Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S hands-on review

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Introduction

The Redmi Note 10S is yet another smartphone from Xiaomi in the crowded Redmi Note 10 series. This one is being launched in India amidst three other Redmi Note 10 models, including the Redmi Note 10, the Redmi Note 10 Pro, and the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max.

The Redmi Note 10S sits between the Redmi Note 10 and the Redmi Note 10 Pro, being largely identical to the Redmi Note 10 but with a better camera and chipset on paper. It is, however, closer to the Redmi Note 10 Pro in price than the Redmi Note 10, so that camera and chipset better be good to make you want to buy this phone instead of just getting the Pro model. But then again, that may be the plan.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S specs at a glance:

• Body: 160.5x74.5x8.3mm, 179g; #missing Body materials#; IP53, dust and splash protection.
• Display: 6.43" AMOLED, 450 nits (typ), 1100 nits (peak), 1080x2400px resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio, 409ppi.
• Chipset: Mediatek Helio G95 (12 nm): Octa-core (2x2.05 GHz Cortex-A76 & 6x2.0 GHz Cortex-A55); Mali-G76 MC4.
• Memory: 64GB 6GB RAM, 128GB 6GB RAM, 128GB 8GB RAM; UFS 2.2; microSDXC (dedicated slot).
• OS/Software: Android 11, MIUI 12.5.
• Rear camera: Wide (main): 64 MP, f/1.8, 26mm, 1/1.97", 0.7µm, PDAF; Ultra wide angle: 8 MP, f/2.2, 118˚, 1/4.0", 1.12µm; Macro: 2 MP, f/2.4; Depth: 2 MP, f/2.4.
• Front camera: 13 MP, f/2.5, (wide), 1/3.06", 1.12µm.
• Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30/60/120fps, 720p@960fps; Front camera: 1080p@30fps.
• Battery: 5000mAh; Fast charging 33W.
• Misc: Fingerprint reader (side-mounted); Infrared port; 3.5mm jack.

The Redmi Note 10S is also the first phone in India to launch with MIUI 12.5 out of the box. Xiaomi is calling this an "interim" version of 12.5, which means it lacks some of the features of the final release but we will just have to see about that.

Unboxing

The retail box isn't special by any means. It contains the usual user manuals, a USB-A to USB-C cable for data transfer and charging, a transparent silicone case, which is pretty hard to put on and remove, and a charging brick rated at 33W.

Design

Just like its more expensive sibling, the vanilla Redmi Note 10 boasts an IP53 certification against water and dust. And it's one of the few Redmi to have it too. However, don't expect the phone to be fine if you submerge it into water. The IP53 certification ensures against splashes and rain, for example.

But unlike the Pro, this one has Gorilla Glass 3 for its front, instead of Gorilla Glass 5, and the back is made of plastic, not GG5 again. The frame is also plastic, but there's nothing wrong with that. The handset still feels pretty good in the hand - it's thin (8.3mm) and light (178g) mainly because of its almost all-plastic build. It kind of feels less slippery too. The Deep Sea Blue variant that we received shows fingerprints and smudges on the back easily. Our review unit also had odd patterns embedded in the plastic that were impossible to wipe.

As we are still on the back, we can't miss mentioning the rather minimal protrusion of the camera module. We find the camera design to be pretty nice, too, and it doesn't seem to be bothering us with asymmetry. Additionally, the side panel edges are a bit more curved than usual and make the handset feel slimmer while improving the overall grip.

Flipping the phone reveals decently-sized bezels all-around, with the bottom one being slightly thicker, which is to be expected. The side frame and the top bezel seem roughly symmetrical in size. The punch-hole in the middle is a bit on the larger size compared to Xiaomi's more expensive models but not too distracting.

The sides are where things start to get interesting. The frame is so thin that it has been widened to accommodate the power key and the volume rocker.

Both seem to be a bit bigger than you'd expect, and the unusual part is that the power button, which doubles as a fingerprint reader, isn't indented as you'd normally expect from a phone with a side-mounted fingerprint scanner but raised like a standard button.

As we have noted in some of our recent Xiaomi reviews with this raised side-mounted fingerprint reader, the performance is hit or miss. Even when you firmly plant your finger on it and press the button, most of the time the phone will just turn the screen on instead of unlocking the phone. You then have to raise your thumb and touch it again for the sensor to work.

Fortunately, you can set the sensor to unlock when you just touch it rather than press it. This makes the sensor work a bit more reliably but there were still times when touching it didn't cause the phone to unlock. Also, the problem with switching the unlock method to 'Touch' instead of 'Press' is that the phone will angrily buzz at you every time the sensor comes in contact with any skin that isn't a registered fingerprint.

The bottom and top ends of the frame are flat and adopt a matte finish instead of the glossy one for the rest of the frame. The top side has a port for the loudspeaker, the IR blaster, and a microphone. The loudspeaker port is just an additional grille for the speaker placed underneath the earpiece grille so even if you block this top port it doesn't change the sound output. Similarly, if you block the earpiece grille for some reason, the audio then comes out of the top port.

