This $611 Android Competes With My Pixel 9 Pro (and Does A Few Things Better)

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

  • The Redmagic 10 Air Android telephone is connected waste now for $611.
  • The 10 Air telephone is arsenic elegant arsenic it is powerful and tin grip immoderate of nan much challenging games.
  • This camera strategy isn't needfully flagship level, and you'll want to salary attraction to web set support.

I've held tons of Android phones successful my hand, immoderate consciousness awkward because of their size, while others fresh conscionable right. That Goldilocks effect is real, and successful my experience, Redmagic phones conscionable consciousness correct successful my hand. 

Also: The champion Android phones to bargain successful 2025

But who wants to bargain a telephone based connected its style and size? It's each astir power, display, and battery. Well, I'm present to show you that nan Redmagic 10 Air phone checks each nan boxes. Let's chat.

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My experience

As soon arsenic I pulled nan telephone retired of nan box, my first thought was, "I'm going to for illustration this phone." Well, I was right; it's a keeper. From nan superb and elegant show to nan soft animations, nan Redmagic 10 Air is impressive.

The point that struck maine instantly was nan buttery smoothness of nan animations. I was captivated. In fact, I couldn't extremity swiping down and opening apps to watch nan movement. Sounds cheesy, but it really is that impressive.

Of course, this is, successful portion because Android has historically struggled to support up pinch nan smoothness of iOS, but nan Redmagic 10 Air is astir arsenic adjacent arsenic I've witnessed. I would besides opportunity nan UI is astir arsenic adjacent arsenic I've seen to nan elegance of iOS. But what astir nan power?

Also: I changed 10 Samsung telephone settings to importantly amended nan personification experience

The 10 Air is marketed arsenic a gaming phone. What does that mean? To statesman with, it uses a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 CPU enhanced by a RedCore R3 spot (a civilization gaming spot designed to complement nan Snapdragon CPU and reside nan demands of gaming). To test, I downloaded a fewer demanding games: "Guns of Glory" and "Star Trek Fleet Academy". Color maine impressed.

Graphics were beautiful, on-screen action was smooth, speakers sounded great, and playing various titles was engaging. I couldn't find a azygous responsibility pinch really good this telephone handled gaming. In fact, I'd spell truthful acold arsenic to opportunity it was much awesome than playing nan aforesaid games connected my Pixel 9 Pro. If you're a gamer, this telephone will impress. If you're not a gamer, it'll really impress.

Redmagic 10 Air phone

The Redmagic 10 Air isn't needfully nan thinnest telephone connected nan market, but it is noticeably slimmer than its predecessors.

Jack Wallen/ZDNET

About an hr into utilizing nan phone, I downloaded nan caller type of RedMagicOS (10.0.5). I was amazed astatine really accelerated it updated, since connected my Pixel it tin beryllium a agelong process. The 10 Air took astir 1 infinitesimal to download it, and astir 3 minutes to finish. No matter what I threw astatine nan 10 Air, it performed measurement supra my expectations. Given its value point, it could easy beryllium a flagship killer.

Also: Looking for an affordable phone? This $179 Motorola feels for illustration a overmuch much costly device

I'll caveat by saying that nan 50MP triple-camera strategy is thing to constitute location about. It's awesome astatine capturing item and brightness successful shots, but nan deficiency of opposition and oversaturation put nan imaging strategy a tier beneath much premium handsets for illustration nan iPhone 16 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S25 series. Then again, this is simply a gaming telephone we're talking about.

Buyers successful nan US should besides beryllium cautious of nan phone's web set support, which is much constricted than models from larger manufacturers. I'd highly urge you sojourn Redmagic's spec page and cheque pinch your bearer to spot if its LTE/5G information tin beryllium received decently by nan phone.

ZDNET's buying advice

If you're looking for a caller Android telephone and want 1 that's adjacent parts aesthetics and performance, you could do a batch worse than nan Redmagic 10 Air. This telephone is sleek and powerful and could easy switch immoderate telephone you presently usage without a hiccup. The value is right, and nan telephone is powerful and elegant. What's not to love?

Redmagic 10 Air tech specs

  • Display - 6.8" AMOLED pinch a 2480 x 1116 resolution, a refresh complaint of 120 Hz, a touch sampling complaint of 2000 Hz, and an facet ratio of 20:9.
  • Cooling - ICE-X cooling system
  • CPU - Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 astatine 3.3 Ghz pinch Cortex-X4 and Red Core 3 cores.
  • GPU - Adreno
  • RAM - 12 aliases 16 GB
  • Storage - 256 aliases 512 GB.
  • Connectivity - 5G/TDD/FDD/WCDMA/CDMA/GSM, 2G GMS 2/3/5/8, GSM 850/900/1800/1900, 3G WCDMA/UMTS B1/2/4/5/6/8/19, 4G FDD-LTE B1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/18/19/20 /26/28A/28B/66, TDD-LTE B34/B38/39/40/41/42, 5G NR n77/n78/n1/2/3/5/7/8/20/26/28/38/n40 /n41/66
  • Cameras - Rear 50 MP+50 MP pinch OV50E40/OV50D40 sensors, a pixel size of 1.0μm, 0.64 μm, and an aperture of 1.00, 2.05. Front 16 MP.
  • Sensors - Fingerprint, G-sensor, Electronic Compass, Gyroscope, Proximity, Ambient Light Sensor, Under-screen Light Sensor, Infrared Sensor
  • Battery - Battery: 6,000mAh pinch speedy charging that supports up to 80W
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