Redmagic 10 Air Stands Out As A Thin Gaming Smartphone

The current trend for smartphones is to go thin. It’s been a general design cue in many new handsets launched in 2025, the recently launched Galaxy S25 Edge makes that explicit, and the upcoming iPhone 17 Air will put the “Apple Stamp” onto the form factor. Can a thin handset ever be more than fashion?

The team behind the Redmagic 10 Air certainly think so.

Nubia’s Redmagic series of phones is focused on gaming. They are not out-and-out gaming phones, there’s enough in the subtle styling that helps the 10 Air blend into the background and be suitable for general use, but gaming features are to the fore. Which is where the benefits of going for a thin and light are most noticeable.

The Endurance Of the Redmagic 10 Air

One of the knock-on effects of having a small gaming phone is that you have a light gaming phone. While you can have long periods of day-to-day use on a phone (think reading social media, browsing the web or triaging emails), you don’t have to be holding the phone in a specific way, or contort your hands to grip the phone in a particular way.

It’s the opposite when you are running the complex titles a gaming phone screams for. You’ll hold your phone in a specific way for extended periods, working your thumbs around the screen, index fingers along the top spine for the shoulder buttons. Gaming phones have typically sported more mass with more volume, which could lead to fatigue in long sessions.

Going thin, and implicitly going light, gives the Redmagic 10 Air an advantage over the competition… which is comfort.

The Focus Of The Redmagic 10 Air

Every smartphone is a compromise; gaming phones even more so. There’s more value placed on a fast-refreshing screen with a high sampling rate than a comprehensive and highly specced camera; while battery endurance is a consideration, getting more performance out of the processor is higher up the list; and the ergonomics play a larger part. The lower weight already covers the latter, but the other factors are accentuated by the thin design.

The camera is often one of the first elements to fall back when compared to the competition. The selfie camera needs to work well as a webcam for the occasional in-game chats, but you are not buying a gaming phone for a high-end photographic experience; there are phones where that is maximised, but that is not the role of the Redmagic gaming phones.

With less space in the Redmagic 10 Air’s chassis, there’s even less space to cram in the latest camera technology without building out a massive camera island at the rear of the phone. If there was, the balance of the phone in hand would be off and there would be an increase in weight. So, rightly, the Redmagic 10 Air doesn’t even need to try. Going thin gives Redmagic permission to focus away from the camera, and consumers the argument as to why the camera may be weaker than the competition.

The Thin Wedge Of The Redmagic 10 Air

Yet the Redmagic 10 Air’s push towards thin and light must be considere in context. It has an edge over the gaming competition at 205g and 7.85mm thick. But over the Galaxy S25 Edge? Samsung’s fashionable phone comes in at 163g and 5.8mm. Even its entry-level Galaxy S25 is lighter and smaller at 162g and 7.2mm.

If the Redmagic 10 Air is compared to its fellow gaming smartphones, it’s the svelte one. For everyone else, we have a phone that is a shade bigger than an everyday phone, with a focus on comfortable gaming of high-end titles. Coupled with the mid-range price (the entry-level model is £439 here in the UK), there’s a small but suitable audience for such a phone.

Now the latest smartphone headlines in Forbes’ weekly Android news digest…

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