WARSAW, February 1, 2026, 13:19 CET
- Europe open sale set for Feb. 11; €1 “Early Bird” vouchers begin Feb. 5 and promise €30 off plus early access
- Specs list a 7.85 mm, 207g body with a Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, 24,000‑RPM fan and a 7,000 mAh battery
- Hands-on reviews praise performance-per-euro, but flag heat, fan noise and missing features such as wireless charging
REDMAGIC will open sales of its RedMagic 11 Air gaming smartphone in Europe on Feb. 11, starting at 499 euros, and is pitching €1 “Early Bird” vouchers from Feb. 5 that it says will unlock discounts and early access. (REDMAGIC)
Gaming phones have built a reputation for raw power and awkward heft — big screens, bright backs, extra vents, and in some cases shoulder triggers that make them feel closer to a handheld console. They sell to a slice of buyers, but they are hard to carry and easy to ignore.
That matters in a cycle where “Air” has become shorthand for thinner hardware, and where performance gains are now often limited by heat, not headline chip speed. If a gaming phone can look less like a brick and still stay fast under load, it threatens a chunk of the mainstream Android market.
RedMagic’s European spec sheet puts the 11 Air at 7.85 mm thick and 207 grams, with a 6.8-inch OLED display rated up to 144Hz — how many times per second the screen can refresh. It lists Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, a 24,000‑RPM fan (revolutions per minute) and a 7,000 mAh battery — mAh is a measure of battery capacity — with charging up to 80W, plus IP54 dust and splash resistance and a 50‑megapixel main camera with an 8‑megapixel ultra‑wide. (REDMAGIC)
In a hands-on published on Sunday, Tom’s Guide reviewer Richard Priday wrote that the model starts at $529 in the United States and £439 in the UK, landing near Google’s Pixel 9a on price and below entry-level flagships he cited as comparables. Priday said benchmark tests — Geekbench 6 for CPU and 3DMark Wild Life for graphics — kept the 11 Air close to the pricier 11 Pro, but he also warned that sustained gaming still pushes warmth through to the back panel. (Tom’s Guide)
A review published on Jan. 31 by Yanko Design struck a similar note, with JC Torres calling the design “the slimmest, lightest package the brand has made yet.” Torres praised the 7,000 mAh battery and the lower price point, while listing the missing wireless charging, a “mediocre” 8MP ultra-wide camera and “basic” IP54 resistance among the trade-offs. (Yanko Design)
The “Air” pitch, in practice, is still a gaming phone trying to pass as daily carry. Active cooling and a vapor chamber — a heat spreader used to move heat away from the chip — help keep frame rates stable, but vents and fans tend to drag water resistance and silence in the other direction.
Forbes also flagged the RedMagic 11 Air in a broader Android headlines roundup by Ewan Spence that ran on Jan. 30, as brands jostle for attention ahead of the next wave of premium launches and leaks. (Forbes)
But the early coverage also underlines the usual downside scenario: the fan has to spin up, the phone can feel warm during long sessions, and the feature list is trimmed in places where mainstream flagships compete hardest. If buyers treat the camera and charging omissions as deal-breakers — or if “Air” sets expectations the phone cannot meet — the 11 Air risks getting stuck between gamers who want the full-fat model and everyone else who just wants a normal slab.
For now, RedMagic is leaning on timing and price pressure: the vouchers go on sale Feb. 5, early access starts Feb. 10, and the wider European sale opens Feb. 11 at 13:00 CET. The next test is simple — whether lighter gaming hardware can move beyond a niche without losing the niche.
