RedMagic 10 Air Review – Does The Budget Gaming Phone Deliver?

We’ve been a fan of the RedMagic series here at DG for a while, and so we were quite thrilled to try out one of their newer arrivals, the RedMagic 10 Air. This phone promises to present a more wallet-friendly option than its heftier siblings, while still giving a great experience to gamers on the go.

So, does it fulfil its promise? Let’s get into it.

First Impressions

My previous experience with RedMagic phones was reviewing the RedMagic 8 Pro a couple of years ago. The first major difference that struck me between the phones was that the RedMagic 10 Air had gone for a more restrained look than its older brother. The packaging had foregone the comic book panels for a more understated black and silver with the logo.

Similarly, the phone itself didn’t have the sci-fi style panel details the older model had; instead, it went for the logo and some fancy brushed metal panels on the side. I couldn’t decide whether I missed the edgier aesthetic or not. This is more a feature of the Air than a change of direction for the phones as a whole, as the Pro version goes hard on the spaceship panelling look from what we can tell.

This one does mean you can be on your phone at a meeting and make it a lot less obvious that you’re trying to break through on Downwell.

USB-C data transfer from my regular phone meant all my apps were up and running very quickly and with minimal fuss, even ones like Pojav, which were not available on Google Play at the time.

The Tech

So first, let’s talk about some of the hard stuff. The RedMagic 10 Air is pretty well-supplied in terms of specs, obviously geared at the gaming experience.

It boasts a 120Hz 6.8 AMOLED screen, which covers nearly all of the front.

Its processor is the Gen 3 Snapdragon 8. The 512GB storage model we got our hands on also came with an impressive 16GB of RAM.

This comes with a novel passive cooling method, using metal that melts at a certain temp to absorb the heat.

The battery has a pretty decent 6,000mAh capacity, which will hold onto charge well when you’re using it for everyday phone things, and should give you 3-4 hours on more demanding gaming apps.

How did it perform? Very well. We couldn’t find anything that the phone couldn’t handle well in terms of games from the Play Pass. They all played smoothly, and we didn’t run into issues with heat.

The only things we can imagine it struggling with would be some of the more resource-heavy areas of emulation. Some of the setting-tweaking features below might help with things like that, though.

The Features

One of the big features that makes the phone suit gamers is the Game Center. This is accessible through the options. (We had a bit of trouble finding it initially.) It works as an alternative launcher for any of your game apps, but that’s not all.

Use it to tweak settings for each game individually. You can do screen recordings easily. You can screencast. There is a wealth of different handy plugins that can do a ton of useful utilities, from helping you gauge distance in-game to helping you pick a card for a random chance game. The amount of options is staggering, and it’s clear there’s been a ton of thought put into making it as gaming-friendly as possible. It’s not just a red and black UI pasted on to make it look gamer-y.

There’s also an anime girl you can set to give you reminders and refer to you as ‘Commander’. I don’t think I’m the target audience for that, but if it’s a selling point for you, then the option is available. If it’s not, fortunately, it’s fully optional, and you won’t get an anime waifu telling you you got a text at work unless you signed up for it.

Now this I expected, at least to some degree. What surprised me more was that the phone had a few more everyday things that I enjoyed too.

The camera is a lot better and more feature-filled than I expected for a phone that markets itself for gaming. Different lenses, macro photos, and image editing on the fly. I had a blast taking some pictures with it, and it supports video up to 8K. (At 30fps, at least.)

At 50MP with a 16MP selfie cam, there are definitely better, higher spec phone cameras out there, but given that no one is buying a RedMagic specifically for taking pictures, I think it does fine.

It felt like the designers wanted to create a good all-rounder phone, which is great if you don’t want to just keep it for playing games.

The Dislikes

Overall, my experience with the RedMagic 10 Air was a good one, there were some small things that I didn’t like as much about it.

The UI works fine, but still insists on a proprietary browser. Fortunately, Chrome did show up pre-installed once I’d finished my setup, so accessing my browser of choice wasn’t tricky, but I would prefer easy access to Chrome immediately.

The UI is a little bit clunky, albeit an improvement on the previous models I’ve tried. It’s liveable, but takes a little getting used to.

While it’s smaller and notably thinner than some of the previous RedMagic phones, don’t expect ‘Air’ to mean a small phone. It’s still 205g of chunky tech. This is pretty good given its performance, but if you want something paper-thin and ultra-light, you probably won’t enjoy this.

We only received the model with a two-pin charging plug, so we can’t say for certain if UK format is available, or whether you’d have to rely on an adapter.

The Overall Verdict

When I reviewed the RedMagic 8 I found it charming and good at its niche, but perhaps a little impractical for everyday use, between being hugely heavy and rather odd to use at times.

The RedMagic 10 Air feels like the kind of phone I could use every day, and still get the kind of gaming experience I want from the device. It’s well thought-out and clear that Nubia is eager to improve on each iteration and isn’t content with just coasting on their rep for powerful gaming phones.

If you want a reasonably-priced gaming phone that can also be your phone phone, then the RedMagic 10 Air is a very solid choice. If it’s of interest you you, maybe check out the RedMagic website.