GoKawiilDuring my time using the RedMagic 11 Air, I had moments that I could see how this phone could be a great deal for its $499 price. Many of the hardware features I like from the more-expensive Pro models have made it to the pared-back Air largely unchanged: It has the big 7,000-mAh battery, 80-watt wired charging, a high-resolution 6.85-inch screen free of any display cutouts and a powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 processor (a slight step down from the highest-end Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip) that quickly boots up games like Red Dead Redemption and Crazy Taxi.
The RedMagic 11 Air has 80W wired charging. Joseph Maldonado/CNET
But then I actually start using the Air as a phone and see nearly all the same software quirks that annoyed me during my time with last fall's RedMagic 11 Pro. The RedMagic OS ships with a lot of the same bloat, including a customized RedMagic feed that replaces Google's Discover feed, the Inspired Wallpaper app with the same typos and a hideous watermark applied to all photos, which you have to turn off.
The phone's also only getting three years of software and security updates, which is quite low for a phone in this price range, but not as heinous as it was on the $749 Pro, which competes with the seven years of updates on Google and Samsung flagships.
The RedMagic 11 Air has a 50-megapixel wide camera and an 8-megapixel ultrawide camera on the back. Joseph Maldonado/CNET
I did notice a few improvements, like how RedMagic's web browser app no longer pops up an advertisement every time I open it, which was a big problem during my time with the Pro. And the Air makes a lot of smart choices when scaling back from the $749 Pro: While it lacks liquid cooling, the phone has a LED logo on the back with customizable lights.
The Air doesn't have a headphone jack or wireless charging, but the phone includes a cooling fan and a shortcut button to launch the console-style Game Space menu.
Speaking of Air, this is not a thin nor light phone by any stretch at 207 grams (7.3 ounces), but the moniker makes sense when thinking of it as a stepped-down model.
The front-facing camera is underneath the display, leading to an uninterrupted screen for games and media. Joseph Maldonado/CNET
While photography is never prioritized on a gaming phone, I was pleasantly surprised by the photos on the Air for its price, as long as you stick to the rear camera system that includes a 50-megapixel main camera and an 8-megapixel ultrawide shooter.
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