RedMagic 11 AIR Review: Snapdragon 8 Elite Gaming Phone

In April 2025, Red Magic opened a new product line — AIR — launching the first phone in the series, the Red Magic 10 AIR. What no one expected was that less than a year later, the AIR series would iterate, welcoming the Red Magic 11 AIR gaming phone, which comes with a processor upgrade to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite, active cooling, RGB lighting, and a transparent back shell design.

Rejecting Homogenization

Today, smartphone homogenization is already a very prominent problem. Red Magic phone product general manager Jiang Chao even complained on Weibo about the design culture in the phone industry — "iPhone 17 Pro, copied from the 17 AIR." The reasons for this problem are varied: first, phone structures are increasingly simple — the front is one large screen, the back is multiple cameras, leaving manufacturers very little room to exercise creativity; second, being lazy is more effective than putting in effort, and when the iPhone came along, many consumers were willing to settle for a phone that looked roughly like an iPhone.

However, as an outlier in the smartphone market, Red Magic has always refused to accept this, with every phone seeking differentiation. The front of the Red Magic 11 AIR is a 6.85-inch large screen from BOE, using a Q10 material panel that achieves 144Hz high refresh rate at 1.5K resolution, with a peak brightness as high as 1800 nits, supporting a global 960Hz and instantaneous 2000Hz ultra-high touch sampling rate, as well as 2592Hz high-frequency PWM dimming and DC dimming modes. It has received both SGS low blue light and national-level AMOLED dual eye-protection certifications, making it a screen that balances gaming and eye-care needs.

More importantly, the Red Magic 11 AIR features a Wukong full-screen display with no punch-hole. Although a 16-megapixel front-facing camera is hidden at the top of the screen, even upon close inspection the camera remains invisible, achieving a near-perfect concealment effect. Furthermore, the bezel width is only 1.25mm, with a screen-to-body ratio as high as 95.1%, meaning this screen can deliver an ultimate immersive experience.

In addition to the full-screen display that is starkly different from other brands, the rear design of the Red Magic 11 AIR is also quite eye-catching — available in three colorways: Quantum Black, Stardust White, and Aurora Silver. The Quantum Black version we have in hand adopts a transparent back shell design, incorporating multiple design elements including the racing track from "F1: Rush," the retro texture of vinyl records, and the geometric forms of Mondrian, along with an RGB-lit logo and fan, making it highly distinctive.

Furthermore, the Red Magic 11 AIR uses an aluminum alloy mid-frame. With a built-in 7000mAh large battery and 120W Magic Flash fast charging, the body thickness is only 7.85mm. Dual touch shoulder buttons and red competition keys are designed on both sides of the frame, with the shoulder buttons featuring a 520Hz high refresh rate and anti-sweat design. When holding the phone horizontally with both hands to play games, the index fingers can rest right on the shoulder buttons, using "physical add-ons" to enhance combat ability — in FPS games, you can achieve simultaneous fire and scope-in with one key, sliding-crouch jump snipe, flash-body Peek, and other advanced operations; in MOBA team fights you can quickly switch gear, and users can also customize the shoulder keys according to their actual needs to improve gaming operational efficiency.

Performance Testing

As a gaming phone, the Red Magic 11 AIR naturally cannot be lax on performance. It is equipped not only with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor and 9600Mbps high-frequency memory (the test unit is the 16GB+512GB version), but also has a built-in Red Core R4 proprietary e-sports chipset, using the same CUBE Qiangtian Game Engine as flagship models, capable of millisecond-level performance scheduling based on AI frame rate perception.

To ensure stable operation of this performance combination, the Red Magic 11 AIR uses an active cooling fan — Yufeng 4.0. This is the first time the Red Magic AIR series has adopted an active cooling fan. The fan can stably operate at a high speed of 24,000 RPM, while also using a high-low differential blade design to enhance cooling effectiveness. At the same time, an aviation aluminum wind-cooled bracket design is used, placing the high thermal conductivity lightweight aviation aluminum bracket and fan in parallel with the chip position, further improving fan working efficiency. Additionally, an ultra-thick ice-grade VC is used, which improves the efficiency of heat transfer within the phone through a double-sided convex design and ultra-high-density capillary backflow system.

The Red Magic 11 AIR has also passed performance certifications from five top-tier competitions, including the QQ Speed Mobile S League, the League of Legends Mobile Super League, the Crossfire — Gun Battle King Professional League, the Marauders Pioneer Cup, and the Call of Duty Mobile (mainland China server) Masters, with professional competitions providing performance endorsement.

Next, we will conduct a series of performance and temperature tests on the Red Magic 11 AIR to see its actual performance. First are two theoretical performance tests: AnTuTu and Geekbench 6. The phone scored a total of 3,362,975 points in AnTuTu, with CPU and GPU scores of 994,455 and 1,125,962 respectively; in Geekbench 6, the CPU single-core score was 2,979 and the multi-core score was 9,694.

