Gadgets. Redmi 10 Prime has a huge battery and good basics

 

All ‘affordable’ smartphones come with some things you can vociferously complain about and some that you can’t even believe come in at the price they do. That’s very much the case with Xiaomi’s new Redmi 10 Prime. It’s just been launched and gone on sale and no doubt there will be the usual beeline to buy. It takes over where the Redmi 9 Prime left off, but it’s got a lot of competition, including from other Xiaomi phones, specially in the Redmi Note series. But here’s what you need to know if you’re looking for a phone below ₹15,000.

Frosty outside : Perhaps inspired by the hot summer, the designers of this phone have given it an icy design on the back. It starts out in a cold white and transitions into an even colder blue. It’s glossy, which makes it seem colder, but it isn’t cold to hold because it’s made of plastic, including its frame. It’s still very strongly built and doesn’t even retain finger smudges much, despite the gloss. This is the BiFrost White and there are a few other fancy-named plainer colours, but this particular one seems to have captured a bit of attention. In the box you have a case, if you want to use one, and a 22W charger. That’s more than one can say for all the high-end phones around.

Wanted features : The Redmi 10 Prime has a lot going on around the edges. There are speakers up top and bottom — they sound loud but just adequate quality-wise — there’s an IR blaster for those who want to control their TVs, a 3.5mm jack, and a fingerprint sensor on the power button. There’s a memory card slot apart from the two SIM slots.

On the front, you have a 6.5-inch LCD display that actually gives you 90Hz refresh, helping that little bit to make the phone feel faster. It’s not bad for an LCD screen and usable but one can’t hanker for an OLED display at this price. It is obviously a little less bright than an AMOLED and less vivid in its colours, but usable.

Big battery : This phone is surprisingly light for a device that has a 6,000 mAh battery in it. And that’s one strong reason to consider the phone if you make endless calls or consume content on a marathon level. You can even use it to reverse charge another device, in an emergency. It will obviously take a long time to charge, which is why it’s best to get into the overnight charging habit with it. You get a 22W charger though charging is at 18W. Once it’s topped up, only the heaviest of users would run out of power over a day.

A new budget processor runs this device. That’s the MediaTek Helio G88 with either 4GB or 6GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of storage. There are faster processors on phones that hover around this price point, so some looking around is in order. The device works nice enough for routine things. Since I have so many extremely high-end phones around, I have to consciously adjust expectations. Still, it’s not sluggish or stuttery or anything and more than usable for all but the most intensive processes. The software is MIUI 12.5 and it’s fine if you don’t already dislike it. At least there seem to be fewer unwanted apps and certainly fewer annoying push notifications.

On this phone, the camera sounds like a big deal deal. 50MP on a budget phone seems amazing, but be warned that a new megapixel race of sorts is on to make customers think the camera is much nicer than it turns out. Actually, it definitely is much nicer than it ever used to be on budget cameras, but ignore the megapixel count. The cameras — and there’s the usual add-ones — are fine for casual use and neither a turn-off nor a reason to buy.

The Redmi 10 Prime costs either ₹12,499 or ₹14,999 depending on the variant you pick up.

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