Which is the best budget smartphone of the two? Xiaomi or Realme?
When it comes to budget smartphones, the two manufacturers have made a very strong foothold and are always trying to oust each other by giving serious competition. Well, we are talking about Xiaomi and Realme where Xiaomi has made a huge chunk of sales with some very good specifications for its majority of smartphones at a lower price.
The Realme, on the other hand, being a part of Oppo has gained a lot of attention past two to three years with its solid budget smartphones and also has made its way to flagships. The launch of the Xiaomi Redmi Note series brings in some very good specifications each year and this year we have the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 (Review) which brings some very good specifications.
It is the very first smartphone from the Note series to get an AMOLED display and stereo speakers. Realme Narzo series are the most popular in the budget segment as they focus more on gaming and with the Realme Narzo 30, we get some very good specifications which include a 90Hz display, a powerful Mediatek Helio G95 chipset, and much more.
There is also a 5G version called the Realme Narzo 30 5G (Review), but here we are comparing the 4G version with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10. So which is the better budget smartphone of the two? Let’s find out in the full comparison.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 vs Realme Narzo 30 Design:
In terms of design, both the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 and the Realme Narzo 30 sport a polycarbonate back but the design element on both of them is different. The Redmi Note 10 has a simpler look at the back with a glossy finish whereas the Narzo 30 has an eye-catching design with a V-shaped pattern which is a long strip from below the camera module and shines when light strikes at it.
The Narzo 30 also has a glossy finish but you do not see the Dare To Leap logo that we had associated with most Realme smartphones. Both have a rectangular camera module where the Redmi Note 10 has a quad-camera setup whereas the Narzo 30 has a triple camera setup and the camera hump is slightly protruding on the Redmi Note 10 compared to the Narzo 30.
Around the sides, both smartphones get volume buttons and a power button which also doubles up as a fingerprint scanner. The side frame is also plastic on both and there is a triple card slot on both where you have a dual SIM card slot and a microSD card slot for storage expansion. At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port, loudspeaker grille, a primary microphone, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Both do get P2i coating the back making them somewhat splash resistant. The top of the Redmi Note 10 has an IR Blaster, loudspeaker grille, and a secondary noise-canceling microphone whereas the top of the Narzo 30 looks plain. The Redmi Note 10 weighs around 179grams which makes it lighter compared to 192grams on the Narzo 30 and also the Redmi Note 10 is slimmer of the two at 8.3mm
Realme Narzo 30 vs Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Display:
The Redmi Note 10 sports a 6.43-inches Full HD+(1080×2400 pixels) Super AMOLED display whereas the Narzo 30 gets a slightly larger 6.5-inches Full HD+(1080×2400 pixels) IPS LCD display. So clearly the color reproduction and the viewing angles are better on the Redmi Note 10, especially while watching content on the display.
The display on the Narzo 30 has support for a 90Hz refresh rate which is not present on the Redmi Note 10. The high refresh rate display aids in smooth scrolling on webpages, faster and smoother animations, and also the higher 180Hz touch response comes into effect during gaming. The Redmi Note 10 has a standard 60Hz display and you can definitely notice the difference in terms of animations and response.
Both do get support for HDR10 and Widevine L1 and can stream HDR content from OTT platforms but still, Netflix does not support HDR on either of these but HDR on Youtube works on the Redmi Note 10 which is still not supported on Narzo 30 yet. In terms of brightness, the Redmi Note 10 has a peak brightness of 1100 nits whereas the Narzo 30 has only 570 nits of brightness.
Under direct sunlight, both these displays are easily visible but the Redmi Note 10 has better visibility due to the higher brightness compared to the Narzo 30 which does struggle in harsh sunlight as there is a lot of reflection on the display. Both these have a side-mounted fingerprint scanner embedded into the power button which is quite accurate and fast. The face unlock is slightly faster on the Narzo 30.
So overall, the display though supporting a high refresh rate on Narzo 30, the Redmi Note 10 edges here with better color reproduction and viewing angles. So it all depends on your personal preference whether you want a high refresh rate display for gaming or an AMOLED display for media consumption.