On the bottom is the slot for a second loudspeaker, a USB-C port, a microphone, and the increasingly rare headphone jack.

On the left side is the tray for SIM and external storage. It can hold two separate nano-SIM cards as well as a microSD card, so you don't have to compromise on one or the other. Curiously, Xiaomi still marks the microSD slot as 'TF'. The TF here stands for TransFlash, which some may remember as the original name for the microSD standard.

Display

The Redmi Note 10S has the same display as the Redmi Note 10. It's a 6.43-inch AMOLED panel with 2400x1800 resolution, 60Hz refresh rate, and 8-bit color. Xiaomi claims the display is capable of DCI-P3 coverage, has 1100 nits peak brightness and 700 nits typical brightness.

During our testing of the Redmi Note 10, we found the display to perform very well in terms of color accuracy when the phone was set to the Standard color scheme within Display settings. We also managed to get close to the 700 nits claimed typical figure but couldn't quite reach the 1100 nits peak brightness. We don't expect these results to match the Redmi Note 10S exactly due to panel variance but they should be very similar. Regardless, the display on the Redmi Note 10S performs quite well, especially for the price.

As mentioned before, the Redmi Note 10S has a 60Hz display. For those not used to a higher refresh rate display, which would be most people shopping in this price segment, this shouldn't be a deal-breaker. However, we still would have liked to see at least 90Hz refresh rate as 60Hz just doesn't pass muster these days and the extra 30Hz can make a world of difference.

Xiaomi does not advertise the Redmi Note 10S as having an HDR display. However, it has left the HDR tag in the software unchecked, which causes apps like YouTube to assume that the phone has an HDR display and present the HDR version of the video, if available. This doesn't end up looking particularly great and it would probably be better if the device didn't announce itself as being HDR capable.

Since we are on the topic of video, perhaps the worst crime that this phone commits is to automatically over-sharpen and contrast-boost ALL videos that you play on the phone. As soon as the phone detects you're playing a video, whether it's locally on the phone or through a streaming app, it will instantly over-sharpen it and slap it with a heavy dose of contrast. The resultant image is nearly unwatchable and looks like a cheap LCD TV that has been over tuned to make it more appealing on the shop floor. And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it because it's permanently forced enabled across all apps.

Here's hoping they add a toggle for that in an upcoming update. In the comparison images above, the difference may not seem that big but it's quite noticeable when watching on the phone itself. Also, regardless of how subtle or severe it is, the phone shouldn't be altering video content anyway, or at least shouldn't be doing it in a way that cannot be disabled.

Speakers

The Redmi Note 10S has a pair of stereo speakers. As mentioned in the design section, the bottom speaker fires straight down while the earpiece speaker fires through the earpiece grille as well as a separate grille on the top of the phone.

The speakers on the Redmi Note 10S are of mediocre quality. They sound a bit hollow and nasal and don't have the low-end energy or mid-bass to flesh out the tonality fully. They also don't get particularly loud and most of the time, the bottom-firing speaker tends to sound a bit louder than the earpiece speaker.

For the price, none of these things is a deal-breaker. It's just worth mentioning that not all stereo speakers are created equal but the ones on the Redmi Note 10S sound reasonably good for the price.

As an aside, the phone does have a 3.5mm headphone jack and also features an internal HiRes Direct driver. This means apps like USB Audio Player will switch to using this driver over the default Android audio driver, which can potentially provide better audio quality when used with the right source material.

Software

The Redmi Note 10S comes with an "interim" version of MIUI 12.5 out of the box in India on top of Android 11. The reason Xiaomi calls this an interim version is that it lacks some of the features found in the final release, namely being able to uninstall system apps. This feature will be added later as a software update.

MIUI 12.5 itself is an interim update of sorts. As the naming scheme suggests, it's not quite up there with a full version number upgrade over MIUI 12 but does introduce some useful features. Some of these are under the hood, such as reduced CPU usage and power consumption, and prioritization for full-screen gestures on a system level.

Others are much more obvious, such as being able to uninstall many of the system apps, including notes, screen recorder, voice recorder, weather, compass, scanner, calculator, and radio while also being able to remove (but not fully uninstall) downloads, file manager, themes, music player, video player, and the services & feedback app. 12.5 also has a new Notes app, new wallpaper packs, and minor UI tweaks such as redesigned volume bars.

Having said that, in everyday use, it's difficult to tell if there's anything different in MIUI 12.5 compared to the previous version. As such, most of our observations about this new version are identical to those from the Redmi Note 10 running MIUI 12.

The Redmi Note 10S homescreen is similar to other recent Xiaomi phones. By default, it is set to install all apps on the homescreen but you can enable the separate app drawer if you prefer the more traditional approach.

MIUI 12.5 homescreen

The phone also comes with the old-style control center out of the box. This design is similar to other Android phones and features the toggles and notifications on the same screen. You can optionally switch over to the new style, which is basically a rip-off of the iOS-style split notifications and control center design, right down to the appearance of the buttons and icons. Xiaomi tends to set the new style as default on its more premium smartphones but chooses to have the old style as default on the budget models.

