The time has finally come: You need a new smartphone because your Flamflung Galaxian has finally given up the ghost, but at the same time you’re looking to compete with billionaires in a space race on the budget of your next device. Thanks to the proliferation of technology, grabbing a smartphone for peanuts is easier than ever, even if those phones provide a barebones experience. Enter Xiaomi with its latest line of Redmi phones which now come in a variety of flavors for the fiscally-minded.
While it has a heavyweight offering available, there’s an alternative for those of you on a budget that packs a surprising amount of bang for buck quality inside its frame. That’s not to say that a few concessions aren’t made along the way as resources are stretched across it, but the Redmi Note 10 5G hits the mark with stylish affordability and the ability to go the distance.
Out of the box, the phone is admittedly a good-looking piece of tech. Its 190 grams of weight provide a lovely heft, 8.9mm of thickness makes for a comfortable grip-size around it, and on the surface, there’s a 6.5-inch FHD+ (1080 x 2400) IPS LCD with a 90Hz refresh rate display. Inputs are exactly what you’d expect at this stage in the smartphone game: Volume and power buttons on the right side, a 3.5mm jack at the top, and a USB-C port at the bottom for a quick charge.
A side-mounted fingerprint sensor keeps the phone securely locked, while the camera bump looks surprisingly classy, a nice big rectangle of gloss metal and shiny glass that covers up the lens offering. The back of the phone also looks like it stepped out of an art school, with my review model boasting a slick magenta finish. Sure the back may be plastic, but you wouldn’t say so at first glance as the Note 10 5G manages to make that budget material look like a million bucks. Heck, you can even use this device as a remote control, as there’s a top-mounted IR blaster to aim at your devices.
Inside, there’s a MediaTek Dimensity 700 5G chipset and a humble 4GB of RAM, solid stuff but don’t expect Genshin Impact or Fortnite to look the business on it as gaming does come with the caveat of an underwhelming experience on this phone. The one feature that has to be spoken about, though, is the absolutely gargantuan battery-life of the Note 10 5G, as the 5,000mAh battery can easily last two days on a full charge, and can stretch to three if you don’t get existential panic attacks by starting your day with a 30% charge left on the device. While everything else about the phone is modest, its battery certainly isn’t, as even in standby mode it barely bleeds any energy overnight.
As for the screen? It’s okay at best, as the colours are slightly washed out on the LCD display and brightness maxes out at 400 nits. I’m literally sitting in a dark room right now with the display brightness cranked up to max and it appears acceptable to my peepers, so imagine that screen on a bright sunny day outside then. At least when it comes to performance outside of video games, the phone is snappy enough with multiple apps as the MIUI operating system on top of Android 11 makes for a well-worn system with a decent amount of customization available.
When it comes to storage, 64GB or 128GB options are available, more than enough to store a few offline Netflix series, Spotify tunes, and several albums of selfies. The big question though, is how does the camera handle?
Out of the box, the Note 10 5G’s biggest compromise is that it comes with a 48MP main lens, a 2MP macro sensor, and a 2MP depth sensor, with the setup having cut pricier dedicated ultra-wide and telephoto lenses from the device. Generally, the camera can easily take a decent picture in optimal conditions where there’s a good amount of light outside and your subject isn’t moving too quickly. I did find that pictures tend to bungle HDR scenarios from time to time, but if you know what you’re doing and how to compose a scene, the results can be very surprising.
The AI scene selector is more than up to the task, and it has one point in its favour: Unlike my Huawei P30 Pro that selects “panda” with its AI assistant whenever I try to grab a photo of my cat, at least this phone knows what settings to use for my feline companion. There is some over-saturation from time to time, but when you’re getting a consistently sharp and focused image more often than not then the phone’s camera definitely feels like its snapping above its weight class.
Night-time photography isn’t too bad either, as the phone’s night-time mode snaps could handle some low ambient light situations with a surprising amount of accuracy. Just don’t expect to get the same level of quality with up-close macro shots, as the end result has more noise than a Jackson Pollock painting. A quick flip to the selfie-side of the phone reveals an 8MP front-facing camera, which as you’d expect with budget phones makes a self-portrait look as if the subject’s skin was made from flawless silicone materials. Kind of creepy, but expected.
So who is this phone for? The concessions that the Note 10 5G makes sound acceptable with its retail price of R4500. The strange thing is, is that Xiaomi’s Note 10 Pro packs a 108MP sensor with a 120Hz AMOLED DotDisplay and much beefier hardware into its frame for R5500 at retail. If you can afford to squeeze some extra cash out for your next phone, it might be worth considering the Note 10 Pro as an upgrade instead.
| Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 5G review | |
Xiaomi’s latest budget Redmi phone ticks a number of boxes in its bracket as a competent and durable handheld. While its camera falls short in several areas and its LCD panel looks a bit lackluster, it’s still able to last for days on a single charge and provides more than enough functionality without breaking your bank balance in the process. |
7.5 |