Skip to main content

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Editors' Recommendations

Andy Boxall
Senior Mobile Writer
Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…
Everything (and we mean everything) to know about 5G on the iPhone
iOS Home screen shown on an iPhone 13 Pro, resting on a desk.

If you’re in the market for a new iPhone and want to make sure you can take advantage of all the great features 5G offers, then it’s essential to make sure you get the right iPhone model. Fortunately, that’s not hard to do. However, it can still be confusing to know which models support “real” 5G’ and which ones will be left behind, especially when roaming across international boundaries.

The short answer to this quandary is that every iPhone released since the fall of 2020 supports at least some flavor of 5G. This includes the entirety of the iPhone 12, iPhone 13, and iPhone 14 families, plus the third-generation iPhone SE that came along in early 2022. That last entry also makes it a safe bet that, from now on, we’ll never see a new iPhone that’s not 5G-capable.

Read more
The best 5G phone plans in 2022
Cell tower FM radio

There's no doubt that 5G access has come a long way in the past couple of years or so, allowing for faster speeds across the board. All three of the major U.S. carriers now offer nationwide networks, and all include 5G support in their main plans and some of them have prepaid 5G phone plans.

Given the fact that all of the carriers offer 5G coverage in their plans, you might be wondering which offers the best 5G plans. From AT&T, to T-Mobile, to Verizon, all plans have their pros and cons. Here's everything you need to know.
AT&T 5G Phone plans

Read more
OnePlus 10T pre-orders go live in the U.S., and with a big 5G fix
Back of the OnePlus 10T.

Hot off the heels of its Asian and European launches, the OnePlus 10T is finally coming to North America, and with one major upgrade: 5G support with AT&T. For the first time on a OnePlus device, the OnePlus 10T will be fully compatible with AT&T 5G and 4G LTE networks, compared to previous handsets that only had LTE support on AT&T.

While the specs of OnePlus devices have always been impressive, especially so with the 10T, their recent reliance on LTE and other slower connections for AT&T customers has made them somewhat difficult to recommend. Now that users are able to make the most of 5G internet speeds, however, the 10T is more enticing than before.

Read more