Xiaomi offshoot Redmi had a winner on its hands last year with the Redmi 9. The budget-friendly phone punched above its weight and a potential publishing slip-up may have revealed that its successor will carry on that tradition.

The phone showed up briefly in a post on the Xiaomi blog earlier this week before the page was removed. But now the phone has been officially announced, and it looks like a substantial upgrade over last year’s model with big improvements in the processor, display, and camera specs.

The Redmi 10 is powered by MediaTek’s new Helio G88 processor, which is an octa-core chip featuring a pair of Arm Cortex-A75 CPUs running at up to 2GHz and six Arm Cortex-A55 CPUs. For gaming, the chipset comes with Arm Mali-G52 MC2 clocked at 1GHz.

On the GPU side, the Helio G88 packs a Mali-G52 MC2 clocked at 1GHz. It provides the graphical muscle that lets the Redmi 10’s 6.5-inch, 2400 x 1080 90Hz display shine.

Xiaomi will offer the Redmi 10 in three configurations. An entry level model with a $180 price tag comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The $200 middle tier bumps storage up to 128GB and the $220 top-end model complements that storage boost with 6GB of RAM.

All three should be available in select markets starting August 20, 2021.

One of the knocks against the Redmi 9 was its camera array, which underwhelmed especially in low-light conditions. It’s impossible to say if the Redmi 10 can do better without seeing some sample images, but it looks like Xiaomi has improved the hardware. The primary shooter has been upgraded to a 50MP sensor. It’s teamed up with an 8MP ultra-wide camera, 2MP macro camera and 2MP depth sensor.

The Redmi 10 is powered by a 5000mAh battery that supports 18W fast charging. It can also recharge your other USB devices at up to 9W — and accept your old headphones via a 3.5mm jack.

All in all, it looks like a solid option for fans of midrange and budget smartphones.

via xda-developers and GSM Arena

This article was originally published August 13, 2021 and last updated August 18, 2021. 

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Lee Mathews

Computer tech, blogger, husband, father, and avid MSI U100 user.

4 replies on “Redmi 10 is a big upgrade to a very solid budget-friendly phone”

  1. While you may be able to buy a Xiaomi “International Version” phone in the U.S. from the likes of Amazon (and similar shady sites), if cellular connectivity matters to you, do not do it! The phone will probably be able to connect with a U.S. cellular network, but in reality the phone’s cellular radios do not really overlap well with the U.S. bandplans. If good cellular connectivity doesn’t matter to you and you don’t mind using a core Android OS that is one or two major steps behind current and wrapped in an aggressive overlay (MiUI), then go for it. Xiaomi phones have great hardware specs for the money and are really well built. I know, I’ve owned several Xiaomi phones over the years when I was living in Asia.

  2. That’s a lot of phone for the money. Does anyone know if this will be available in the US? I couldn’t get that information from the other 2 articles linked at the bottom of this one, just that those details would be released soon. What about the Redmi 9, was the sold in the US? If not, did it support the major wireless networks in the US? I am liking this phone as a possible replacement when mine is ready, just curious if it would work well in the US?

    1. I don’t believe any of the Redmi phones are ever officially sold in the US, so I would not expect any different here. The Redmi 9 is definitely missing bands for the US market, so it would not necessarily work in an optimal way, depending on what bands are important to your carrier in your area. I managed with a phone that was missing bands for a while and it was fine back in 2015-2017, but it was a gamble on my part. These phones seem very similar to the Oneplus Nord N200 5G which costs just a bit more, but does have major US bands. I just got my hands on two of them recently as they were offered discounted with my parent’s T-Mobile plans and they seem pretty nice so far. Don’t let the SD480 SoC fool you, as it seems to have two big cores that are A76 based.

      1. Thanks for this information. Between my wife and I we have had a couple of OnePlus phones through the years and have been very happy with them. I will have to look into the Nord N200 5G you suggested.

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