Review – REDMAGIC 10 Air

[nextpage title=”Introduction”]

Every year REDMAGIC releases a new smartphone, but this year we’ve got 2! The Chinese firm specialising in gaming released version 10 earlier this year, and now we’re treated to a lighter version: the REDMAGIC 10 Air .

On the menu: a cheaper, thinner, lighter smartphone with a smaller battery. The complexity of the ventilation system has also been removed, which should have a slight impact on performance. The chip remains the same, so it remains to be seen what the performance gap will be with its big brother.

With a price starting at €499 , the 10 Air is surely the cheapest gaming smartphone on the market… Even if this concept of ‘gaming smartphone’ can encompass a lot of people. Nevertheless, it would be a great deal for REDMAGIC, which is already the king of price/performance ratios.

We like the less pronounced edges of the 10 Air. Although we’ve lost the gaming design. Thinner than its big brother, the 10 Air does have protruding camera lenses. However, the case supplied with the phone will protect the lenses.

Technical specifications:

• SoC : Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
• RAM : 12GB, 16GB
• Storage: 256GB, 512GB
• Battery : 6000mAh
• Ports : USB-C
• Operating system : REDMAGIC OS 10
• Front camera: 16MP
• Rear camera: 50MP (primary), 50MP (ultra-wide)
• Dimensions: 164.3 x 76.6 x 7.85 mm
• Colours: White , Black , Orange
• Screen type : AMOLED, 120Hz
• Weight : 205g
• Charging speed : 80W
• Screen dimensions : 6.8″
• Screen resolution : 2480x 1116 pixel
• SIM support : Dual SIM
• Cellular connectivity : 5G
• Wi-Fi connectivity : Wi-Fi 7
• Bluetooth: 5.4
• Audio : Dual DTS-X Certified speakers
• Fingerprint sensor under the screen

[nextpage title=”Features”]

Screen

The 10 Air has a large FHD AMOLED screen with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. It’s 6.8 inches, which makes it pretty massive. But with a screen-to-body ratio of 93.7%, the screen takes up almost the entire front of the smartphone.

The front camera and fingerprint sensor are located below the screen. The front selfie camera improves with each generation, a real challenge as it is also completely invisible.

In terms of brightness, the Redmagic 10 Air should deliver up to 1600 nits. We didn’t reach this value during our test, but we did reach 1300 nits. Which is totally sufficient.

Finally, the screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass. The smartphone comes from the factory with a protective film installed, which is a nice touch.

Battery and charging

The battery isn’t as big as that of the Redmagic 10 Pro and 9S Pro, but it’s still one of the main selling points for gamers. We’ve tried to put it through its paces with a number of different tests to get good data:

• PCMark battery test , the Redmagic 10 Air scored 10 hours and 23 minutes.
• VLC played videos for 24 hours and 32 minutes at 50% brightness, using Wi-Fi. An impressive performance.

With the 80W charger, you won’t need to plug in your 10 Air for long. It reaches 65% charge in 35 minutes, and 100% charge takes just 55 minutes. Note that there’s no wireless charging.

Audio

The phone is equipped with stereo speakers, perfect for playing games, watching videos or films. The speakers can be very powerful and the quality is decent. What’s more, the Redmagic 10 Air is Dolby DTS: X Ultra certified.

This time, however, we’ve lost the 3.5mm jack we’ve come to appreciate so much.

Cooling

With this version, REDMAGIC loses its fan and therefore active cooling. The solution chosen is more similar to that found on notebook PCs, but with liquid metal between each of the 9 layers of the cooling system. Liquid metal has much better thermal conductivity than traditional solutions.

Camera

The rear photo lenses are Samsung components: the GN5 50MP 24mm with OIS and the JN1 50MP 13mm for wide angle. On the other side of the screen is the 16MP selfie camera . The rear cameras on the Redmagic 10 Air give very decent results. As for the front camera, it’s much better than before, but don’t expect miracles either.

Other

Games require a fast response, which is why the screen has a touch sampling rate of up to 2,000 Hz. This is the number of times the screen’s sensors update to record touch data per second. Shoulder triggers have a sampling rate of 520 Hz. By comparison, gaming mice typically have a sampling rate of 1,000 Hz (1 ms).

[nextpage title=”Gaming options”]

Finally, I’ll leave you to look at the various new options to give you an edge in game.

[nextpage title=”Experience Android Redmagic”]
Some non-gaming features and options.

[nextpage title=”Benchmark”]

Benchmarks

For our benchmarks, we compared the Redmagic 10 Air to other gaming Android smartphones.

Antutu v10 :

On Antutu v10, we have -8.77% on the CPU test, -5.75% on the GPU, -12.58% for memory, -4.9% for the UX compared to the 9S Pro and the Leading Version chip.

3DMark:

On 3DMark, everything is in the red, with around -5% on all scores compared to the 9S Pro and the chip in the Leading Version.

Geekbench 6:

Under Geekbench 6, we have -1.82% in single-core CPU, but +0.34% in Multi-core. Under Vulkan, the GPU shows -14% performance under Vulkan compared with the 9S Pro and the chip in the Leading Version.

GFXBench:

Now it’s GFXBench’s turn, and it’s very decent, with 1.31% on Manhattan 3.0 and -4.24% on Car chase compared with the 9S Pro and the Leading Version chip .

BaseMark GPU :

Finally, BaseMarkGPU 1.2 gives us some disappointing results, -10% on simple Vulkan 1, -35% on medium Vulkan 1, -17% on simple OpenGL 3.1 and -26% on medium OpenGL 3.1 compared with the 9S Pro and the Leading Version chip.

[nextpage title=”Conclusion”]

Pre-orders for the Redmagic 10 Air are already open and you can take advantage of a €30 discount on the REDMAGIC website, giving you a pre-order price of €469.

The 12GB RAM and 256GB memory model we tried out will set you back €499. The 16GB RAM and 512GB memory version will be available for €649, all on the REDMAGIC website.

There’s a lot to like about this smartphone, even if its benchmark performance isn ‘t up there with REDMAGIC’s other smartphones. Objectively speaking, we can’t see any difference in gaming. The only thing missing is a 3.5mm jack. The software continues to improve, and there are more and more aids for gamers to help them dominate their opponents.

REDMAGIC 10 Air

We liked :

• The 120Hz AMOLEDscreen
• Snapdragon power
• The gaming features
• Better grip
• Aggressive price

What we didn’t like :

• No more 3.5mm jack

REDMAGIC has come up with an even more affordable gaming smartphone with equivalent gaming performance. And that’s exactly the point, because for this price, it becomes a serious competitor to non-gaming phones. It offers more power, a better battery and a host of features for gamers. That makes the REDMAGIC 10 Air quite a customer when you consider its price/performance ratio.