Red Magic Gaming Tablet 3 Pro: A New Standard for Compact Gaming Tablets

For years, we’ve tried countless compact gaming tablets, and one thing always felt like a missed opportunity — none of them featured an OLED screen. That’s puzzling because OLED displays have so many advantages: faster response times, higher contrast and brightness, and richer colors. Red Magic clearly felt the same way. Its new Gaming Tablet 3 Pro finally delivers a crisp 165 Hz OLED screen, making it a standout option for mobile gamers.

Although this tablet is one of the priciest compact tablets available, it’s worth every dollar for its performance and build quality. Its design closely resembles the 11‑inch Red Magic Nova, featuring a sleek metal unibody and a transparent decorative area with built‑in RGB lighting. Even the illuminated internal cooling fan returns, making this device feel like a true gaming machine. But this isn’t just a scaled‑down version of the Nova — Red Magic has refined almost every detail.

The tablet now has a center‑placed speaker layout, ensuring you won’t block the sound regardless of how you hold it. The charging port has been relocated to the corner, making it far more comfortable to charge while gaming. The camera module sits flush with the body, providing a stable surface when placed on a table — a huge benefit for rhythm game enthusiasts. The only compromises are the lack of a headphone jack and microSD card slot. Even with its massive 1TB storage option, it still feels expensive compared to a microSD card.

Still, Red Magic has created a tablet that feels like it was built for gaming. Its completely flat camera design truly gives it the sleek, premium look a device like this deserves. The Red Magic Nova’s biggest complaints were its slightly too-large 10.9‑inch screen and its use of an LCD panel. The Tablet 3 Pro solves both issues with a smaller form factor and a beautiful OLED display.

The new screen boasts top‑tier specs across the board. Its PWM operates at an incredibly high frequency, making it ideal for long gaming sessions, and the pixel layout closely resembles that of the Galaxy Tab S9. This design allows for minimal pixel loss compared to traditional pentile layouts. At extreme angles, you may notice a slight rainbow effect, but it’s hardly a deal‑breaker. The touch IC is built on Synaptics’ latest S3930 technology. Its default sampling rate is capped at 180 Hz, and in ultra‑high assembly rate mode, it can reach 240 Hz — slightly shy of the best we’ve tested but still impressive for its category.

The Red Magic Nova made one glaring error when it launched: using the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 instead of the A‑Elite. Red Magic fixed that mistake with the Tablet 3 Pro. Benchmarks tell an interesting story — its Antutu score is remarkably high, although other test results fall slightly short of the Y700. But as always, raw numbers don’t paint the whole picture. Real‑world performance is where this tablet shines.

We tested three challenging games to gauge its capabilities. In Zenith Stone Zero, which pushes mobile hardware to its limits, the tablet exhibited some noticeable stutters during enemy spawns. Even so, its power efficiency and thermal performance remained solid, making for a playable experience despite a low 5% frame rate. In Withering Waves, a highly demanding title, the Tablet 3 Pro kept its cool and outperformed the Y700 in nearly every area, although it became a bit warm to the touch. Meanwhile, in Hong Kongo, another graphically intense game, the Red Magic tablet fell slightly behind the Y700 across the board. Surface temperatures exceeded 50 °C, making long gaming sessions a bit challenging unless your hands can tolerate the heat.

These results highlight Red Magic’s focus on raw performance over thermal throttling, ensuring the highest possible frame rates even when running multiple games. The built‑in internal circulation fan, however, doesn’t make much of a difference in cooling. Without intake or exhaust vents, it acts more like a giant vapor chamber than an active cooling solution.

On the software side, Red Magic delivers a feature‑rich experience for gamers. The tablet’s gaming hub includes frame interpolation, AI upscaling, and Diablo Mode — a setting that pushes the Snapdragon A‑Elite to its limits indefinitely. The off‑center USB‑C port is ideal for casual charging, although it may interfere with some mobile controllers, pressing the tablet’s power button when attached. In those instances, using a Bluetooth controller with slightly higher latency is a better choice. The tablet also supports external displays and includes a PC mode for a console‑like experience when connected to an ultrawide monitor. Red Magic has even announced a built‑in PC emulator for future use, which will be available via an OTA update.

With an 8200 mAh battery, the Red Magic Gaming Tablet 3 Pro is the king of its class in terms of battery capacity. It doesn’t outlast every tablet in highly intensive games, but in regular usage scenarios it delivers remarkably long battery life. Its 80W charging is the fastest in its class, allowing it to charge fully in about an hour. Even with a third‑party charger, it can draw a peak of 48W.

The Red Magic Gaming Tablet 3 Pro isn’t perfect — it lacks a microSD card slot, doesn’t have a headphone jack, and its internal cooling design doesn’t have as much impact as you might expect. But its benefits far outweigh its shortcomings. It delivers the best display in its category, an impressive battery, blazing‑fast charging, and uncompromising gaming performance. In China, it costs roughly $100 more than the Y700. Which one would you pick? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.