Redmi Note 10 series: Release date, price, news and leaks

 

 Xiomi Note series has played an instrumental role in defining the budget smartphone segment of India. Single-handedly outselling many other brands, its importance can not be undermined. With the Redmi Note 10 series expected to launch in the near future, here’s everything we know about it.

The Redmi Note 9 Pro series made its global debut in India in March, with new phones being added to the family in the subsequent months. Now spanning all the way from  Tk. 25000 to under Tk. 15000, it trades blows with Realme, Nokia and Samsung at various levels. A wide product portfolio and agile refreshes in response to changing demands have always helped the Xiaomi sub-brand to be ahead of the curve.

With the smartphone market almost recovered from a slow-down and the festive season around the corner, the timing couldn’t be better for Xiaomi to unveil the Redmi Note 10 series; in a time when smartphones have become the centre of our lives more than ever before. The company has also moved to a biannual refresh cycle for its mid-rangers, making now the ripe time for the Redmi Note 9 series to pass on the baton. Of course, official confirmations are still a little far, but we do know what to make of the information we already have.

Release date and price

The Redmi Note 9 Pro and Redmi Note 9 Pro Max made their global debut in India back in March this year. Later, the company also launched the Redmi Note 9 in India during July. However, this time around, it is most likely that the Redmi Note 10 series will make its debut outside of India, most likely China and then make its way to the Indian market.
As of now, we do not have any timeline for the launch of the Redmi Note 10 series. But, we expect the official launch to happen sometime in Q4 2020 as the series is usually refreshed twice a year. Considering that the Indian festive season will be at its peak in mid-November, we should hear more about it by then.

We expect multiple smartphones in the Redmi Note 10 series to launch in India, populating the Tk. 20,000 to Tk. 25,000 price band.

Design and Display

The leaked image reveals the design of the Redmi Note 10. The vanilla Note 10 is said to come with a circular camera bump at the rear in the centre with Redmi branding to the lower end of the device. To the front, it looks like the Redmi Note 10 will come with a punch-hole cutout to the right of the device which houses the selfie camera. The volume rockers will be on the right side and just below the button. You also get the power key as well as a side-mounted fingerprint scanner. The leaked image also shows off the Grey colour option.

With the Redmi Note 10, Xiaomi will continue the IPS LCD panel according to the renders. However, this time we expect at least one of the two Pro devices to come with an AMOLED panel or with higher refresh rate.

Performance

The key area where the Redmi Note series shines is the performance ever since the inception of the Redmi Note series. The Note series has always been powered by the best possible powerful mid-range SoCs onboard. The company has used silicon from both Qualcomm and MediaTek in the past and had no issues with respect to performance.

This time, the Redmi Note series is likely to come with MediaTek’s Dimensity series chipsets. The Redmi Note 10 could be powered by Dimensity 720 SoC and the Redmi Note 10 and Note 10 Pro are likely to come with Dimensity 820 under the hood. Needless to say, the Dimesity series are 5G ready and are found on multiple mid-range and budget phones in China. With MediaTek trying to bring the Dimensity series outside of China, the Redmi Note 10 series could very well be the starting point for that.

Further, the devices are expected to pack in up to 8GB of RAM and up to 128GB of onboard storage, which has been pretty standard in the lineup. However, we’d also like to see a variant with 256GB of internal storage. As usual, it will likely come with an expansion slot for those who need to pop in a microSD card for additional storage.
 

Camera

Another key aspect of the Redmi Note series is the cameras. With the series having moved to a quad-camera array across the board this time, we expect the same to be continued — the usual high-resolution primary camera, assisted by an ultra-wide lens and a couple of novelty sensors. If we’re lucky, we might also see a telephoto shooter for the first time in this segment by Xiaomi.

If the current rumours are anything to go by, its design will be akin to the Poco X3.
 

Battery

Big batteries have always been characteristic of the series, with the Redmi Note 9 family moving to 5,000mAh or higher. It’s unlikely that they get any bigger considering the physical limitations, but that would be fine.

Charging speeds are where we expect bigger upgrades, moving beyond the current 18W-33W and catching up with the competition. We wouldn’t be too worried about anything in this regard.
 

Everything else

Apart from the aforementioned specs, the Redmi Note 10 series is likely to run on MIUI 12 out of the box. They’ll also most likely retain the IR blaster, P2i water-resistant coating, MicroSD card slot, Type-C port, and Gorilla Glass protection.