Red Magic Astra 2 review: the fastest Android tablet I've ever tested | Tech Radar

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The Red Magic Astra 2 is the world's first liquid-cooled tablet — and the fastest Android tablet I've ever tested

Red Magic’s latest gaming tablet adds liquid refreshment to an already fluid package

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The Red Magic Astra 2 is just about the fastest Android tablet in the game, with unmatched sustained performance and a similarly fluid OLED display. It’s not the classiest customer on the market, and it’s a shame to see it receive such a hefty price bump over its predecessor. For dedicated gamers looking for a tablet, however, it’s a uniquely equipped proposition.

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Having conquered the gaming phone space by outlasting the competition, Red Magic has decided to take its RGB-lit fight to the tablet market.

The Red Magic Astra 2 is the company’s third globally available gaming tablet, and the second in a row to adopt a more compact i Pad Mini-like form factor.

Like its immediate predecessor (and indeed its phones), the Red Magic Astra 2 offers flagship performance at a mid-market price. Thanks to the combination of a top-end Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor and a new liquid cooling system — the first of its kind in a tablet — it offers range-topping sustained performance.

The Astra 2’s 9.06-inch OLED display doesn’t offer the most expansive gaming canvas, but it still covers an awful lot of bases. It’s sufficiently portable, nice and punchy, plenty sharp enough, and it gets to a scorching 185 Hz in the few games that support it.

Other gamer-friendly improvements include a slightly lighter body and a fractionally larger battery, together with zippy 75W wired charging. The provision of a second USB-C port is another benefit for those looking to indulge in extended gaming sessions.

Red Magic’s software offering is as unlovable as ever, though its Game Space UI offers a unique window onto the mobile gaming world. It’s ideal for those who like to tweak and optimize their games to the nth degree.

The main trouble here is a decidedly 2026 one. The Astra 2’s price has increased dramatically, so much so that it's now within range of Apple’s mighty i Pad Air (2026) and several classy Android tablets.

For all-round gaming chops, however, there’s no other tablet that can quite match it.

The Red Magic Astra 2 goes on sale in late August, with availability confirmed for the US, UK, Australia, and much of Europe, among other territories.

You can pre-order it now from the official Red Magic website.

While it isn’t among the more expensive tablets on the market, the Red Magic Astra 2 has received a rather alarming price increase. Doubtless prompted by the current AI-driven RAM shortage, the new tablet starts from £599 / $749 for a model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage.

That’s a price bump of £160 /

Still, while price hikes are never welcome, they are understandable at this point in 2026. Besides, the Red Magic Astra 2 remains a unique value proposition. You won’t find another tablet with this level of performance combined with a super-fluid OLED display for this sort of money.

Red Magic has been far more reserved with its tablet design than it has with its gaudy gaming smartphones.

This is a neat, relatively trim mini-tablet with a solid aluminium body in Eclipse (black) or Starfrost (white). It measures just 6.9mm thick, and weighs a reasonable 363g — so it's a tad lighter than its predecessor. It still feels substantial, but proves quite manageable.

The brand’s gaming aesthetic can be glimpsed through the strip of glass on the rear of the tablet. It’s here that you’ll find a faux transparent section purporting to show some of the tablet’s innards, together with Snapdragon chip branding and an exhortation to “Win More Games”. Thanks — I'm trying.

Out, on this occasion, goes the visible cooling fan of the Red Magic Astra. In its place is a visible manifestation of the brand’s new liquid cooling system. Like the Red Magic 11S Pro, this presents as a bunch of white globules snaking along a path that’s illuminated (in a color of your choosing) by RGB lighting.

While the effect isn’t quite as effective here as it is in the company’s latest flagship phone, it remains pretty cool (no pun intended) without looking too tacky.

Another new inclusion this year is a second USB-C port on the longer edge of the tablet. This makes for a much more comfortable experience when playing while charging, as dedicated gamers are wont to do.

I continue to find it a bit of an odd omission that there’s no Nintendo Switch 2-style kickstand here — especially as the lack of capacitive air triggers (as found on Red Magic’s phones) indicates that this device is intended to be used with a Bluetooth controller.

The drop in size from the original Red Magic Nova tablet has seen that device’s quad speakers jettisoned in favor of a dual set, though the output is perfectly loud and clear, and there’s DTS: X Ultra support. I have an issue with the placement of these speakers, however, as they’re too easy to block when playing landscape gaming content — which is surely the whole point of the exercise.

I’m not hugely fond of the tablet’s haptic motor either, which feels flabby and rattly rather than the tight, controlled pulses of more expensive devices.

