Review: Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro – The best deal at the moment

Specifications: Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro

The new smartphones were presented on March 4thand will be on sale later tonight. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro seems to fit right in with Xiaomi’s Redmi series. The series has been known for years for its great value for money. You also seem to get a lot of value for money with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro. This time, however, Xiaomi seems to be taking it one step further. The device has a 6.67” 120Hz Amoled DotDisplay with a resolution of 2,400 by 1,080 pixels. This time no LCD screen as we know the Redmi phones, but a real AMOLED screen with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. The processor is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 732G and the device is available with 6 or 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage memory. The smartphone is available in Onyx Gray, Glacier Blue and Gradient Bronze colours. Our test device is the Onyx Gray variant with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage memory. This version costs 299 euros. The version with 6 GB RAM and 64 GB storage memory costs 279 euros.

In terms of cameras, you have to make do with a 108-megapixel main camera, eight-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, five-megapixel macro camera, two-megapixel depth camera and a sixteen-megapixel selfie camera. The device runs on Android 11 with Xiaomi’s software shell MIUI 12. The smartphone has dual speakers and a battery of 5,020 mAh. Fast charging up to 33W is supported. The device has a fingerprint sensor on the side of the housing on the power button. Face unlock is also an option. There is also a 3.5mm headphone jack, as well as Bluetooth 5.1, USB-Type-C, WiFi, NFC, 4G and GPS. With Xiaomi, you don’t have to worry about buying a Chinese smartphone without Google apps. As indicated on the box: Redmi Note 10 Pro – With easy access to the Google apps you use most.

Design: Premium look for a budget price

What can you expect in terms of design from such an affordable smartphone with such specifications? Well, quite a lot. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro immediately stands out because of its size. The 6.67-inch flat screen takes up almost the entire front. This screen is equipped with Corning Gorilla Glass 5. Not the latest version, but sturdy enough. The housing also consists of a mix of plastic and glass. Fingerprints are also a problem, because you can see them directly on the back and a case is really recommended because of the smoothness of the housing. On the back we find the camera module in the top left corner. The back has a glossy look and feel. It’s just not quite premium, but the phone with a weight of 193 grams feels solid. Nothing rattles at all and with the dimensions of 164mm x 76.5mm x 8,

On the right we find the on/off button with the fingerprint sensor incorporated. This fingerprint sensor works quickly and reliably. The volume buttons are above it. On top we find the 3.5mm headphone jack. At the bottom we find the USB-C connection for your charger. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro has an ip53 certificate. That is not very high, but dust is kept out well and a (small) splash of rain is no problem either.

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro is a hefty unit. You really have a big smartphone in your hands, so you have to love that. Good news, by the way, if you want to use two SIM cards. Which can. In fact, you can also insert a memory card to further expand the storage memory. When you buy this device, you get a complete package from the Chinese manufacturer. A screen protector is already installed and you will also find a transparent plastic cover in the box. Don’t expect too much from either of these, but it’s fine to use until you’ve found a good case and screen protector yourself. You will also find a 33W charger and a USB-c cable in the box. Earplugs are missing.

Display and sound: amoled screen and 120Hz

Quite unique for a cheap smartphone is an amoled screen. Even more unique is an AMOLED screen with a refresh rate of 120Hz in this price category. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro has both.

What is striking when starting up for the first time is that the colors are set quite cool. Dive into the settings and we quickly find the ‘Saturated’ color scheme for more vibrant colors. The screen refresh rate is also set to 60Hz for the first time. Change this to 120Hz and the image will be refreshed 120 times per second. Scrolling and animations now look much smoother.

There is actually very little to fault on the display. Colors are displayed nicely and the contrast is also quite good. The screen supports HDR10 and the brightness is also fine. Don’t expect such high brightness as on a 1000 euro flagship, but for the price it is perfectly fine. We had no problems reading the display in bright sunlight and that’s what matters. An additional setting option for direct sunlight also helps. This boosts the brightness even further.

The only drawback of the screen is the resolution of 2,400 by 1,080 pixels on a 6.67” screen. That is actually just too little for such a large screen, because it comes down to a ppi (pixels per inch) of 395. In terms of sharpness, the display sometimes leaves something to be desired. Is it disturbing? Not in most cases, but it does mean that if you touch the screen with your nose, you can see the individual pixels. But then who does that? Actually, this is the only (minor) downside of the screen.

Entertainment is beautifully displayed and the dual speakers also help. You will find a speaker at the top and at the bottom of the device. The stereo speakers are in balance and that is important. We have also tested smartphones in the past where one speaker was dominant over the other. That is not the case here. They seem to be identical stereo speakers with a good distribution of the sound. In the field of bass, however, you do not have to expect much, but that is logical with such small speakers. In any case, the volume can be turned up considerably, so you don’t have to be afraid of not hearing anything. The speakers are not the best on this smartphone, but the sound is fine. Finally, calling, also not unimportant.

