The Gaming Pad from 2040 just arrived- The Future is NOW

If the Nintendo Switch 2 and an iPad Pro had a baby, it would be this – the Red Magic Astra gaming tablet. A gaming pad with specs from the future, but a price point from the past. Currently half the price of a flagship smartphone – $549. I got a soft spot for transparent technology, even if it's just pretending. I'll get into the liquid metal dual sandwiched internal vapor chambers here in a second. But first, let's see what's happening on the outside. With a 2.4K OLED screen, it already has more pixels per inch than an M4 iPad Pro, which is great since all Red Magic devices are built for gaming. Plus, not to rub dirt in the wound or anything, but the bezels are more than 2 millimeters thinner on Red Magic's tablet. I would turn the iPad Pro on, but it's, uh, sleeping. It'll also come as no surprise that this Astra gaming tablet comes with Red Magic's signature internal shark fin cooling fan. However, this time around, aside from the RGBs in the fan and the logo, the motherboard is apparently sandwiched between two copper vapor chambers and has an internal slab of solid state liquid metal acting as the thermal compound. I guess we got to see it to believe it. One nice thing, however, is just like their smartphones, there is no camera bump, which makes our Mohs scale of hardness test rather calming instead of alarming. That is until we reach a level 7. Normally we see scratches at a level 6 with deeper grooves at a level 7, but this time around my level 7 pick took a chunk out of the glass and a hairline fracture cracked the screen from wall to wall. This is not ideal, but also it's not the first time this has happened. Red Magic hasn't said what brand or type of glass is on the Astra, but just to be safe, if I were buying this tablet myself, I'd slap a screen protector on there pretty quick just in case. But that's also what I normally do anyway. This is the Star Frost Silver color Astra tablet. It also comes in black, both of which are anodized aluminum. The red textured slider button is customizable, but by default it launches into a dedicated game mode. The volume rocker comes next, also made from metal, but cannot be removed from the device. The top skinny side has one of the two stereo loudspeakers, as well as the fingerprint scanning power button. The other long side is blink, and the bottom of the Astra gaming tablet has the second stereo loudspeaker and the USB-C port, which is slightly off center from the center of the tablet and the center of the frame. Let me know if that sends you over the edge down in the comments. Also, back to the front real quick, I forgot about the front facing 9 megapixel camera that can film in 1080p. It's tucked into one of the long bezels protected by glass. Speaking of glass, there is another slab of glass on the back. I'm imagining that aside from just the aesthetics, this is also a functional part of the cooling system. But we'll find out more here in a second. The 2000 RPM shark fin turbo fan and the 13 megapixel rear camera both have the same texture around the circles. And while it sounds and looks like it's getting scratched, it's actually the other way around. The texture of the glass is sanding down the metal on my razor blade since glass is a harder material than metal. Speaking of which, I bet you look in the mirror every morning and you wonder how in the world can someone make glass so perfectly flat in the first place? Well, let me tell you. It starts with the same material you'd find in a tin can. Tin is melted down into a liquid, where as a liquid it can sit perfectly level and flat, blemish free. And liquid glass is then floated on top of the molten tin, and since tin is more dense than glass, the two don't mix just like oil and water. The glass cools and hardens on top of the liquid tin and solidifies to be perfectly flat and perfectly clear. So the next time you pop open a tin can, give the material a little thank you for helping making the glass on your smartphone. Where was I? Ah yeah. The reason glass can cool and harden on top of the molten tin is because glass starts solidifying at about 1400 degrees Celsius, while tin stays liquid at any temperature above 230. Whoever figured this stuff out is a genius. The 9 inch 2.4K OLED has a 165 hertz refresh rate and a 2000 hertz touch sampling rate, which is ideal for super fast response times while gaming. The tablet knows you've touched the screen before you know you've touched the screen. But let's be honest, we didn't all gather together here today to talk about tin cans or the melting point of glass. We're here to check the durability of Red Magic's new gaming tablet, which means it's time for the bend test. Now, I've already compromised the glass on the exterior with my scratch test. And after the first flex, you can see the cracked glass continued to fracture out in multiple directions. But the aluminum frame of the Astra gaming tablet is surprisingly still solidly intact, even with that compromised cracked glass. This new Astra tablet bends even less than the Red Magic Nova from last year, which is a nice improvement. Good work Red Magic. However, since we can't get inside the tablet with brute force, it's time we try a more