Realme Narzo 30 vs Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Performance:
The Narzo 30 sports a Mediatek Helio G95 chipset which is an octa-core chipset having 2×2.05GHz Cortex-A76 cores and 6×2.0GHz Cortex-A55 cores based on a 12nm process and is coupled with a Mali-G76 MC4 GPU. The Redmi Note 10 is powered by the Snapdragon 678 chipset that has 2×2.2GHz Kryo 460 cores based on Cortex-A76 and another 6×1.7GHz Kryo 460 cores based on Cortex-A55.
The Snapdragon 678 chipset is based on an 11nm process and has the Adreno 612 GPU. In terms of performance, the Narzo 30 is better, and while multi-tasking which includes scrolling through webpages, playing games, or rendering videos is slightly faster on the Narzo 30 compared to the Redmi Note 10. There is a slight delay in app opening speeds on the Redmi Note 10.
The Redmi Note 10 has better RAM management compared to the Narzo 30 as it holds more applications in the memory. Moving to games, both smartphones can run all heavy games like Call Of Duty Mobile, BGMI at high graphics but at that level, you can notice some amount of frame drops on the Redmi Note 10 whereas, on the Narzo 30, the gameplay is smoother and hardly any frame drops are present.
Also, the Narzo 30 has a vapor cooling chamber that dissipates heat much faster after gaming for continuously 3-4 hours and the back does not feel warmer and Realme has also fixed some of the heating issues which were there previously. In terms of benchmarks, the Narzo 30 scores higher than the Redmi Note 10 in Antutu, and overall, the performance and gaming are better on the Narzo 30.
Realme Narzo 30 vs Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Software:
The Redmi Note 10 runs on MIUI 12.5 whereas the Narzo 30 runs on RealmeUI 2.0 and both have Android 11 out of the box. The custom skins on both smartphones have bloatware present in terms of third-party applications and also some ads but still, it is very minimal on the RealmeUI as you can disable the ads.
The look of the RealmeUI is more like Stock Android and feels slightly better than the MIUI which is slightly heavier. Both have a lot of customizations present but RealmeUI is still better. The MIUI has support for custom ROMs extensively which the RealmeUI simply cannot match. But when it comes to software updates, Realme Narzo 30 gets two years of OS updates and security updates.
For Xiaomi, we are not sure regarding how many software updates will be coming but if you see both have a system-wide dark mode, Android 11 features, Digital Wellbeing, etc. but still OneUI, OxygenOS, etc. provide a better software experience than the two. But overall, with slightly more features and a better look, the RealmeUI is better.
Realme Narzo 30 vs Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Cameras:
The Narzo 30 sports a triple camera setup that includes a 48MP f/1.8 main camera with a 2MP depth and a 2MP macro camera. The Redmi Note 10 also sports a 48MP f/1.8 main camera with a 2MP macro and depth camera but does have an additional 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera. The front of the Redmi Note 10 has a 13MP f/2.5 camera whereas the Narzo 30 gets a 16MP f/2.1 camera.
Comparing images on both smartphones from the main camera, the Narzo 30 has slightly better color saturation and dynamic range compared to the Redmi Note 10 which has a lot of oversharpening in the background but the noise is slightly lower on the Redmi Note 10. The contrast is better on the Narzo 30. Even while zooming in, the Narzo 30 has more noise but the details are sharper on the Redmi Note 10.
(Credits: MySmartPrice)
(Credits: MySmartPrice)
At night, things do change quite a bit as the Redmi Note 10 has better color saturation and the noise is also quite lower compared to the Narzo 30. The Narzo 30 has slightly softer details and the dynamic range is also average compared to the Redmi Note 10. With the dedicated Night Mode, the images from the Redmi Note 10 have better dynamic range and the noise is also lower compared to the Narzo 30.
Without Night Mode:
(Credits: MySmartPrice)
(Credits: MySmartPrice)
With Night Mode:
(Credits: MySmartPrice)
(Credits: MySmartPrice)
The 2MP macro camera is the same on both smartphones so the images come out with average dynamic range and noise is also present on both. The details look average and even the colors look washed out on both but still, the color saturation is slightly better on the Narzo 30. In terms of portraits, the edge detection and dynamic range are better on the Narzo 30 compared to the Redmi Note 10.
The Redmi Note 10 gets an additional 8MP camera which takes average details and the dynamic range is just good. There is some noise in the background and around the edges lot of distortion is present. The images at night have average details and the noise is also quite prominent. The Narzo 30 lacks an ultrawide camera which turns the points in the favour of Xiaomi.