Battery life: 5020 mAh and 33W charging

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro comes with a large battery of 5,020 mAh. So it’s pretty big and you can tell. With most smartphones, I can’t get through the day without charging. As someone who spends a lot of time with a smartphone, both professionally and privately, I always have to find a moment in a day to recharge in between. I did not have this problem with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro. Usually I had more than 20 percent left at the end of the day. The battery management is also positive. At night I lost at most two percent of the battery. Compare that to the Xiaomi Mi 9T and it makes a world of difference. With that device, I had lost up to twenty percent of the battery in standby mode by the next morning. The refresh rate does affect the battery. At 60Hz, the battery drains considerably less quickly than at 120Hz. Do you use your smartphone less often than I do? Then you may also be able to manage the two days without charging. Fortunately, charging is fairly smooth. The device supports 33W charging with the supplied charger. Fully charging the smartphone takes about an hour. Wireless charging is missing.

Cameras: five cameras including 108-megapixel

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro features four rear cameras and a selfie camera. It concerns the following cameras:

• Main camera: 108 megapixel Samsung ISOCELL HM2 1/1.52” 0.7µm pixels in combination with an f/1.9 6P lens. The main camera uses pixel binning and combines nine pixels into one. This ensures photos of twelve megapixels. If you want, you can also take 108-megapixel photos. PDAF (Phase-Detection Autofocus) is present, but optical stabilization is missing.
• Ultra-wide angle: Eight megapixel Sony IMX355 sensor behind an f/2.2 infinite focus lens.
• Macro camera: five megapixel OmniVision OV5675 1/5” sensor behind a telemacro f/2.4 lens. Includes autofocus.
• Depth: two megapixel GC02M1 depth sensor.
• Selfie camera: sixteen megapixel Sony IMX471 1/3” sensor with a 20mm f/2.4 fixed focus lens.

The main camera seems to provide the best performance on paper, but it partially does. More megapixels doesn’t necessarily mean better photos. It is the predecessor of the HM3 sensor that we see in the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra . In daylight, this camera provides beautiful images, but when zoomed in, we still see a loss of sharpness and detail. This increases as the lighting conditions get darker. Is this due to the lack of optical stabilization? That could very well be. Or is the Snapdragon 732G unable to make the most of the 108-megapixel camera?

On a fine summer day, however, this camera can compete with the top of the range cameras on today’s smartphone market. The artificial intelligence can sometimes exaggerate with unrealistic and too much saturated colors, but the HDR function does a good job with a lot of detail in light and dark. However, the automatic mode sometimes results in underexposed photos. As long as the sensor can collect enough light, you generally get colorful photos full of detail, but as soon as the shutter speed increases, we see when zooming in on the photos that movement has actually been detected which has not been stabilized. The ISO value is automatically thrown up considerably in less light and that quickly produces visible noise. Zooming in does not actually produce good photos, 108-megapixel or not. In that respect it is really a ‘fair weather camera’ on this device. Top in sunlight, moderate in less light. If you want to, you can also zoom in to 10x (digital), but that will not produce usable images. The standard 2x zoom is sufficient for a reasonable photo with this 108-megapixel camera, even if it is in fact just a crop of the normal 1x position. The 5x and 10x zooms do not produce usable photos.

The ultra-wide angle can be called decent, but does not deliver super sharp photos with the eight megapixels. An autofocus or fixed focus is missing, because the focus here lies in infinity. It looks, as it were, into the distance, so you mainly use this lens for landscapes, not for macros or selfies. The colors are standard a bit more natural compared to the main camera and in good lighting conditions you get pretty nice pictures.

The macro camera is a nice camera. Not a simple two-megapixel macro camera like on many other smartphones, but a five-megapixel macro camera with autofocus. You can shoot excellent images between five and ten centimeters. The sharpness sometimes leaves something to be desired and you often have to take several photos to get a really good picture, but you get your subject quite a bit closer. The depth sensor mainly serves as support and helps when taking portrait photos. It provides a sharp foreground and blurred background. Then the selfie camera remains. This front camera is located in a hole in the display, at the top of the screen. And this camera does a pretty good job. Selfies are sharp, although sometimes a bit overexposed.

The camera app is a bit strange. When you open this app, you will see the default options such as Pro, Video, Photo and More. Under More you will find functions such as night mode, 108-megapixel photos, vlogs, slow motion, time-lapse or dual video with simultaneous recording on the front and back. Want to try the macro camera? You won’t find it here again. Then you have to go back to Photo and click on the hamburger menu at the top right. Here you will find Super Macro, Timed Burst and Tilt-shift. Why this isn’t just all together in the same menu is a mystery. In addition, there are sometimes some annoying delays in the camera app, as if it just doesn’t run completely smoothly.

