The RedMagic Astra packs flagship-grade power Snapdragon 8 Elite, 9″ OLED 165 Hz display, active cooling, all into a compact, gaming-focused tablet.
The Android tablet market is in a strange place, most of all when it comes to small form factors. Samsung’s best tablets have vibrant displays and great software, but its most recent Galaxy S10 Ultra flagship uses a last-generation chip, backing away from direct competition with the most powerful tablet processor of all time in the M4 iPad Pro. Meanwhile, the budget Android market is awash in low-end hardware with lackluster specs, and that’s where small tablets abound. If there’s a reason why Apple has yet to put an M-series processor in the iPad Mini, it’s probably because the A17 Pro mobile processor it currently runs on is leagues faster than the lackluster chips found in even the best small Android tablets.
All of that makes a new tablet from RedMagic quite the eyebrow-raiser. The company has until now been known for its smartphones. Year on year, RedMagic has managed to deliver flagship Android gaming phones with some of the most impressive spec sheets on the market. They’re odd devices in many ways — no other brand ships phones with a built-in AI anime waifu companion — but there’s no arguing with the value proposition.
The RedMagic Astra continues that trend, this time in tablet form. Pairing a flagship processor with a frankly astonishing amount of memory and an impressive display, it’s tough to find a better tablet at this size and price point, at least on paper. But to see whether it holds up in the real world, we looked at professional reviews. What they had to say was surprisingly consistent.
