about gaming devices and contributes to the overall experience quite a bit.
RedMagic Astra Battery and Charging
The battery inside the RedMagic Astra has an 8,200 mAh capacity, which is pretty decent considering the small footprint of the tablet. The company advertises a gaming battery life of 5.5 hours in Honkai: Star Rail, as well as up to 33 hours of video playback.
Let's see how the tablet tackled our battery tests.
Well, in terms of gaming, we were able to get a very similar result of around 5 hours and 10 minutes. And while this pales in comparison with other, non-gaming devices, we think it's a good result for maxed-out competitive gaming.
The browsing and video streaming results are not very impressive, especially next to other tablets (some with smaller batteries), but performance comes at a cost, and the Astra is just not built for efficiency.
In terms of charging, the tablet supports fast charging, and we were able to get the 8,200 mAh cell from zero to full in 1 hour and 12 minutes, a decent result. There are no wireless charging coils onboard, and thus, no wireless charging support.
RedMagic Astra Camera
It's a gaming tablet
The usual caveat we put when we test tablets and gaming devices, especially, applies here as well. The Astra comes equipped with a pretty modest camera system – just one 13MP wide camera at the back and a 9MP front one.
The specs of these two cameras won't make you jump in your seat, and they're there to get the job done in a very basic sense. To be fair, there's some AI processing going on in the background, and the results are very palatable, so to speak, but nothing spectacular.
Photo Quality
Well, you can check out the samples above. You have the option to use digital zoom – 2x and 5x – and while the 2x samples are okay-ish, when going to 5x digital, the noise gets pretty high, and the overall detail and quality fall down quite a bit.
Should you buy it?
That's an excellent question right there! The RedMagic Astra gaming tablet caters to a very specific audience. On the one hand, people who enjoy some heavy and competitive mobile gaming but, for some reason, find most smartphones too small in terms of display size.
On the other hand, though, the Astra lacks dedicated hardware controls such as shoulder buttons or capacitive zones to give you that extra precision and flexibility during gaming, so it's a pros-and-cons situation.
There are some very strong sides to this slate – the display is simply amazing, and the 165 Hz refresh rate is super smooth. There's power on tap you can use in non-gaming scenarios as well, and the compact nature of the Astra makes it a perfect travel buddy.
But you have to outweigh this against the kind of short battery life, the lack of wireless charging and the mediocre camera if you want to use it as a non-gaming regular tablet.
Pros
Compact form factor
Great display
Amazing graphic performance
Cons
No wireless charging
Battery life not great
No dedicated hardware controls (shoulder buttons, triggers)
Mariyan, a tech enthusiast with a background in Nuclear Physics and Journalism, brings a unique perspective to PhoneArena. His childhood curiosity for gadgets evolved into a professional passion for technology, leading him to the role of Editor-in-Chief at PCWorld Bulgaria before joining PhoneArena. Mariyan's interests range from mainstream Android and iPhone debates to fringe technologies like graphene batteries and nanotechnology. Off-duty, he enjoys playing his electric guitar, practicing Japanese, and revisiting his love for video games and Haruki Murakami's works.
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