You can record videos in a maximum of 4k resolution at 30 frames per second. There is an electronic stabilization mode, but it only works in 1080p at 30 frames per second. Videos look a little too saturated, but full of detail. The stabilization in this mode also works quite well.

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro has good specs on paper when it comes to the camera, but it partially loses it. The main camera performs really great in bright conditions, but falls short in the dark, even in night mode. The zoom performance is also below par. The ultra-wide angle camera is what we can expect in this price segment. Nothing special, but good enough. The macro camera and selfie camera are excellent and actually belong to a higher segment. Still, on a device of this price we absolutely cannot complain in terms of camera options. Xiaomi may still solve the biggest problems with a software update, because the main camera can perform better than it does in this device so far.

Sample photos

Below is a selection of photos taken with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro. The photos give a good insight into the camera performance with photos in sunny and cloudy weather, indoors and outdoors, the macro camera, 5x zoom and the night mode.

Software: MIUI 12 based on Android 11

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro comes out of the box with Android 11 and the MIUI 12 software shell. During testing, version 12.0.10 appeared with the March security update. MIUI has never been my favorite software shell for Android, but this new version comes with a lot of improvements. For example, there is simply a Google Discover Feed when you swipe to the left from the home screen. MIUI has also been made a bit clearer.

Still, it’s certainly not the best software shell for Android. Again, a number of apps are pre-installed. Fortunately, you can for a large part simply remove these, but apps like Boost Speed ​​or Cleaner to always free up your memory after use are extremely annoying. Why doesn’t the system just do it itself?

In addition, you may know that Xiaomi uses advertisements in its own apps. That is also the case here. Before you write off this smartphone right now. Do not do it. You can simply turn off these ads. First from the system settings and then per individual app. You get these ads in Xiaomi’s own apps like Music, Cleaner or File Manager. They don’t get thrown full in your face, but they are there. Dive in for a few minutes and they’re gone.

MIUI has therefore been considerably improved and made more clear, but we are not there yet. Some translations remain a bit strange and in terms of clarity they could also be improved a bit. Sometimes there seem to be some hiccups and you sometimes have to search for a really long time before you have found a certain function. However, we do see improvements at Xiaomi, as it is already a big difference from a few years ago. Let’s hope Xiaomi continues to update the software well. The company has a knack for errors sneaking into updates or for updates to take just a little too long. We can say that MIUI is actually the weakest part of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro.

Performance and usage

The Snapdragon 732G is not the fastest midrange processor at the moment. However, new games like Call of Duty: Mobile run relatively smoothly. It is doubtful whether you are really ready for new demanding games with these specifications. Real gamers who want to play demanding games and choose a smartphone for that might be better off looking at the Poco F3 . For everyday use, however, this processor is more than adequate.

This is also a great device in terms of entertainment. Do you like to watch Netflix in bed or on the train? Connect your earbuds to the 3.5mm headphone jack and you can go wild on the excellent screen. Facebooking, WhatsApp, Instagram or any other social media app is no problem at all. The working memory of 6 GB is more than enough to facilitate this. And the storage memory of 128 GB lets you store many photos. Isn’t this enough? Then you can easily insert an extra memory card. Finally, the 5g support. This one is missing. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro is a 4G device and that is partly the reason that the price of this device is so incredibly low for what you get. Chipsets with 5G support are still relatively expensive, which means that this device would otherwise have received a much higher price. Is the lack of 5g support a problem? Probably not. In the Netherlands we actually don’t have a real 5g (rather a kind of 4g+) and for most people 4g ​​is more than enough.

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro manages to impress. For the price you really have a complete device in your hands that is hardly inferior to the much more expensive flagships. Why spend 1000 euros on a new smartphone when you can also buy the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro for 279 euros? The hardware may be a bit less, but except for vppr gamers, most users don’t notice it at all. The 108-megapixel camera performs great in good lighting conditions and the battery will certainly get you through the day. The amoled screen is great for entertainment and the device even has 33W fast charging and dual speakers. There are also minor downsides. For example, 5g support is missing and you cannot charge the device wirelessly. The software shell over Android 11 is also not the best of the best and due to the large screen and the resolution of 2. 400 by 1,080 pixels, this is also not the smartphone with the sharpest display. In practice, however, you hardly have any problems with this. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro is a top device with a modest price.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro Conclusion

From 279 euros you get a smartphone with a large AMOLED screen, a refresh rate of 120Hz, a 108-megapixel camera, dual speakers and a large battery of 5,020 mAh with 33W fast charging. Where else can you find these good specifications for so little money? We are therefore very enthusiastic about this smartphone, because it delivers an incredible amount of quality for a low price. Real gamers may not have enough of the processor in this smartphone. For all other users who want to get as much smartphone as possible for little money, this Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro is one of the best deals at the moment.