A quick Google search tells you REDMAGIC knows how to build a gaming tablet. Keep scrolling, though, and you’ll find a different story. Clunky software, limited accessory support, and owners who spend a week turning off the background junk.
The Lenovo Legion Y700 Gen 5 takes the opposite approach. It feels polished, reliable, and familiar, even if it doesn’t reinvent much over the Gen 4. Better yet, buyers in the US no longer have to import one, since Lenovo now sells it locally as the Legion Tab Gen 5. That’s where expectations start to fall apart.
The REDMAGIC Astra 2 arrives with a 185 Hz OLED display and visible liquid cooling. Lenovo fights back with a sharper 3K screen, expandable storage, and software that doesn’t get in your way. The biggest surprise, though, has nothing to do with frame rates.
Buy the REDMAGIC Astra 2 if you care most about an OLED display and keep your games on internal storage. Pick the Lenovo Legion Y700 Gen 5 if you’d rather have expandable storage, a straightforward controller setup with the G9, and software that stays out of your way.
Since both tablets run the same chip, your decision comes down to the display, storage options, and the overall experience. Here’s where each one comes out ahead.
Look at what these two do with a night scene and the difference becomes obvious. The Astra 2 carries a 9.06-inch OLED at 2400 x 1504 with a 185 Hz refresh rate and up to 1,600 nits peak brightness. In a Tech Spurt hands-on, the display stays easy to see even under harsh studio lights, which is a good sign for gaming outdoors. OLED also brings deep black levels that an LCD cannot match, and that stands out most in dark games and movies.
The Y700 Gen 5 responds with a denser 8.8-inch IPS LCD at 3K (3040 x 1904), so text and interface elements look sharper. Even so, it cannot match the rich contrast an OLED delivers in a dark room. People who switch from AMOLED tablets often echo the same point. The higher resolution helps, but the black levels still remind you that it’s an LCD.
If you spend more time with late-night movies or atmospheric games, the Astra 2 takes the lead. But when your priority is sharp text and crisp interface elements, the Y700 Gen 5 has the advantage.
Both tablets run the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, so a cold benchmark leaves little room between them. The 3DMark Wild Life Extreme results land within a whisker of each other. The gap appears after an hour of heavy gaming.
REDMAGIC removed the fan from the Astra 2 and relies on its AquaCore liquid cooling system, which combines liquid metal 3.0 with a large vapor chamber. Demos show Call of Duty: Mobile locked at 165 FPS while keeping heat away from your fingers.
Lenovo sticks with its ColdFront Vapor 3.0 chamber and focuses on consistent temperatures instead of chasing peak performance, which explains why some Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 rivals with active fans can deliver higher sustained numbers.
For marathon gaming sessions where throttling is the enemy, the Astra 2’s liquid cooling system looks like the more impressive approach.
Here the Y700 Gen 5 wins an argument the Astra 2 refuses to even have. Lenovo kept the microSD slot, letting you expand storage beyond the built-in limit and carry a large emulation library without paying for the highest-capacity model.
REDMAGIC left the slot out again and caps the Astra 2 at 512 GB, which is strange when a single modern game can eat 50 GB and the original Astra offered a 1 TB option.
One catch worth knowing, some Y700 owners report the card reader runs slow enough to stutter disc-based PS2 emulation, so you may still want the heaviest titles on internal UFS. For anyone hoarding ROMs or movies, the Y700’s expandable storage is the deciding blow.
Picture how you grip one of these for a two-hour session and the port placement starts to matter. REDMAGIC once again placed the Astra 2’s USB-C port off-center, which makes telescopic controllers that clamp over the port sit at an awkward angle. There’s also no first-party controller option to solve the issue.
Lenovo designed the Y700 Gen 5 around the G9 controller, which snaps onto the tablet and turns it into a handheld-style setup. It also includes a simplified GameHub PC game emulator inside Game Assistant, along with a desktop mode that supports up to 4K 144 Hz output over USB-C. The Astra 2 can also handle 4K external displays and run the same x86 emulation after sideloading GameHub, so the performance potential stays close. For controller comfort and a smoother out-of-box gaming setup, the Y700 Gen 5 is the easier choice.
The Astra 2 packs an 8,300 mAh cell with 75 W wired charging, and its bypass mode feeds power straight to the board so you can game plugged in without cooking the battery.
Lenovo’s Y700 Gen 5 goes a touch larger at 9,000 mAh with 68 W charging and the same bypass trick, and its standby drain is the quieter of the two by most accounts. In demanding play the Astra 2 has shown better endurance than its predecessor, clearing five and a half hours of maxed-out Wuthering Waves. For a longer leash on standby and a bigger cell the Y700 nudges ahead, though neither will leave you hunting for a charger mid-session.
REDMAGIC Astra 2
Pick the REDMAGIC Astra 2 if the display sits at the top of your wishlist. No other 9-inch gaming tablet offers an OLED panel like it, and the 185 Hz refresh rate gives fast shooters, racing games, and dark scenes a level of smoothness and contrast the Legion can’t match.
The Astra 2 also makes more sense if you spend hours gaming while plugged in. Bypass charging and the cooling system help keep heat under control during long sessions without putting extra strain on the battery.
The trade-offs are easy to spot, though. You’ll rely on internal storage, controller support favors Bluetooth over USB-C, and the software still asks for more patience than it should. If screen quality outweighs everything else, the Astra 2 is the one you’ll enjoy every time you turn it on.
Legion Tab Gen 5
Choose the Y700 Gen 5 when you want a gaming tablet that behaves like a finished product. The microSD slot alone rescues buyers who refuse to delete a game to install another, and the G9 controller turns the tablet into a true handheld with none of the crooked-port comedy.
Lenovo also packs in features that make the tablet more versatile. You get a built-in PC game emulator, a desktop mode, and software that feels more polished day to day. Better update support also gives it an edge for buyers who plan to keep the tablet for years.
The biggest compromise is the LCD display. It can’t match the Astra 2’s OLED panel for deep blacks and contrast, but the sharp 3K resolution and 165 Hz refresh rate still make games look crisp and fluid. If expandable storage, better controller support, and dependable software matter more than OLED, the Y700 Gen 5 is the smarter long-term buy.
For most people deciding between these two Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 gaming tablets, the Lenovo Legion Y700 Gen 5 is my recommendation. The microSD slot, the G9 controller, the built-in PC emulator, and Lenovo’s update record add up to a device that gets out of your way, and the shared chip means you give up almost nothing in raw speed.
Don’t get me wrong, the Astra 2 is still the right choice for a certain buyer. If an OLED display is your top priority, you watch movies in the dark, and you’re happy to keep your library on internal storage, nothing in this size comes close to its contrast and image quality.
Where I’d hesitate is paying extra for the highest storage tier. Since there’s no microSD slot, every upgrade has to happen at checkout. The Y700 Gen 5 solves that problem. Buy the storage you need today, add a cheap microSD card later, and spend the savings on games instead.
