Xiaomi joins the affordable 5G phone battle with the new Redmi Note 10 5G

By Andy Boxall Published May 27, 2021

Xiaomi has become the latest company to introduce an affordable smartphone with 5G in the U.K., announcing the Redmi Note 10 5G for release. May 2021 has been a busy month for interesting new 5G phones at reasonable prices, with the Redmi Note 10 5G joining the Poco M3 Pro 5G and the Realme 8 Pro, along with several other models from Samsung and Oppo.

Like the Poco and Realme phones, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 5G uses the MediaTek Dimensity 700 processor and 5G modem, which helps keep the cost down while still offering plenty of performance and functionality. The Redmi Note 10 5G has a similar design to the Xiaomi Mi 11, with a stepped, eye-catching camera module on the back of the phone, and it comes in several colors including green and blue.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 5G in different colors — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The camera module doesn’t contain any surprises though and is equipped with a 48-megapixel main camera and a pair of 2MP cameras for macro and depth images. On the front is a 6.5-inch screen with a 90Hz refresh rate for smooth scrolling, and because it has an adaptive rate it shouldn’t drain the battery too quickly either. The Redmi Note 10 5G has a big 5,000mAh battery inside anyway, with 18W fast charging.

Recommended Videos

Other features include a 3.5mm headphone jack, a fingerprint sensor set in the power button on the side of the phone, NFC for mobile payments, and an 8MP selfie camera in a hole-punch cutout at the top of the screen. It comes in two configurations — a 64GB version with 4GB of RAM, and a 128GB version with 4GB of RAM.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

The cheapest 4GB/64GB Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 5G costs 200 British pounds, or about $283, while the 4GB/128GB model is only a little more at 210 pounds/$297. For twice the storage space, it’s probably worth the extra seeing as the phone does not have a MicroSD card slot. If you’re really keen, Xiaomi is offering a free Mi Band 6 fitness tracker with each new Redmi Note 10 5G purchase for a limited amount of time.

Smartphones like the Redmi Note 10 5G and Realme 8 5G are part of the first wave of affordable 5G devices enabled by fast-but-reasonably-priced chips from MediaTek, and it’s a growing trend to watch for over the coming year. Xiaomi has also announced the Redmi Note 10S for the U.K., which doesn’t come with 5G but instead has a 6.43-inch AMOLED screen, a 64MP main camera, and the MediaTek Helio G95 processor with 6GB of RAM.

Topics

Senior Mobile Writer

Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…

Mobile

MediaTek’s new chip just raised the bar for Android phones

MediaTek Dimensity 9300 SoC inside Android phone.

MediaTek is ready to enter the flagship Android phone race and challenge Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with its latest processor. The Taiwanese company’s latest weapon is the MediaTek Dimensity 9300, which is based on the 4nm process and packs a cluster of four top-tier ARM cores, putting in a position to race ahead via brute performance.
Compared to its direct rival from Qualcomm (which only has one large prime core), the MediaTek chip goes with an even more ambitious core configuration. There are four ARM Cortex-X4 cores, one of which goes up to 3.25 GHz, while the other three are clocked at 2.85 GHz. For less demanding tasks, there’s a cluster of Arm Cortex-A710 cores.
That large core cluster flexes its might on synthetic benchmarks, with MediaTek claiming nearly double the performance on the Geekbench 6 test and an astounding tally of over 213,000 on the AnTuTu platform. On gaming-centric tests such as GFXBench, the company claims an even bigger lead.
The Dimensity 9300 can support screens maxing out at a 180Hz refresh rate, while 4K panels can refresh at up to the 120Hz mark. On the connectivity front, Wi-Fi 7 is part of the package. There’s also a dedicated security chip in place for securely booting the OS.

On the AI-specific innovation front, MediaTek’s latest flagship mobile processor comes with an AI engine that doubles the AI performance at certain metrics while also consuming 45% less energy. Dubbed APU 790, MediaTek claims it is eight times faster than its predecessor and can produce visual media in less than a second using Stable Diffusion’s text-to-image models.
The company has also tweaked the memory architecture and claims that it can run large language models with up to 13 billion parameters, “with scalability up to 33 billion.” For comparison, Qualcomm’s latest and greatest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 can only run AI models with up to 10 billion parameters.
Just like its Qualcomm counterpart, MediaTek’s offering also supports mainstream multimodal large language models such as Meta’s Llama 2 and Baidu LLM, among others. But the focus is once again clear. MediaTek is following Qualcomm straight into the race for generative AI tasks covering text, visual media, and audio generation. With another chip company doubling down on AI, this could be even worse news for Google's Pixel phones.
On the graphics front, the Dimensity 9300 relies on the new 12-core Immortalis-G720 GPU, which is said to be 46% faster and 40% more frugal at power consumption. MediaTek is also banking on gaming-centric perks like hardware-accelerated ray tracing that are touted to deliver a 60 frames-per-second (fps) gaming experience with console-grade lighting effects.

Mobile

Have an Android phone? You can get unlimited 5G service for free

A person holding the Google Pixel 8 showing the screen.

One of the great things about eSIM technology is how easy it is to get a new line up and running on a compatible smartphone. Gone are the days when you needed to find a carrier store or wait for a new physical SIM card to arrive in the mail. Now, you can go through the entire process from the comfort of your own home and be up and running with a new phone plan in under five minutes.

This is especially great when dealing with prepaid carriers, and one such company that’s been leaning heavily into eSIM technology is Visible. It’s embraced eSIM not just to make it easy for folks to sign up, but also to let prospective customers take the service for a spin before committing to it.

Mobile

This new Android phone impressed me as soon as I picked it up

A person holding the Oppo Reno10, showing the back of the phone.

I try a lot of smartphones, and I like it when one gives me a good feeling the moment I get it out of the box and start using it. The Oppo Reno 10 managed to do exactly that, with its unusual camera module design, curved screen, and sparkly, yet modern color scheme.

But after playing with the software and taking it out to snap some photos, have I continued to warm to the Reno 10?
Out taking photos with the Reno 10

nproxy.org