Did Nothing make a gaming phone? Oh, it’s Redmagic

The Redmagic 11 Air has been announced, offering top-tier gaming performance at a mid-range price.

Last year’s Redmagic 10 Air saw Nubia’s gaming sub-brand taking a slightly different approach. Here was a gaming phone with slimmer proportions, a (slightly) more subtle design, and an even more aggressive price tag. It was a mid-range phone with a difference.

The Redmagic 11 Air seems to mark a subtle shift in priorities, doing away with some of the everyday niceties and doubling down on the stuff that makes a good gaming phone.

Redmagic 11 Air design

The proportions are similar to before, if a fraction thicker and heavier at 163.82 x 76.54 x 7.85mm and 207g. That remains downright slinky for a gaming phone, though.

Redmagic has reverted to a more explicitly gamer-y design, though, with fake circuit board details showing through a semi-transparent rear cover. Comparisons with last year’s Nothing Phone (3) are inevitable, even if Nubia has resisted any temptation to include a version of the controversial ‘Glyph Matrix’.

Sadly, the 11 Air is still only IP54 rated, meaning it’s not fully dust-proof and only safe from splashes of water.

You still get those signature 520Hz capacitive shoulder buttons on the right-hand edge, which can be mapped to in-game controls. There’s also a Magic Key button on the opposite edge, which accesses the company’s Game Space gaming UI by default, but can be remapped.

A more consequential choice is the reinstatement of a physical cooling fan, complete with vent and RGB lighting on the right-hand edge. This spins at 24,000 RPM, working in conjunction with a vapour chamber to cool the phone’s processor.

We commented in our full Redmagic 10 Air review that the lack of a cooling fan was a slightly odd touch – this was always a feature that marked the Redmagic series out from the rest as a gaming phone proposition – so this could well be a positive move.

Redmagic 11 Air performance and display

That fan cools a Snapdragon 8 Elite processor. Yes, this is last year’s flagship chip, but the performance gap between this and the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (as seen on the Redmagic 11 Pro) isn’t huge, and it’s a generational step up from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 of the Redmagic 10 Air.

There’s a choice of 12 or 16GB of LPDDR5X Ultra RAM, and either 256 or 512GB of speedy UFS 4.1 storage.

Another big game-related upgrade relates to the display. Redmagic appears to have grabbed the 6.85-inch AMOLED panel from the Redmagic 10 Pro (along with a number of other components), which represents a step up from the 10 Air.

It’s slightly bigger, has a sharper 1216 x 2688 resolution, and also a more fluid 144Hz peak refresh rate. Any games with the ability to output at better than 120fps should benefit. It also gets brighter, to the tune of 1,800 nits.

As with previous Redmagic phones, there’s no visible notch, so gaming (and other media) content can be experienced without obstruction.

Redmagic 11 Air camera, battery and pricing

Naturally, that under-display notch has repercussions for selfies, with an under-display 16Mp front camera. Based on past experience, this doesn’t produce great results, but we’ll have to see about that in our review.

There appears to have been a flat-out downgrade with the rear cameras. You still get a 50Mp 1/1.55-inch main camera with OIS and a 7P lens (seven plastic lenses) array, but that’s now accompanied by a lesser 8Mp ultra-wide with OIS (optical image stabilisation).

It’s understandable within a gaming context, of course. Talking of which, the final major game-related decision has been to bump up the battery capacity from 6,000mAh to a whopping 7,000mAh. Opting for silicon-carbon battery technology means Redmagic can achieve this without making the phone bulky.

Together with that cooling fan, this thing should be better-equipped for sustained gaming sessions than its predecessor. You’ll also get 80W charging support, but no wireless charging.

The Redmagic 11 Air will be available to buy, in Phantom (black) or Prism (white), from the Redmagic website on 11 February. It’ll cost a very wallet-friendly £439/$529 for the 12GB/256GB model, and £529/$629 for 16GB/512GB.

The only game in town

Nubia’s Redmagic sub-brand is pretty much the only game in town right now if you want a phone primarily concerned with playing games.

Asus seemingly gave up following the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro in late 2024.

This makes the constant (OK, six-monthly) drip of new Redmagic phones both more agreeable and even a little impressive.