tactical method. With the glass cracked, I don't imagine the display can be salvaged, but, you know, sometimes a hero must sacrifice for the greater good of the team. The goal here is to find the dual sandwich vapor chamber that enveloped the Snapdragon 80E processor and it's potassium alloy solid state liquid metal 2.0 heat transfer material. And of course, see how and what can be repaired in the long term. With the tablet cracked open, I'll remove three green Phillips head screws and unclip the display ribbon just like little Legos. And instantly the top half of the vapor chamber sandwich is visible, still attached to the screen. Most smartphones only have one copper vapor chamber, but the Astra is also using thermal paste, copper, and graphite to help the heat escape out through the thin display. With the top half of the vapor chamber sandwich identified, let's let the mission continue. There are an additional 6 screws holding in the turbo fan. This comes out with the rear 13 megapixel camera that can film in 4K, but this camera does not have OIS. The fan is interesting since there are no external vents on the tablet. The fan is just circulating air from inside the tablet and flowing it over the top of the motherboard. I assume some additional ambient air can enter in from the speaker vents, but for the most part everything is just circulating. The Red Magic Astra does have an IP54 water resistance rating, which makes it splash resistant from any direction. And apparently the math checks out to where the fan doesn't need a dedicated inlet and outlet vent like it does on Red Magic's gaming phones. There are an additional 28 screws holding in the rest of the components. And during the unscrewing I realized that the Astra has a whole built-in plastic substructure with ridges, which most likely is what kept the tablet intact during my bend test. On either side of that jerry-rig proof substructure are the dual vibrators. There are two, just like inside of an Xbox or PlayStation controller. Even each side of the Nintendo Switch 2 has its own vibrators in the Joy-Cons. Having directional feedback is essential for winning games. The stereo loudspeakers have some waterproofing mesh over the speaker openings, but there are no internal balls that I can find. The single USB-C port is incredibly modular – thumbs up for that. It also has a red rubber ring to help with that IP54 water resistance rating. I'll unplug each side of the dual cell 8,000 milliamp hour battery and unclip the front facing 9 megapixel selfie camera along with the power button. Then the motherboard can come away from the body. The whole strategy Red Magic is using here with their 13 layer Icex cooling system is getting rid of the air between any of the components that might generate heat. Air is an insulator, so the quicker Red Magic is able to wick the heat away from the processors through the thermal paste and out the copper foil, right into the vapor chambers where it can be spread out and dissipated, the better. This is the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, which is the same processor that OnePlus is using on their Pad 3, which is $200 more expensive. And a sneaky little cooling trick we find is that the battery also has some copper foil underneath it, snaking its way up to the vapor chamber, tucked into the glass on the backside of the tablet. This will help cool the battery during charging. The battery itself is very securely glued to the frame, and since I don't feel like exploding today, I'll just leave it where it's at. However, we still need to find the backside of that vapor chamber sandwich, as well as the solid state liquid metal. With quite a bit of heat and a little persuasion from the inside of the camera hole, I can get the rear slab of glass off in mostly one piece. The inner decal can peel away from the tablet with the second copper vapor chamber still attached. The two vapor chambers are identical. And it turns out, Red Magic's vapor chamber sandwich is actually a real thing. The solid state liquid metal 2.0 is actually buried in a glob of thermal paste on the inside placed right in the middle of the motherboard. Red Magic says that this guy has the thermal conductivity of 200 watts per meter Kelvin and is made from an indium and potassium based alloy. For reference, normal thermal paste has a watts per meter Kelvin of about 30, and air has a thermal conductivity of about .02, which is why Red Magic keeps it circulating as much as possible inside the tablet with that turbo fan so it can actually do something useful. Overall, I'm a fan of the fan. On paper, the extra cooling method should indeed correlate with better performance, which means more wins. And also, it's just a really cool conversation starter. I imagine most gamers buying the Red Magic Astra are the gamers who want to game while pretending to do their homework, or the gamers who want to do their homework while pretending to game. I'll leave a link down in the description with the current pricing. And I do have an extra brand new, still in one piece, Red Magic Astra to give away. Just let me know your favorite game down in the comments and why, and I'll pick a winner next week. Thanks a ton for watching, and I'll see you around.