(Credits: MySmartPrice)
The selfies have a better dynamic range on the Narzo 30 and also the details are better compared to the Redmi Note 10. The Redmi Note 10 selfies have slight oversharpening in the background and the color saturation is slightly dull compared to the Narzo 30. However, the Narzo 30 does apply some skin smoothening by default but the portrait selfies come out better on the Redmi Note 10 though.
In terms of videos, both smartphones can record 4K videos at 30fps and the videos have better dynamic range and the color saturation is also natural on the Narzo 30 compared to the Redmi Note 10. The videos on the Redmi Note 10 have better stabilization as EIS works much better compared to the Narzo 30. The 1080p videos at 60fps have better dynamic range and color saturation on the Narzo 30.
The Redmi Note 10 can record 1080p videos at 30fps from the ultrawide camera and here the video footage is just average in terms of details with more noise and distortion. The selfie videos come out better on the Narzo 30 in terms of dynamic range and color saturation. The selfie videos do have more crop on the Redmi Note 10 compared to the Narzo 30 and also noise is slightly more.
So cameras are overall better on the Narzo 30 by a very slight margin but if you want that extra ultrawide camera and better low-light images, then you can go for the Redmi Note 10.
Realme Narzo 30 vs Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Battery Life:
Both smartphones have a 5000mAh battery which can easily last for two days with normal usage but with the high refresh rate and an IPS LCD panel, the battery life is not as good as the Redmi Note 10 which has an AMOLED display with a standard 60Hz refresh rate. With heavy usage, both smartphones easily lasted for a sone day and more with some charge left.
The standard screen-on time was around 7-8 hours on both with Redmi Note 10 going slightly beyond 8 hours which was really great considering the MIUI optimizations and AMOLED display consuming less power compared to the LCD display. Both smartphones have support for fast charging where Narzo 30 has 30W fast charging whereas the Redmi Note 10 has 33W fast charging.
With the supplied charger provided inside the box in each of the smartphones, the Narzo 30 took around 1 hour 10 minutes which is slightly lesser in time compared to the 1 hour 20 minutes on the Redmi Note 10. So clearly, in terms of battery life and charging speeds, both are equally good and fast.
Realme Narzo 30 vs Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Audio Quality:
The Narzo 30 has a single speaker setup compared to the stereo speaker setup on the Redmi Note 10 which has a dedicated speaker grille on the top also which together with the loudspeaker grille at the bottom double up as stereo speakers so clearly, the sound quality is better and also the bass level is better on the Redmi Note 10.
Both also get a 3.5mm headphone jack and the sound output is also good on the Redmi Note 10 slightly compared to the Narzo 30. In terms of haptics also, the Redmi Note 10 is better. So overall, the audio quality is better on the Redmi Note 10.
Verdict:
Overall, both Xiaomi and Realme are best in terms of specifications at the price point which they are offering. In terms of design and build, both are equivalent as they have a polycarbonate back instead of glass but when it comes to display on both, it is a personal preference whether you want a 90Hz display of the Narzo 30 for gaming and smooth scrolling or an AMOLED panel to watch content on screen.
In terms of performance and gaming, the Narzo 30 has the upper edge as the Mediatek Helio G95 chipset which completely beats in benchmarks and also games run better with no frame drops as such when compared against the Snapdragon 678 chipset on the Redmi Note 10. RealmeUI provides a slightly better software experience with more features and has lesser bloatware compared to MIUI.
When it comes to cameras, the situation does a favor both of these. The images taken during the day are better on the Narzo 30 but when it comes to night, the Redmi Note 10 is better and it also has an ultrawide camera which the Narzo 30 lacks. When it comes to battery life, both are equally good in terms of battery life with the Redmi Note 10 you get a slightly better screen on time.
But in terms of charging, the Narzo 30 supports slightly faster charging speeds. In terms of sound experience, Redmi Note 10 with its dual stereo speakers clearly beats the Narzo 30 which has only a single speaker. So to conclude, if you want the high refresh rate display, better gaming and performance, camera for daylight shots, a feature-packed and good software experience, then the Narzo 30 is the one to choose.
Plus it has got a faster charging speed also. The Redmi Note 10, on the other hand, is focused on people who want an AMOLED display for media consumption and are not much into gaming and performance, and want an ultrawide camera, camera for low-light shots, and also great battery life with dual stereo speakers for the sound experience. So it all depends on your personal preference which one fits you perfectly.