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As promised last month, REDMAGIC’s newest liquid-cooled gaming tablet is now launching globally as “Astra 2.” It is equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, supports native PC game emulation, and features one of the snazziest designs you’ll find on Android tablets.
The chief highlight of the design is the new blue-hued liquid-cooling mechanism that the Astra 2 flexes through the back glass and even under the logo. REDMAGIC has further embellished it with RGB lighting, making the tablet’s utility even more important. The coolant can operate over an extreme temperature range of -60ºC to 125ºC (-76ºF to 257ºF). But unlike REDMAGIC’s latest gaming phone or a host of previous devices, the tablet lacks a physical fan to cool the system even faster.
On the front, there’s a 9-inch OLED display with an 185Hz refresh rate, 2.4K resolution, and a dedicated Synaptics chip for faster touch response. Underneath, you get an 8,300mAh battery, split into two cells for faster charging. The tablet also supports fast wired charging at 80W, and even though you’d get a brick in the box, you can use just about any USB-PD compatible charger to reach those speeds.
In addition to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, the tablet also packs a RedCore R4 gaming chip, which drives additional customization features that can run on top of games. There are two configurations with RAM and storage options, including 12GB + 256GB and 16GB + 512GB. Both these options are also available in two different colors: Black Eclipse and Silver Starfrost.
Beyond this, the tablet gets not one but two USB-C ports with USB 3.2 Gen 2, which also supports DisplayPort output. The global variant comes with REDMAGIC OS 11, which is based on Android 16. The ZTE-owned brand does not make promises about future Android updates.
Talking of availability, while REDMAGIC announces the tablet for global markets today, it won’t be available until next month. REDMAGIC plans to make early-bird vouchers available by mid-August, with pre-orders beginning later in August. It’s also set to be available around “late August,” but there’s no clarity on the exact dates in each case.
As for pricing, the REDMAGIC Astra 2 will start at $749 for the base variant and $849 for the higher trim. There’s no word on actual early-bird incentives that the company plans to offer, but we’ll keep a tab on any future announcements.
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