The second test is 3DMark, where we used the more demanding Wild Life Extreme and Steel Nomad Light tests to examine the Red Magic 11 AIR's traditional rasterization performance as well as ray tracing performance. The Red Magic 11 AIR scored 6,815 in the Wild Life Extreme test, with an average frame rate of 40.81 FPS; in the Steel Nomad Light ray tracing test, it scored 2,551, with an average frame rate of 18.90 FPS.

For mobile game testing, we selected the still-popular Genshin Impact and Honor of Kings. Genshin Impact was run for a continuous 30-minute test with graphics maxed out, set to 60 FPS high frame rate mode, with GameDog used to record the phone's actual frame rate. The actual average frame rate was 60.9 FPS, with a 1% low frame rate of 50.7 FPS and an average power consumption of 3,356.9mW. It can be seen that the Red Magic 11 AIR's frame rate drops somewhat when encountering complex scenes, but not severely.

Honor of Kings is a game that the Red Magic 11 AIR natively supports at 144Hz high refresh. In addition to this game, League of Legends Mobile, Crossfire — Gun Battle King, Marauders, Naruto Mobile, QQ Speed Mobile, PUBG Mobile, and Kartrider Rush+ have all achieved native 144Hz adaptation; in the future, Delta Force Mobile, Call of Duty Mobile, Teamfight Tactics Mobile, and Valorant Mobile are also among the games set to support 144Hz high refresh. In testing with graphics maxed out and high refresh mode enabled, a match of approximately 9 minutes was played. The actual Red Magic 11 AIR average frame rate was 145 FPS, with a 1% low frame rate of 135.2 FPS and an average power consumption of 3,301.9mW, with the FPS almost forming a straight line.

Next, we challenged the Red Magic 11 AIR's extreme performance by running the 3DMark Wild Life Stress Test while simultaneously using an infrared thermometer to record the phone's surface temperature (ambient temperature approximately 23°C). In 20 rounds of testing, the Red Magic 11 AIR's best score was 25,177, lowest score was 20,217, with a stability rate of 80.3%.

As the Wild Life Stress Test was nearing its end, the phone's surface temperature was measured. The front, back, and air outlet temperatures all exceeded 65°C, proving that the fan is not just for show, but is working hard.

However, it must be noted that the Wild Life Stress Test is an extremely demanding test, and does not equate to performance during gameplay. During the 30-minute Genshin Impact map traversal test, we simultaneously recorded the phone's surface temperature, and the result was that the Red Magic 11 AIR's highest temperature on both front and back was around 43°C — a good result, and far lower than the temperatures seen under the Wild Life Stress Test.

REDMAGIC OS 11 Built-in PC Emulator

As Red Magic's first phone of 2026, the Red Magic 11 AIR naturally runs the latest, ad-free REDMAGIC OS 11 system, and in order to let gamers play more games, the system has a built-in PC emulator function. Users only need to long-press the red competition key on the side of the device to enter the game space with one click and find the PC emulator.

Under the PC emulator, Red Magic has resolved the architectural translation challenges between Android and PC, as well as 3D API compatibility issues. Currently users can freely play multiple classic AAA games including Assassin's Creed Rogue, Tomb Raider (2013), and Need for Speed Rivals, and it supports external smartwatch connectivity, keyboard and mouse operation, as well as screen mirroring to monitors.

As for the currently popular AI features, the Red Magic 11 AIR is not lacking either — it supports AI Circle Search, AI object recognition, and AI tactical coach functions, and by waking "Magic Princess" you can have AI recognize everything around you and engage in real-world dialogue.

Photography: Under-screen Front Camera + Dual Rear Cameras

Although the Red Magic 11 AIR is a gaming phone, it does not fall short on cameras. The front is a 16-megapixel under-screen camera, and the rear has a 50-megapixel OIS main camera and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera, with the latter two having focal lengths equivalent to 24mm and 14mm respectively, with the main camera supporting up to 8K 30FPS video recording. Below are sample photos taken by the three cameras:

Front camera

Main camera 1X

Main camera 2X

Ultra-wide

Conclusion

The Red Magic 11 AIR is a gaming phone that takes the road less traveled. In an era when industry design trends toward homogenization, its Wukong full-screen display, transparent back shell, and RGB ambient lighting create a distinctive appearance with high recognizability. Internally, it uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, 9600Mbps high-frequency memory, Red Core R4 proprietary e-sports chipset, and Yufeng 4.0 active cooling design, delivering gaming performance that can be called outstanding among phones in the same price range, along with "shoulder button" add-ons that further enhance operation. It can be said that the Red Magic 11 AIR is a choice with a strong personality and solid capability — it is a phone, and also a handheld gaming console.