The Astra was a strong first entry for RedMagic in compact gaming tablets. Its successor is already looking more serious.
Summary
- RedMagic confirmed during its 11S Pro+ launch event on May 19 that the Gaming Tablet 5 Pro — globally the Astra 2 — will officially debut in June 2026, approximately one year after the original Astra launched internationally.
- The tablet skips from Gaming Tablet 3 Pro directly to 5 Pro, bypassing the number 4 entirely — a common practice among Chinese brands due to tetraphobia, as the number 4 sounds like the word for "death" in Mandarin.
- Leaked specs from Digital Chat Station point to a 9-inch OLED display at 2400x1504 resolution with up to 185Hz refresh rate, Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, a liquid cooling circulation system, and up to 24GB LPDDR5X RAM with 1TB storage.
- Battery capacity is leaked at approximately 8,300mAh or higher — an upgrade over the original Astra's 8,200mAh, with some sources citing a 9,000mAh target still being evaluated.
- Pre-orders are already live in China across four configurations: 12GB/256GB, 16GB/512GB, 16GB/1TB, and 24GB/1TB. Color options include Tritium Transparent Silver Wing, Tritium Transparent Dark Night, and Gold Legend.
"RedMagic is jumping straight from 3 Pro to 5 Pro — skipping the number 4 entirely due to tetraphobia. It's a small detail, but it tells you everything about how deeply cultural thinking shapes product decisions in Chinese tech."
The Display Jump Is the Real Story
The original Astra shipped with a 144Hz OLED panel — already competitive for a gaming tablet at that price. Going to 185Hz at the same 9-inch size and adding a generationally newer chipset is a straightforward but meaningful upgrade. Lenovo's Legion Tab Gen 5 — the Astra's closest competitor — ships with a 165Hz display. RedMagic is aiming above it.
The 2400x1504 resolution translates to a 16:10-style panel with roughly 313 ppi at 9 inches — sharp enough that individual pixels aren't visible at normal tablet viewing distances. The OLED panel means proper blacks, strong contrast, and the ability to reduce brightness to near-zero for late-night gaming sessions without the backlight bleed issues of LCD alternatives.
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in a 9-Inch Chassis
The same chip powering flagship phones in 2026 is going into a gaming tablet smaller than most people's lunch trays. That raises obvious thermal management questions. RedMagic's answer is a liquid cooling circulation system — the same active approach used in the 11 Pro+ phone, now adapted for a tablet form factor. At 9 inches, there's significantly more internal surface area to work with than in a phone, which means the cooling architecture can be more ambitious without the thickness compromises a phone demands.
Up to 24GB of RAM in a gaming tablet is a specification that competes with high-end laptops. The practical gaming benefit is reduced load times, smoother multitasking between game and streaming applications, and headroom for increasingly memory-intensive titles. The 1TB storage ceiling is equally generous for a device this size.
What June Actually Means for Global Buyers
RedMagic's pattern with the original Astra established a reliable template: China launch first, global availability one to two months later under the Astra name. If Gaming Tablet 5 Pro launches in China in June, international buyers should expect the Astra 2 to surface by July or August. A RedMagic gaming headset was also teased at the same May 19 event — no specs yet, but it signals RedMagic is building toward a full gaming ecosystem rather than selling isolated hardware.
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