Redmi 10 Prime review: Not ready for Prime time

Sometimes things don’t turn out as impressive as they seem on paper.

Redmi phones usually have what it takes to be the value champ, offering a fairly balanced set of features for their price point. But they can't all be hits. Every once in a while, there comes a Xiaomi phone that breaks that flow and fails to live up to expectations. The new Redmi 10 Prime is one of those. It manages to nail certain aspects better than any other phone in its category but falls flat in most others — its pricing doesn’t make the situation any better.

Design, hardware, what’s in the box

The Redmi 10 Prime borrows a lot of its design elements from its siblings, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It has a nice heft that gives it a solid feel even though its back and frame are made of plastic. However, there’s a buffer plastic layer between the frame and the top glass, which does help better cushion the display during drops but doesn't look as elegant as 2.5D glass melting into the frame. I also found that the frame has noticeable seams on all four corners. It may not be a big deal, especially when you have a cover on, but it makes the Redmi 10 Prime look like what it is: a cheap phone.

Cheap though it may be, Xiaomi got the display right, especially for the price. You get a 90Hz LCD with an adaptive refresh rate, which basically means that it can dial down to 45Hz when you’re looking at static content. For an LCD, it’s got some decent color and brightness. When it comes to outdoor usage, the display may appear a bit dull, though it remains usable. What troubled me was its erratic auto-brightness, which often darkens the screen when the light source is right behind the phone.

Since I quite liked the side-mounted fingerprint reader on the Redmi Note 10, I was hoping the 10 Prime would be in the same league. Unfortunately, its fingerprint implementation turned out to be one of the biggest disappointments for me. The scanner failed to recognize my fingers almost a third of the time, and I had to frustratingly resort to punching in the PIN every time that happened.

Xiaomi bundles the Redmi 10 Prime with a 22.5W USB-C charger, a basic clear case, and some paperwork to get you started with your new phone.

Software, performance, and battery

Redmi has gone for a MediaTek Helio G88 processor, which launched in July specifically for budget phones like the 10 Prime. The phone performed well at running all kinds of regular apps on my daily use, and I even got high-quality graphics settings on many games I tried. Sure, the gaming experience wasn’t flawless, but it was still enjoyable. And while some older MediaTek chips in this range have been prone to heating issues, I’m happy to report that it isn’t the case here, and the Redmi 10 Prime handles stress without throttling noticeably.

Even though the processor did its job well, I still faced a myriad of performance issues, for which the poorly optimized MIUI version is to blame. For instance, switching between apps isn’t smooth, even by the standards of cheap phones. There’s a bug in which the app icons don’t appear in the first go when you search in the menu. And it doesn’t get any better when it comes to RAM management. The phone couldn’t even hold three basic apps like Google Keep and TickTick in memory, even though more than half of its 6GB capacity was unused. We can only guess how worse it would be for the lower-tier 4GB RAM model. Speaking of software goof-ups, the phone’s screen-on timer often wouldn’t budge after a point, forcing me to manually log the screen-on time for the sake of this review.

Image Gallery (3 Images)

All of this was so frustrating that I wanted to switch to another phone as soon as I could. Perhaps, that’s the kind of haste that also went behind pushing the half-baked MIUI 12.5 update for the Redmi 10 Prime. It could’ve been a pleasant experience had Xiaomi spent more time smoothing out the rough edges — it’s still not too late to do that. One software perk you get here is that you can now uninstall or disable most of the crap that MIUI comes preloaded with. That, I think, is the only upside of MIUI 12.5 on this Redmi phone.

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While the software didn’t live up to my expectations, the handset’s long battery life left me thoroughly impressed. You will find it hard to kill this phone in a single day, thanks to its mammoth 6,000mAh battery that can also double as a power bank. My regular usage is fairly light, without any kind of gaming, and I easily got between 8 and 9 hours of screen time — over two days, which is a fantastic figure. Heavy users can expect at least 40% of juice still left at the end of the day. While the battery life is incredible, fast charging remains limited to 18W. This means the phone takes close to 2.5 hours to top up fully, so you’d be better off charging it at night.

Cameras

As is getting typical for budget phones, the Redmi 10 Prime, flaunts its quad-cam setup, but there are only two cameras that you’d ever use. The main 50MP sensor isn’t up to the mark, in spite of its high megapixel count. The photos taken from it usually have a slightly muted tone, and it fails to capture finer details even in broad daylight. When it comes to dynamic range, the primary camera is so unreliable that sometimes the 8MP ultra-wide sensor captures better-lit photos, like in one of the samples below.

Image Gallery (9 Images)

Main camera

Ultra-wide camera

The camera system is an even bigger let down under low-light conditions. I wasn't expecting miracles in this range, but I was still surprised by how soft and grainy nighttime photos were. The included night mode does a fair job of brightening a dark scene, but it still doesn’t help with the soft, barely usable images. You shouldn’t get the 10 Prime for its camera, no matter what Xiaomi says about it.

Should you buy it?

Probably, not. Had Xiaomi gone for a slightly lower price, the Redmi 10 Prime could’ve still earned a soft recommendation, but that’s unfortunately not the case. Its outstanding battery performance does work in its favor, but that’s one of the few good things about it.

The 10 Prime isn’t necessarily a bad phone in itself, but its pricing and other better options in the segment make it difficult to suggest. Redmi's own Note 10 and Note 10S not just offer a more polished software experience but also win the value game with their superior overall package. And if you want something not as jam-packed as MIUI, the Realme Narzo 30 makes for a decent choice for around the same price as the Redmi 10 Prime.

You also have to keep in mind that post-launch price rises are becoming a trend with Xiaomi phones, particularly at the lower end. We cannot rule out that the 10 Prime, which is already a bad value, could get even worse. We have seen that happen to the Redmi Note 10, which started out at the same price as the 10 Prime, but now you’ll have to shell out a couple of thousand more for it. But the fact is that you’d be better off with the far more capable Note 10, even with its revised prices, than going for the 10 Prime.

Buy it if…

• Excellent battery life is all that matters to you.

Don’t buy it if…

• You don’t mind spending more on a better overall phone.
• You plan to take any photos, ever.

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Karandeep Singh (411 Articles Published)

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