The Red Magic Astra 2 uses the same 9.06-inch display size as its predecessor, which makes it more of a mini-tablet than the 10.9-inch Red Magic Nova Tablet.

Forget about the size difference, though, because this is a much better screen than the Nova’s. It’s an OLED display, which brings the benefits of proper HDR implementation, vibrant colors, and perfect black reproduction.

There’s a sharp 2,400 x 1,504 (2.4K) resolution, and Red Magic has bumped the maximum refresh rate even higher from 165 Hz to 185 Hz. True, this is something of a gimmick given that the vast majority of games won’t make the most of it, but if ever there’s an excuse to ramp things up, it’s with a gaming tablet.

Thankfully, if there is a game that runs at such elevated frame rates, the Red Magic Astra 2 is potent enough to capitalize. More on that in a moment.

Brightness levels are good, with a maximum full-screen brightness of 1,100 nits in high brightness mode and 1,800 nits of peak brightness in HDR situations.

Hardcore competitive gamers might grumble about the 16:10 aspect ratio that Red Magic has selected, as it’s arguably not optimal for landscape action games.

Those with more rounded tastes will appreciate that it still looks good with traditional landscape games — especially those of a more tactical nature — and also works nicely when scrolling through web content in portrait view; Android tablets with wider screens don't give you the same versatility.

Interestingly, the Astra 2's display is coated in Gorilla Glass 3, which is a pretty old material at this point, having launched all the way back in 2013.

Red Magic has equipped its new gaming tablet with exactly the same Snapdragon Elite Gen 5 chip as its latest gaming phone, the Red Magic 11S Pro.

This remains the fastest chip on the market for any Android device. Combined with either 12 or 16GB of RAM (there’s no 24GB option this year), it makes for extremely strong performance.

This is aided by an all-new cooling system, which is the first of its kind in a widely available tablet. As we’ve already discussed in the Design section, Red Magic has replaced its usual physical cooling fan with a liquid system.

Much like the previous fan-driven approach, this liquid system serves to enable the Red Magic Astra 2 to run demanding games smoothly for longer. When normal tablets run hot — as they invariably do after a short while playing games — they throttle back, reducing clock speeds and thus diminishing performance. That effect is mitigated here.

Running 3DMark’s demanding Solar Bar Extreme Stress Test, which conducts 20 consecutive minute-long GPU workouts, the Astra 2 scored an impressive 99%. This means that the best GPU loop test was nigh-on identical to the worst, indicating that it was running flat-out throughout.

As for the level of performance itself, it’s right near the top of the tablet pack. There aren’t all that many top-end tablets running on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, so the Astra 2 is just about the fastest tablet this side of an i Pad Air or Pro.

It positively obliterates the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra and the Honor Magic Pad 4, scoring 3725 in Geekbench single-core and 11,678 in multi-core.

Practically speaking, the Astra 2 will run Destiny: Rising smoothly at either High Rendering Quality and Ultra Frame Rate (120fps) or Ultra RQ/High FR (60fps).

There’s just a solitary 13MP camera on the rear and a 9MP camera on the front. It should surprise and dismay no one to learn that neither is very good, though the main camera will grab you a passable shot in good lighting.

Red Magic OS 11.5 runs atop Android 16 on the Astra 2, and it’s precisely as charmless as I found it to be on the Red Magic 11S Pro smartphone.

Red Magic isn’t the only Android manufacturer that finds tinkering with Google’s powerful yet concise Android OS irresistible. They’re all at it.

I’ll even give the company credit for the progress it has made. No more is this UI filled to the brim with superfluous widgets, glitches, and examples of untranslated Chinese text. It’s reasonably well put together, with smooth-enough animations and logical menu layouts, and Google’s Feed is mercifully included to the left of the main home screen.

It’s far from a looker, however, and there’s plenty of bloatware. Booking.com, Tik Tok, Facebook, Instagram, Ali Express, and several ropey games come preinstalled, whether you like it or not. Red Magic itself includes its own duplicate web browser, and there are dedicated app icons leading to yet more iffy app installations.

The highlight of Red Magic OS has always been the company’s Game Space UI. Flip the tactile red switch on the top edge of the tablet, and you’ll jump into a dedicated gaming UI.

Here you can add games, optimize performance levels on a game-by-game basis, block notifications, and even initiate plugins for selected titles. The latter include an AI coach that gives you tactical suggestions based on the live scenario, a resolution booster, visual audio indicators, and much more.

