The best gaming-focused tablet around

Verdict

If you’re looking for the best Android tablet for gaming, this is the one for you. It’s the fastest on the market, it’s loaded with game-enhancing features and it comes at a very attractive price.

Introduction

RedMagic has made a name for itself by producing some of the fastest and most competitively priced gaming phones on the market.

Recently, though, the brand has been broadening its product lineup, it now includes PC gaming peripherals, monitors and laptops. The latest addition is the brand’s first gaming tablet, the Nova.

It’s a 10.9-inch slate designed for those who prefer to play on a larger display, and it benefits from some of the same great features that we saw on the RedMagic 9S Pro. It has the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Leading Version at its core, an active cooling fan, RGB lighting and all the same advanced gaming features to enhance your experience.

With a starting price of just £439, it ticks the value box handily, too. The question is, should you opt for a gaming-specific tablet like this, or are you better off with a tried and true mainstream option from the likes of OnePlus or Samsung? After using it for a week or so, here’s what I think.

Design 

• 253.3 x 164.6 x 7.3mm, 530g
• Aluminium frame and rear casing
• Active cooling fan and RGB lights

While lots of tablets are good for playing games, gaming-specific tablets are a rarity, so you don’t see many designs with a cyberpunk-ish illuminated aesthetic. The exception would be the ROG Flow Z13, but since that device is Windows-based, it’s in a different class altogether.

This means, if you like that edgy futuristic look, there’s nothing quite like the RedMagic Nova on the market today. It has a semi-transparent panel running the width of the rear, with an RGB-illuminated RedMagic logo and an RGB fan to give it that classic gamer aesthetic.

The side rails and rear panel are made from a single slab of matte-finish aluminium, and the tablet feels premium and dense. There’s a power button/fingerprint reader combo and volume rocker, but no capacitive triggers or game-mode switch like you’d find on RedMagic’s phones.

Oddly, there’s no 3.5mm headphone socket on this tablet, either. It’s something that we’ve seen present on all RedMagic phones, despite modern trends, so it’s a strange choice to remove it on the tablet – especially with so many gamers valuing low-latency audio.

The edges are angular and boxy, a lot like an iPad, and there are even bezels, about a centimetre in width, surrounding the display. Slimmer bezels might look more modern, but I think the larger bezels make the tablet easier to use, as they give you somewhere to grip the device without accidentally tapping the screen.

Overall, I think it’s a very nice-looking tablet, however, I was a little disappointed to learn that the “window” section doesn’t show any internals, it’s just a printed design that’s supposed to look like a PCB. It gives the same effect from a distance, but under close scrutiny, it’s less impressive.

There are some pogo-pin contacts on the base of the tablet, but currently, no accessories are listed on the global RedMagic site, and I wasn’t sent any for testing. The Chinese site shows a few different case options as well as a keyboard cover and a stylus, but at this stage, I don’t know which accessories will get a global release.

I hope there’s at least a case available, as you don’t get one in the box, and I felt a little nervous using the tablet unprotected during my testing.

Screen 

• 10.9-inch 144Hz IPS
• 2880 x 1800 resolution, 840Hz touch sampling
• 550 nits peak brightness

The RedMagic Nova has a 10.9-inch display, exactly the same size as Apple’s 10th Gen iPad. It has a slightly higher resolution than Apple’s screen and it’s over twice as fast, able to refresh at up to 144Hz for super smooth scrolling and gameplay.

In truth, you’re unlikely to notice much of a difference between a 120Hz panel and 144Hz panel, and the games that can take advantage of those extra frames are few and far between. That said, it’s one of the fastest in its class, and that’s exactly what you want on a gaming device.

It’s an IPS panel, so you don’t get quite the same black levels as a proper OLED, but this display is still surprisingly good in that area. There’s plenty of contrast and the colours are vibrant and poppy.

The display maxes out at 550 nits peak brightness, which is more than enough indoors, but it’ll struggle to compete with the sunlight. I tested this tablet immediately after Huawei’s MatePad Pro 12.2, which is probably the brightest tablet on the market right now, and the difference was stark.

If you’re mainly gaming around the house then you’re unlikely to have complaints, but if you’re looking for a tablet to take out and about, this display could certainly be improved. It’s still slightly brighter than Apple’s 10th Gen iPad, so it does retain some bragging rights.

The Nova supports HDR playback and it looks quite good doing so via YouTube. However, unfortunately, HDR doesn’t seem to be supported in the Netflix app Weirdly, it has the correct DRM certification to allow full HD playback, but HDR is disabled, and I’m not too sure why.

The RedMagic Nova has quad stereo speakers and they pump out an impressive sound. There’s plenty of thud to the low end, while the highs are detailed and precise. It’s a good sound signature for FPS titles, as it emphasises explosions without muddying footsteps too much.

Cameras 

• 50MP rear camera
• 20MP selfie camera
• Up to 4K 30fps video recording

The RedMagic Nova has a 50MP snapper on its rear and a 20MP selfie camera tucked in the bezel on the front. Tablets don’t tend to have the most impressive camera systems, and despite some relatively high megapixel counts, it’s the same old story here.

At the very least, the selfie camera is much better than the under-display unit found on most recent RedMagic phones. It’s not going to wow anyone, but it’s better than most laptop webcams. It’s certainly good enough for video calls, and that’s likely to be its main use case.

