REDMAGIC Astra review – an out-of-this-world Android gaming tablet

Price

The REDMAGIC Astra tablet costs $499 / £439 for the 12GB storage option, up to $849 / £739 for 24GB. It goes on sale on July 16 worldwide, with early bird access on July 15. Note that while there are three ‘sizes’ of RAM and storage, the biggest size is only available in the Eclipse Black colorway – the Starforst Silver only comes in 12GB and 16GB configurations.

Here are the REDMAGIC Astra tablet specs:

REDMAGIC makes its products with gaming in mind, and the Astra is no different. As mentioned, the Astra has REDMAGIC’s regular GameSpace program installed to improve framerate, allow in-game recording, and block pesky notifications from interrupting your sessions.

The Astra has a very crisp display for gaming, which I found absolutely no issues with. I tried big games like Genshin and Zenless Zone Zero, and even Persona 5 X, along with YouTube, Netflix, and a myriad of websites. It gave me a good place to play Netflix Games, specifically. A lot of them feel made for a touch screen with point-and-click gameplay, so now was my chance to finally get into the exclusive Cozy Grove 2.

I’m pleased to report that there were no frame rate issues, no tearing, no stuttering, no resolution problems – nothing. It just works incredibly well with all the games I’ve tried. Even hefty combat scenes in Zenless ran just fine, and downloading big updates for it was also quick. Admittedly, that’s what I expected from a device with the current best mobile processor on the market, the Snapdragon 8 Elite, but it’s always nice to see a device live up to the high expectations.

Something I did note while lying on my side, binge-watching Bridgerton, is that the Netflix app did go a bit fuzzy for a couple of minutes when loading adverts. This wasn’t constant and only seemed to happen when loading the app, but it was still a bit jarring to see the Ton in 360p. I also noticed some translation errors in the menus as you navigate through the tablet, but it didn’t really affect my overall experience.

Loading up the Astra reveals that it, like all of REDMAGIC’s offerings, runs on the latest version of the REDMAGIC OS Android 15 skin. It’s a nice and quick system and does everything it’s supposed to, and it doesn’t hide any settings away in weird places.

There’s no denying the Astra tablet is nice to look at. It’s compact, fairly thin, with a very small bezel on the screen and rounded corners. It’s not heavy in your hands, at just 370g, so you can use it for hours on end if you wish.

I got to test the Eclipse Black colorway, which is – as the name suggests – a sleek black option. The matte back of the tablet can show fingerprints easily, though this isn’t a huge issue, as you’re not really going to be looking at it. The lack of a screen cloth or case does exacerbate this issue, though.

The Astra’s cameras have no bump, allowing you to use it flat on any surface with no wobbling. The side buttons are also nice and small, so you won’t catch them on anything or accidentally press them. This includes the REDMAGIC-specific slider button that activates GameSpace, which is barely noticeable despite the ridged texture. This was noticeably missing from the Nova, so it’s nice to see the addition.

Something else that the Astra has over the Nova tablet is the OLED screen. While it’s a little smaller, coming in a 9.06 inches, it’s still big enough for all your gaming needs. The refresh rates are improved from the Nova, sitting at 165Hz over the previous tablet’s 144Hz, and it looks excellent, making for even smoother gameplay. It’s also plenty bright, but can be turned down enough for use at night, or turned way up to quite frankly ridiculous saturation levels. That might just be my sensitive old eyes, though.

As a gaming company, REDMAGIC knows that we need a good battery in our devices. The Astra’s power lasts for a good long while, even when hammering through intense games. Using our tried and true methods, I can surmise that half an hour of steady use used 6% of the battery.

It also charges nice and fast using the REDMAGIC charge cable. A full charge will take you around an hour, which outdoes both the Samsung and Apple iPad competition.

It is worth noting that the 8,200mAh battery included here is actually a little smaller than the predecessor, the Nova tablet. While I can’t personally compare the two, it does strike me as odd that the company went back to a smaller option for the newer tablet.

This tablet is not meant for fine camerawork. If you happen to need to snap a quick pic, it’ll look fine, but it’s not built with that in mind. Similar to the battery, the cameras are a little worse than the Nova’s components. The REDMAGIC Astra tablet has a 9MP front and a 13MP rear camera, which are fine enough, but don’t expect photographically astounding results.

To put this in perspective, the recent 10S Pro phone by REDMAGIC has a 50MP back camera and a 16MP front camera, and the Nova tablet has 20MP front and 50MP back options. The Astra is more of a gaming tablet for sure, but this is a very big downgrade.

Without sounding like I’m sponsored, I just really like this tablet. It’s performed really well, and I’ve had no issues with it at all. It didn’t even overheat in a recent heatwave – unlike my Microsoft laptop – so that’s saying something. The OLED display offers vibrant colors and deep blacks, the overall design is elegant and compact, and, in general, it’s just a lovely bit of kit.

If you’re in the market for a tablet specifically made for gaming, this is for you. I don’t recommend it for artists and anyone looking to do design work, as it’s fairly small, but for gaming on the go or having a small extra screen at your desk, it’s great. For the price, it is well worth the performance it has to offer

If you’re not completely sold on the REDMAGIC Astra, we have a couple of alternatives for you:

Honor MagicPad2