RedMagic Astra 2
Pros & Cons
- Strong gaming performance
- Brightest Android tablet tested by CNET Lab
- Distinctive design
- Haptic response could be better
- Bloatware and more bloatware
- No OS update commitment
The first Astra tablet from RedMagic packed some of the best mobile hardware you could find at the time. With the top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Elite Plus processor, fast memory and storage and a gorgeous 9-inch 165Hz OLED display, it truly established itself as the gaming tablet to beat last year. We even awarded it an Editors’ Choice along with the similarly sized Legion Tab Gen 3 from Lenovo.
What set it apart was the no-holds-barred approach to hardware, something RedMagic has been doing for years. And with the Astra 2, RedMagic has doubled down on what it does best: delivering hands-down the most powerful Android gaming tablet around.
Still (mostly) best-in-class hardware
The Astra 2 continues the RedMagic trend of packing nearly every top-of-the-line spec imaginable into its products. It’s powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 processor along with RedMagic’s fourth-gen custom graphics and AI processor, the RedCore 4. That’s paired with up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Sadly, since all the tech and AI billionaires apparently still don’t have enough money, the starting price has jumped from $549 to $699, and there’s no longer a version with 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.
All that horsepower, though, gives the Astra 2 plenty of performance chops. In lab testing, it completely maxed out the Sling Shot Extreme 3DMark stress test and delivered a score of 30,855 on the Wild Life Unlimited 3DMark stress test, a score that beat out the Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 and more than doubled the iPad Mini with the A17 Pro chip.
The 9.1-inch, 2.4K OLED display is the same size and resolution as last year, but the refresh rate is now a fast and smooth 185Hz (up from 165Hz). The touch sampling rate also hits a mind-boggling 2,000Hz (instant touch only) to ensure you get the most lightning-fast touch response rate imaginable while gaming. Notably, it also earned a CNET Lab Award for being the brightest Android tablet tested to date at over 1,000 nits, so all your HDR content will look absolutely stunning. Using it outdoors in daylight or other bright conditions is certainly less of a struggle with that brightness, though it doesn’t do battery life any favors.
The battery in the Astra 2 is 100 milliampere hours larger than the first-gen model at 8,300 mAh. RedMagic says the tablet’s 75-watt fast charging will top the battery up in just under an hour. That’s much better than nearly every other tablet of this size, particularly the iPad Mini. And that fast charging speed is helpful because the battery life is solidly average at 11 hours, 17 minutes in our lab tests, with the screen brightness set at 200 nits. That’s about 30 minutes better than the latest iPad Mini, but significantly shorter than the 16 hours and 19 minutes of the 8.8-inch Lenovo Legion Tab, which just came out a few months ago.
There are two USB-C ports on Astra 2 and both support the aforementioned 75-watt fast charging as well as audio out and reverse charging. This means you can charge another device from the Astra 2 while using the other port for headphones or even for passthrough power.
Aside from battery life, the only area where the hardware of the Astra 2 doesn’t meet or exceed its competitors is the haptic feedback. It’s quite a bit better than the haptic motor on the original Astra, but it’s still not as crisp and clean as what you get on a flagship phone. It’s certainly not a deal breaker, but it’s still a bit annoying.
The biggest hardware upgrade is the inclusion of a world’s first for tablets: liquid cooling. This is more than just the liquid vapor chamber that has been in phones for several years now. This is an active, circulating liquid-cooling system that the company first pioneered in its 11 Pro phone. When active, you can actually see the blue-colored liquid moving over the motherboard through the semi-transparent glass on the back.
And it’s more than just a gimmick. Using it alongside the original Astra tablet, the Astra 2 stays noticeably cooler under heavy loads while using the liquid-cooling system.
A design that’s subtle, yet distinctive
RedMagic’s device designs have always been a bit divisive. The company intentionally makes its products with a very sci-fi-heavy, gamer-focused aesthetic, which certainly makes them stand out. It’s refined them over the years, to where the current generation is certainly much cleaner than the first few generations of devices.
That includes the Astra 2, which is still distinctive, particularly with its exposed liquid-cooling system, but the rest is just a smooth clean-looking aluminum shell. It’s quite nice, especially on my eclipse (silver) color model. Compare that to the company’s current flagship phone, the RedMagic 11S Pro, which puts the cooling in a large circle on the back and other places.
