RedMagic 11 Air Review: Slim Design, Extreme Performance Gaming Phone

Compared with the previous generation, the most core breakthrough of the RedMagic 11 Air is combining the Snapdragon 8 Extreme Edition, active cooling fan, 7000mAh large battery, and a slim and lightweight body—features that seemingly contradict each other.

They are integrated into a phone that is only 7.85mm thick and weighs 207 grams. Therefore, the RedMagic 11 Air surpasses even some regular smartphones in thinness and hand feel, making people begin to question their stereotypical impressions of gaming phones.

It finds a very good balance between gaming phones and daily-use phones, and to some extent, it reflects technical strength better than the standard RedMagic series. Hand feel is a subjective experience, but the factors that determine hand feel are very objective.

In addition to the thinness and weight mentioned at the beginning, the RedMagic 11 Air has also put effort into other design details. The back is a whole piece of transparent glass, with obvious curved transitions around the edges that fit the palm. It feels very comfortable to hold.

The curved glass naturally connects with the matte metal middle frame, balancing aesthetics and grip. The body is relatively slender, and the width is also relatively narrow. Therefore, the one-handed holding experience is very good, and it is not easy to get tired when playing games in landscape orientation. The lighter body allows both hands to support it for a longer time.

Sometimes I casually pick it up to play for a while, not only because the hand feel is good. More because this true full screen is very attractive. The front is equipped with BOE’s 6.85-inch true full screen with 1.5K resolution and a 144Hz refresh rate.

The under-display front camera has been iterated, and even under light-colored backgrounds it is difficult to notice the existence of the front camera. Actual testing shows that it is only slightly visible under low brightness with a gray background.

This screen uses DC dimming at medium and high brightness, and 2592Hz high-frequency PWM dimming at low brightness. The touch sampling rate is as high as 960Hz, and the full-screen peak brightness can reach 1304 nits, ensuring that content can still be seen clearly under strong light.

In terms of gaming performance, the Snapdragon 8 Extreme Edition carried by the RedMagic 11 Air is still at the top level of the industry. In actual tests, all games were set to the highest image quality and highest frame rate, and Genshin Impact also enabled super-resolution and super-frame.

The specific performance is as follows. The gaming performance of the RedMagic 11 Air is indeed better than other phones with the same chip.

It does not sacrifice performance output because of the thin body. Even games with high hardware requirements such as “Yan Yun Shi Liu Sheng” can maintain high frame rates and high image quality. Power consumption will be slightly higher, but with the support of the 7000mAh large battery, battery life is not a problem.

During actual testing, the fan sound can be heard. It is relatively high-frequency but not harsh. The fan is located on the back of the body, and there is a distance between the person and the phone. Therefore, the actual perceived decibel level is not obvious.

In terms of gaming supporting hardware and functions, the RedMagic 11 Air relies on the self-developed R4 chip to achieve game super-resolution and super-frame; it comes with game shoulder triggers, which in FPS games can realize one-button slide-crouch-jump-snipe and one-button prone, and in MOBA games can achieve one-button invincibility, and in open-world games can realize extreme dodge operations; it has a built-in PC emulator, supporting playing console games on the phone through streaming or downloading console-side content.

The highlights in imaging are mainly filters, and many trendy options have been added this time, such as Positive, Negative, Bresson Black & White, Cyberpunk, etc.

Among them, the “Cyberpunk” filter is quite interesting. It adds carefully designed color difference effects to the subject and background, combined with scene light and shadow contrast, allowing photos with very distinctive characteristics to be taken. There is also Bresson Black & White, whose color and contrast are tuned very appropriately.

If the watermark is removed, who could tell that this was taken with a gaming phone? In addition to filters, the RedMagic 11 Air also has a palette function similar to iPhone. It can adjust color temperature, saturation, and light and shadow to match shooting scenes and personal preferences.

However, the palette currently can only change colors by adjusting color regions and cannot directly modify specific parameters, which is not convenient enough in use. It is recommended to improve this in the next generation.

The REDMAGIC OS 11 system has significantly improved smoothness and animations, and also has a linkage function for always-on display, lock screen, and desktop wallpaper. I quite like this design. It can intelligently cut out anime or game characters.

Creating a more three-dimensional display effect than ordinary always-on display.

System functions are also very complete. For example, recently popular AI automatic operation functions such as “ordering takeout with one sentence” are also supported by the RedMagic 11 Air. The side toolbar is retained and a new “Data Transfer” function is added, similar to Huawei’s Transfer Station, which can temporarily store possibly useful text or files such as Word documents.

It can also trigger AI to help understand and organize. REDMAGIC OS 11 basically has no advertisement push, and the system is relatively clean. This will be liked by many people. After talking about the advantages, it is also necessary to realistically look at the problems it currently still has.

When you look at the screen obliquely or observe it at a relatively large angle, obvious color shift will appear. White backgrounds will tend toward magenta. You may think, who would look at a phone like this?

But in daily life we are not always facing the screen directly. Sometimes the phone is placed on a table or viewed while lying sideways. Viewing angle performance is very important. If you mind it, you can set the color mode to “Vivid” in display settings, which can reduce the reddish shift. The overall colors will also be softer.

In addition, slight vertical texture noise can be seen when viewing at close distance. Most of the time it is not obvious because there is some distance from the phone, but when you get closer you can see it. The touch performance of this screen is also not perfect, with occasional touch interruption.

In Genshin Impact, sometimes you need to touch again to continue operating; in Zenless Zone Zero, pressing a skill button may have no response; while in Honor of Kings the performance is okay, but if it is only for playing this type of game, buying a RedMagic may not be so necessary.

The external speakers are below expectations. The speakers of the RedMagic 11 Air cannot be said to be bad, but they are biased toward treble. When multiple skills overlap in games, they can sound noisy, and there is insufficient low frequency when listening to music or watching videos. It is recommended to use them with headphones.

In the same WiFi environment, the signal quality of the RedMagic 11 Air is slightly worse than other Snapdragon 8 Extreme Edition phones. Therefore, network latency will also be relatively higher.

Overall, the RedMagic 11 Air puts high performance, active cooling, and a 7000mAh large battery into a slim body, with excellent hand feel and strong gaming experience. However, there is still room for improvement in screen viewing angles, touch stability, external speakers, and signal performance.

It finds a very good balance between thinness and performance, becoming a gaming phone that is hard to refuse.