For the average user, none of this will be of any consequence whatsoever — it’s fiddly, technical, downright nerdy stuff. But this isn’t a tablet that’s been built for such average users. It’s for gamers seeking an edge in successive rounds of PUBG Mobile or Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.

Red Magic has equipped its tablet with an 8,300m Ah battery, which is fractionally larger than the cell inside the original Astra, though much smaller than the one powering the Red Magic Nova Tablet.

For a tablet of this size, 8,300m Ah is plenty. For regular non-gaming use, you’ll be able to get through a full working day of constant use, or several days of more normal (i.e., infrequent) use before you need to charge.

Games will obviously sap that time more quickly, but you can still expect to play multiple hours of the most demanding games before the Astra 2 finally gives up the ghost.

When it comes time to recharge, the Astra 2 supports 75W wired charging. You won’t get such a provision in the box, but using a compatible Nubia charger, I was able to secure 65% charge in just 30 minutes, and a full charge in less than an hour.

The provision of that second USB-C port on the bottom edge of the device makes it comfortable to charge while you’re gaming or otherwise using the tablet in landscape orientation, too.

It's not subtle, but the Astra 2 feels solid in the hand, and its visible liquid cooling system is a fun flourish.

It's not subtle, but the Astra 2 feels solid in the hand, and its visible liquid cooling system is a fun flourish.

It’s not the most expansive screen out there, but it’s bright, sharp, and extremely responsive, with an aspect ratio that covers all bases.

It’s not the most expansive screen out there, but it’s bright, sharp, and extremely responsive, with an aspect ratio that covers all bases.

As fast as Android tablets get, especially with its unique liquid cooling system.

As fast as Android tablets get, especially with its unique liquid cooling system.

Decent capacity and fast charging, with the added bonus of a second USB-C port.

Decent capacity and fast charging, with the added bonus of a second USB-C port.

Not a particularly slick or inviting UI, with too much bloatware, but it optimizes Gaming content.

Not a particularly slick or inviting UI, with too much bloatware, but it optimizes Gaming content.

Not as cheap as before, but you’ll still struggle to get this performance for similar money.

Not as cheap as before, but you’ll still struggle to get this performance for similar money.

You use your tablet predominantly for gaming From its top-notch sustained performance to its secondary USB-C port and dedicated gaming UI, the Astra 2 is optimized for mobile gaming.

You’re after the fastest Android tablet around Few tablets run on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip. None pair that with a meaty liquid cooling system. This thing is fast.

You want a well-specced tablet for less than £600 If you want a fast tablet with a good quality OLED display, but don’t want to break the bank for an i Pad Pro, the Astra 2 is worth considering.

You like your software crisp and uncluttered Red Magic OS is far from the cleanest UI in town, with an ugly look and too much bloatware.

You want the absolute best performance, money no object The Astra 2 might rule the Android roost, but the i Pad Pro continues to be the fastest tablet on the market — at a higher price, of course.

You value classy design The Red Magic Astra 2 is relatively reserved by the standards of dedicated gaming devices, but its look is far from sophisticated.

Want a reasonably priced yet powerful tablet? Check out these alternatives:

i Pad Air (2026) The 11-inch version of the latest i Pad Air costs the same amount as the Astra 2, and technically tops it in the performance stakes with its M4 chip — though it lacks the liquid cooling to sustain that performance, while its LCD display only hits 60 Hz. It has access to more and better games, though, and features a much better UI. Note that we've only reviewed the 13-inch i Pad Air.

Honor Magic Pad 4 The Honor Magic Pad isn’t a dedicated gaming tablet, but it’s similarly priced, boasts decent performance, a beautiful OLED display, and is generally a more rounded and pleasant-to-use tablet package.

Testing included = Everyday usage, including web browsing, photography, gaming, streaming video, music playback

Tools used = Geekbench 6, 3DMark, native Android stats, Nubia 80W power adapter

Jon is a freelance journalist who has been covering tech since the dawn of the smartphone era. Besides Tech Radar, his words and pictures have appeared in The Telegraph, Short List, Tech Advisor, Trusted Reviews, Expert Reviews, and more. He largely covers consumer technology, with a particular focus on smartphones and tablets. However, he's also been known to dabble in the worlds of entertainment and video games.

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Key Takeaways

• News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets

• Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more

• Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards

• The Red Magic Astra 2 is the world's first liquid-cooled tablet — and the fastest Android tablet I've ever tested

• Red Magic’s latest gaming tablet adds liquid refreshment to an already fluid package