Design and hardware
The RedMagic 11 Air’s design is now much closer to the RedMagic 11 Pro we received a few months ago. The Air now adopts the transparent design and drifts away from the minimalist look that the RedMagic 10 Air has.
Additionally, the back panel is slightly curved along the edges. That’s the first RedMagic phone with a curved glass panel in a while. It helps with a more comfortable grip, we give it that.
Interestingly enough, despite the slightly bigger display, the larger battery and the addition of the cooling fan, the RedMagic 11 Air is a tad more compact than its predecessor and is only 0.1mm thicker, too.
There’s an improvement in overall protection as well. The newer Air has a Gorilla Glass 7i protective sheet on the front and Gorilla Glass 5 on the back. It also retains the aviation-grade aluminum frame and the IP54 ingress protection. Again, despite the cooling fan.
The handset comes in Transparent Black (aka Phantom) and Transparent White (aka Prism). We have the black version in our office.
Going around the sides, we find the usual pressure-sensitive shoulder triggers as well as the exhaust for the cooling fan and the dedicated Game Space (gaming mode) key. Notably, it’s a regular button this time around, not a switch like on the 11 Pro.
RedMagic 11 Air
The bottom houses the SIM card tray that can hold up to two physical SIM cards. However, there’s no support for eSIM, so keep that in mind. And unlike the 11 Pro, the 11 Air doesn’t have a 3.5mm audio jack.
RedMagic 11 Air shoulder triggers
The optical fingerprint reader is under the display. It’s reliable and quick to unlock. No issues.
The RGB LED aesthetics aren’t left out. The cooling fan, along with the RedMagic logo, lights up, and you can set different colors or color patterns, depending on the scenario – charging, gaming, notifications, calls, etc.