REDMAGIC's new gaming tablet, the Astra 2, is arriving in Japan. Pre-orders open at noon on September 9, with general sales starting September 16. Its defining feature is the liquid cooling hardware the brand refined on its gaming phones, now packed into a 9.06-inch body you can hold in one hand. Pricing starts at 139,800 yen including tax.

Circulating Coolant Inside a Tablet

The centerpiece of the Astra 2 is a cooling stack called the AquaCore Cooling System 2.0. A piezoelectric ceramic micropump just 0.48mm thick pushes coolant through channels inside the chassis, generating up to 100kPa of discharge pressure while drawing only 8mW.

The coolant itself is a fluorinated liquid of the kind used in AI servers. It does not conduct electricity and tolerates temperatures from minus 60 to 108 degrees Celsius, which is what makes it viable next to the board. Layered on top are an oversized vapor chamber and composite liquid metal, for a 12-layer path that moves heat away from the chip.

REDMAGIC describes the Astra 2 as the first gaming tablet with liquid cooling to launch officially in Japan. That claim rests on the company's own September 2026 survey, and its scope is limited to tablets formally released in the Japanese market, so it is not a global first in absolute terms.

A 4.6GHz Snapdragon and a 185Hz OLED Panel

Processing comes from the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, running at up to 4.6GHz on the CPU and 1.2GHz on the GPU. REDMAGIC cites roughly 20 percent higher CPU performance and about 23 percent higher GPU performance than the previous generation. The emphasis on cooling makes sense in that context: the goal is sustained output rather than a brief peak.

The display is a 9.06-inch 2.4K OLED panel at 2,400 by 1,504, with a refresh rate up to 185Hz and peak brightness up to 1,600 nits. It uses X10 emissive material co-developed with BOE, which the company says holds picture quality while cutting power draw. Bezels measure 4.9mm on all four sides for a 90.1 percent screen-to-body ratio. The touch controller is a Synaptics S3930, and REDMAGIC's MAGICTOUCH technology supports touch sampling up to 2,000Hz.

Dual USB-C for Charging While You Play

The battery holds 8,300mAh and supports fast charging up to 75W. Bypass charging feeds power directly to the device instead of routing it through the cell, which limits heat and battery wear during long sessions. Reverse charging is available for accessories as well.

The practical highlight is the pair of USB-C ports. You can charge while a wired headset or controller is plugged in, and the port on the short edge has been repositioned so the cable stays clear of your hands in landscape orientation. Wired video output reaches 4K at 144Hz or 8K at 60Hz, letting you push a game to an external display while running a separate app on the tablet.

The tablet weighs 363g. The back is completely flat with no camera bump, and the CNC-machined all-metal body is paired with a transparent panel that shows the blue coolant and RGB lighting underneath, in the skeleton style REDMAGIC is known for. Audio comes from dual speakers using N'Bass materials, with Snapdragon Sound and DTS:X certification, plus two X-axis linear motors for 4D haptics. Software is REDMAGIC OS 11.5 based on Android 16, with an AI assistant built on the company's own large language model that answers questions about strategy and party composition, along with a circle-to-search feature.

Pricing and the Pre-Order Window

Two colors are offered: Starfrost in silver and Eclipse in black. The 12GB plus 256GB model is 139,800 yen and the 16GB plus 512GB model is 159,800 yen, both including tax.

Pre-orders run from noon on September 9 to 11:59 a.m. on September 16 through the REDMAGIC Japan official site. Anyone who registers an email address on that site between noon on September 2 and 11:59 a.m. on September 9 receives a 1,000-yen coupon, which stacks with the pre-order discount for up to 7,000 yen off, bringing the two models to 132,800 yen and 152,800 yen. General sales begin at noon on September 16, initially through the REDMAGIC Japan official site. Amazon and retail chains are scheduled to follow in late September, with store-by-store availability to be announced on the official site once confirmed.

There is also a way to try the hardware in person. A hands-on event runs from September 3 to September 20 at &count, a gadget experience space in Shibuya, Tokyo. Admission is free but requires a reservation.

Summary

The REDMAGIC Astra 2 fits a piezoelectric micropump and a 12-layer cooling stack into a 9.06-inch, 363g gaming tablet without giving up portability. Paired with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, a 185Hz OLED panel, an 8,300mAh battery and dual USB-C ports arranged for landscape play, the design targets stability across long sessions. At 139,800 yen it sits above the typical Android tablet, but for buyers who want cooling treated as the main engineering problem, the trade-off is easy to read.

Source: https://jp.redmagic.gg/pages/redmagic-astra-2-gaming-tablet-launch