Redmi K30 review - Immense value in a difficult ecosystem - Android
The Redmi K30 is a new mid-ranged device from Redmi, a sub-brand of Xiaomi. But like other Chinese smartphones, the Redmi K30 is only mid-ranged in a few key areas, while it beats high-end flagships in others.
Sporting a fast 120Hz IPS LCD display, a 4,500mAh battery, and four rear cameras, this phone feels like it may be worth a lot more than Redmi is asking. But is that really the case?
This is Android Authority’s Redmi K30 review.
As stated earlier, the Redmi K30 is running some impressive specs for a phone as inexpensive as it is. We used the top-end 4G model, which comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. This model costs 2,199 yuan or about $314. The cheapest model with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage costs just 1,599 yuan or about $229. That’s wildly inexpensive.
Besides those specs, you’re getting a Snapdragon 730G processor from Qualcomm, a 4,500mAh battery with 27W fast charging, four rear cameras, including the new Sony IMX 686 64MP sensor, a 120Hz IPS LCD display, and even a headphone jack. With those specs added, this may be one of the highest-value smartphones on the market.
There will also be a 5G variant of this phone, which costs 1,999 yuan (~$286) for the baseline specs model and 2,899 yuan (~$414) for the top-end version. This makes it one of the cheapest 5G phones you can get right now, but of course, this will only work on sub-6GHz networks, not mmWave.
Overall, the Snapdragon 730G and 8GB of RAM are more than enough for my mobile use cases. I did have some random instances of apps freezing, but I had to sideload the Google Play Store and Google Play Services since this is a Chinese model.
For multitasking, the K30 just flew. 8GB of RAM was enough so I never got kicked out of apps, and the phone never needed to reload anything into memory. For all but the most demanding users, notably gamers, this phone will handle almost anything you throw at it.
With a 4,500mAh battery, you’d probably expect the Redmi K30 to get incredible battery life. But when you have a display refreshing 120 times per second, that’s not exactly the case.
On an average day, I got about six hours of screen-on time. This isn’t bad at all – about average for a smartphone in 2019. You have the option to toggle the refresh rate to 60Hz which will surely save battery life, so you’ll have to decide if that extra smooth display is worth it to you.
When you do find yourself needing to top off your battery, the Redmi K30 comes with a fast 27W charger. That’s not quite as fast as Huawei’s 40W standard or even OnePlus’ Warp Charge 30, but it’s still faster than the Pixel 4’s 18W charger or the Note 10 Plus’ 25W charger. For the price, that’s pretty damn good.
You can definitely feel the difference between a 60Hz and 120Hz display, but whether you need it is a completely different question. This is an LCD display like we saw on the Razer Phone 2, meaning the phone needs to illuminate the whole display instead of individual pixels. The display is a 6.67-inch 1080p panel.
You won’t get the pure blacks and bright whites of an AMOLED display with this device, but that doesn’t mean the screen is bad. Only when using my phone at night did I notice how much nicer an AMOLED display would be, but in most use cases, it’s totally fine. If you want a 120Hz AMOLED display, you’ll have to nab the slightly pricier ASUS ROG Phone 2.
I would personally prefer to keep this phone on 60Hz and reap the benefits of better battery life, but that’s totally dependant on the user. If I was more into mobile games the 120Hz display would be a much bigger deal to me. Still, you can always toggle between the two modes as you like.
The Redmi K30 has four cameras on the rear, and two on the front. There’s the new 64MP Sony IMX686 – a direct successor to the popular 48MP IMX 586, an ultrawide 8MP sensor, a 2MP macro camera, and a 2MP depth sensor. On the front, you’ve got a 20MP selfie camera and a 2MP depth sensor.
The new IMX686 sensor pulls its weight in good light, and bins images to 18MP. Xiaomi’s image processing is quite flat, which I like. There’s a lot of dynamic range but it’s not overdone like a lot of other manufacturers, and there’s a lot of information to work with it you want to edit in post.
The selfie camera has good sharpness in good light, but the flat color profile doesn’t look very good on skin tones. If you’re a big selfie person, you’ll want to apply a filter or edit to your photos before you share them. In lower light, you’ll see a decent amount of smearing. Weirdly, color reproduction seemed better in low-light circumstances.
Portrait mode is quite good, with decent edge detection. If you use the full 64MP mode you’ll get a sharper image than the binned 18MP mode, but you’ll need a lot more light to make it look good. In most situations, you’ll want to use the standard camera mode.
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