The design of the Astra 2 may be a bit too much for some, but keep in mind that it’s a tablet built first and foremost for gaming, so it’s intentionally made to appeal to gamers. Secondly, at least it has some personality, unlike the bland and boring designs of all the major flagship tablets of the past decade, so I’m here for it.
Software
The Astra 2 comes with RedMagicOS 11.5 running on top of Android 16. It’s the cleanest build of Android the company has ever shipped, but unfortunately, it still retains a lot of the quirks that have plagued the software for years. But let’s start with the good.
Fast, clean and packed with features
On the surface, it looks similar to what you might see on a standard Motorola or Lenovo tablet with the default color scheme and icons on Android in 2026. Gone are the days of the extremely sci-fi, heavily skinned version of Android with sharp lines, futuristic graphics and annoying animations. Those are replaced with a Material You-inspired design and a very fast and fluid user experience. The software even has Google Discover to the left of the home screen (finally), a standard Android feature that’s been missing on RedMagic devices until now.
Game Space
The star of the software show is what RedMagic calls Game Space. You can turn this on in the software, or by default (it comes on when you flip the physical red switch on top of the tablet). Game Space is a dedicated portion of the UI that is meant to act as a sort of console dashboard. It aggregates all your games and allows you to tweak a lot of extra settings to squeeze even more performance out of the tablet.
While playing a game, you swipe in from either side near the top to pull in the in-game overlay called Energy Cube. This gives you access to those same settings, but also lets you switch performance modes and add in prebuilt macros to help improve your play. Keep in mind that many more popular competitive games such as Call of Duty: Mobile might ban your account if you’re caught using unapproved software.
Both Game Space and Energy Cube are massive overkill for most people, but it’s fun to play around with the settings, and if you do enjoy larger, more graphically intense, competitive games, they are genuinely useful features.
Now for the bad parts.
All the bloatware
Sadly, RedMagic has also never been shy about shipping devices with plenty of bloatware. The company has been better about limiting the amount of preinstalled apps, but it’s still quite aggressive. During the setup process, the software asks if you want to install up to 12 completely not legitimate-looking apps, and it even preselects six of them for you (be sure to unselect them before completing the setup).
Aside from that, there are well more than a dozen non-Google apps preinstalled for you without asking for permission. Some of these are apps such as a dedicated file manager, browser and a clock app. That isn’t uncommon on non-Google devices, but most of them are games or shady things such as device cleaner apps.
No guaranteed updates
But by far, the biggest issue with the software is the complete lack of any kind of upgrade commitment. I’ve used nearly every major RedMagic device, and exactly none of them have ever come with any guarantee of software updates. Even the official reviewers’ guide and documentation I’ve received about the Astra 2 says nothing about the software other than highlighting Game Space and the other software gaming features.
In my experience, RedMagic phones typically get one or (maybe) two major Android version updates over the course of their lives, and maybe three or four security updates total.With tablets, there’s even less of a guarantee. My first-gen Astra is still on Android 15, which it shipped with, and has had three general updates since I’ve had it. The Astra 2 ships with Android 16, and I would not count on getting more than a few basic security and minor feature updates.
To be fair, this is meant to be used primarily for gaming, so as long as you don’t use it for too many sensitive things, security and platform updates may not be as big a deal.
Don’t get me wrong, though: This is still absolutely inexcusable for RedMagic. The company has had years to build a software team and platform capable of regularly updating its products, but it has shown no interest, at least on my end, in doing so.
In the end, as long as you keep it just for gaming, and don’t mind too much about not having the latest Android security updates, you should be ok for a couple of years.
Still the best gaming Android tablet, even at the higher price
As with just about every piece of technology these days, the Astra 2 has suffered from the price increases spurred by AI. The first-gen Astra was $549 for 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which made it a no-brainer choice over its competitor, the Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 3.
Ironically, this year the options are reversed. The Astra 2 now starts at $699 for 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage and $849 for 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. The price of the Legion Tab Gen 5 has permanently dropped to $689. Whichever way you look at it, that’s a lot of money for a small gaming tablet, however powerful.
In the end, the Astra 2 is still the absolute best gaming tablet you can buy right now (though, it is currently backordered). The extra $70 over the Legion Tab Gen 5 is worth it, but I’d honestly recommend picking up the first-gen Astra tablet if you can find it. You’ll miss out on the liquid cooling and slightly newer software, but it’s 90% the same tablet, and you’ll save some money.