In good lighting, photos from the rear camera are very vibrant with colours that pop and plenty of dynamic range. However, a relatively small sensor and a lack of OIS mean that images are often grainy or blurry in dimmer conditions. For the odd snap, it gets the job done.

You can record video at up to 4K@60fps on the rear camera, or 1080p@30fps on the front. Both rely on electronic image stabilisation, and it does an OK job, but it’s nowhere near as smooth as a typical smartphone.

In the vast majority of scenarios, it’s better to use your phone for photos and videos. These cameras could be handy in a pinch, but they’re best reserved for scanning QR codes and the occasional Zoom meeting.

Performance 

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Leading Version
• Up to 24GB RAM, up to 1TB storage
• Quad stereo speakers

The RedMagic Nova is powered by the same souped-up variant of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 that debuted with the RedMagic 9S Pro, dubbed the Leading Version. My review sample is paired with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, which is more than enough for my needs, but if your pockets are deep enough, you can boost that to a staggering 24GB and 1TB.

The RedMagic 9S Pro is the fastest phone I’ve ever tested, so I went into this review with high hopes, and the Nova didn’t let me down. It posted the best 3DMark scores I’ve ever seen from an Android tablet, not only in outright performance but in sustained performance, too.

Simply put, if you’re looking for the fastest Android tablet for gaming, this is it. It’ll handle any game you can throw at it with ease, and won’t get too hot in the process. I was able to enjoy many hours of Genshin Impact on the highest graphics preset at 60fps, and never encountered any stuttering or significant frame drops no matter how intense the battle became.

The gaming experience is further enhanced by RedMagic’s wildly comprehensive set of gaming tools, which can be accessed at any time by swiping in from the sides of the display. As mentioned, there are no triggers here (they’d be hard to reach anyway) but everything else is essentially identical to the brand’s gaming phones.

This means you get access to overclocked performance modes, network prioritisation, notification blocking, quick messaging and brightness locking – but that’s only scratching the surface. Some options can resize your game, automatically shoot when a target is detected, amplify footsteps, brighten dark scenes and more.

The options range from genuinely useful to basically cheating. It’s luxurious, and slightly overwhelming, to have so many choices at your fingertips.

Software 

• RedMagic OS 9.5, based on Android 14
• Comprehensive gaming features
• Some bloatware

The Nova gaming tablet runs RedMagic OS 9.5, a skinned version of Android 14, and I have mixed feelings about it. As mentioned, there are tonnes of gaming features here that competitive players are sure to love, but there are also some aspects that make the tablet feel a little more unpolished.

For example, I noticed multiple system notifications that had typos or mistranslations, which is something that really detracts from the premium feel elsewhere. There’s also a bit of bloatware pre-installed, as well as prompts encouraging you to add more on the first setup. It’s easily removable, but it’s less than ideal.

It was only a couple of months ago that I was praising the RedMagic 9S Pro for its lack of bloatware, so to see it added back here is puzzling and disappointing. On the plus side, I never experienced any major glitches or bugs during my testing, so after some cleanup, the overall experience was positive.

RedMagic OS has a bit of a sci-fi-inspired gamer look as standard, but it’s highly customisable, and if you want to make it look a little more stock, it’s very easy to do so. Aside from these design choices, it doesn’t stray too far from the Android experience that we all know and love, so most people will have no trouble navigating the system – even with a slew of extra gaming features added to the mix.

Since this is a tablet, rather than a phone, the multitasking experience is even more important, and thankfully, RedMagic does an excellent job here. It’s easy to display two apps side-by-side in a split-screen view, as you’d expect, but you can also display just about anything in a floating window at the same time. This means you can watch a YouTube video, scroll TikTok and play Genshin all on one screen, if your brain can handle that kind of stimulation.

RedMagic OS also includes a host of other gaming-centric features that users may or may not find useful. There’s a desktop/TV mode that works a bit like Samsung DEX, but it’s all gaming-focused. With an appropriate adapter and a wireless controller, you can essentially turn this tablet into an Android gaming console for your living room, it’s really cool.

There’s also an option that allows you to remotely control your tablet from your PC. You can access all of your files, and even play games, using your desktop monitor, keyboard and mouse. Most people would never need this feature, but if you have a reason for it, it works exceptionally well.

Battery life 

• 10,100 mAh silicon-carbon battery
• 80W wired charging
• Charger included

The RedMagic Nova has a pretty hefty 10,100 mAh battery onboard, and RedMagic reckons that’s good enough for 10 hours of gaming or 19 hours of general use on a charge.

In reality, it all depends on how you’re using it. If you max out the settings in a graphics-heavy title, whack the brightness up to full and enable the Diablo Mode overclock then you can expect a lot less than 10 hours. However, with more modest settings, it certainly seems achievable.

I found that a few hours of gaming on high settings, in the tablet’s standard “Balanced” profile, would only drain around 20% or so. If you’re just watching content and answering emails, this slate will easily run all day long.

What’s less impressive, though, is the standby time. It’s another aspect that was jarring after testing Huawei’s latest MatePad, which can apparently last longer than a year on standby, comparatively, this might not last a week. I found that leaving it on standby overnight would result in around 10% loss, sometimes more.

On the plus side, this tablet charges in flash, and the powerful 80W wall adapter is included in the box. You can expect to get well over 60% charged in half an hour, while a full charge from flat is only likely to take around an hour. 

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