Control Center

Similarly, you can also choose between having the MIUI style notifications or the newer Android-style notifications. You can even choose to have the items in the Recents screen be arranged horizontally like on most other phones or vertically in a tile format the way Xiaomi likes to do it. Basically, you have some flexibility with how you want the phone's UI to appear and can switch to more standard designs if you don't like Xiaomi's approach.

Notifications • Recents

However, Xiaomi is less flexible in other areas where it completely disregards what Google is doing with Android. There is no direct support for Google's Chat Bubbles feature in MIUI 12.5. Rather, you have floating windows, which are notifications that you can pull down into small windows, similar to iOS. These can then be placed anywhere on the screen or dismissed. You can open almost any app in a small floating window like this, which can be handy at times although you can only open one such window at a time.

Floating window

Dark mode is also not properly implemented. While it does cause third-party applications that support the feature to also switch to dark mode, it then applies an additional dark layer on ALL apps, which often clashes with the existing dark mode on most apps and causes apps not designed for dark mode to just look weird. And you can't disable this system-wide without doing it on a per-app basis, including for every new app you install.

Dark mode

Xiaomi also still uses its old-fashioned iOS-style share sheet. Even iOS has moved on now and this share sheet is seriously limited and does not allow applications to show suggestions the way the default Android share sheet does.

MIUI 12.5 share sheet

The always-on display mode is also strangely not actually always-on. Enabling this mode will show your selected clock for a few seconds and then just turns the display off. After that, you are required to tap the screen to show the "always-on" screen for ten seconds before it turns it off again. Currently, the only option in the settings is to set it to 'For 10 seconds after tapping' and there is no option to have it be permanently on or based on a schedule, which is an odd limitation and we hope Xiaomi issues an update to fix it.

"Always-on" mode

We have mentioned this in some of our previous reviews, but MIUI continues to have a convoluted way to set ringtones or wallpapers, where you are dumped into the Themes store first and then left to find your way to the locally saved files to set. Everyone else has figured out how to do this the normal way.

Themes

The Indian units will also come with a host of bloatware from Xiaomi itself, Google, and then third parties. A lot of these can be uninstalled but some, especially the Google apps, cannot be uninstalled. The Indian units should also have ads strategically placed in many of the first-party apps, although curiously our review unit didn't have them, which seems like a concession made for the review units, which also had the ability to run benchmarks blocked.

Xiaomi still has its own app store, even though it has removed many of its apps over the years that simply duplicate existing Google apps on the device. The good thing about this store is that it requires absolutely no login so the user is free to download as many apps as they want without making an account with Google or Xiaomi. It also allows access to some apps that may otherwise not be available in your region on the Google Play Store. However, Xiaomi's store is also quite pushy and is often shoving pop-up messages and notifications in your face to download its promoted apps.

Xiaomi 'GetApps' store

Overall, MIUI continues to be a mishmash of good and bad ideas. There are plenty of useful features peppered throughout the OS that do make the software enjoyable to use at times. But Xiaomi's continued obsession with iOS and insistence on doing things differently from what Google recommends also makes it frustrating at times.

Performance

The Redmi Note 10S runs on the MediaTek Helio G95. It comes with a choice of 64GB or 128GB storage, both with 6GB of system memory. Regardless of which you pick, you can always expand it later using microSD.

The Helio G95 is similar in some ways to the Snapdragon 678 on the Redmi Note 10. Both have a similar CPU structure with essentially the same CPU cores at slightly different clock speeds. The GPU, however, is different, with the Helio G95 having the more powerful GPU on paper.

The UI performance on the Redmi Note 10S is really good. During everyday usage, the phone feels snappy and responsive. Opening and closing apps, multitasking, and scrolling performance were admirable, and not once did we feel like we were using a budget phone with lesser specifications.

The gaming performance was underwhelming. This is definitely one area where you'd feel like you're using a budget phone, as the Helio G95 simply does not have the horsepower to run demanding games such as Genshin Impact at a stable 30fps frame rate even at the lowest visual quality settings. You can maybe get around to playing some less demanding or 2D games just fine but if you are serious about playing games on your phone then you will have to spend a bit more.

One issue with the Redmi Note 10S is that the hardware tends to overheat quite easily in warmer climates. Whether you are playing a game or even using the camera, the phone does get quite warm. The heat isn't the issue in itself but rather the fact that the performance degrades significantly once the phone heats up.

As with many of our other Indian Xiaomi review units, the Redmi Note 10S was blocked from running benchmarks. Curiously, Geekbench and AnTuTu 9 could still be run but we couldn't run our usual GFXBench and 3DMark tests. This was a shame, as that would have shown a clear improvement in GPU performance over the Snapdragon 678. We have reviewed other Helio G95 devices, however, so we do have some idea how it performs.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G 5G
  1980
• Redmi Note 9 Pro (Max)
  1785
• Redmi Note 9S
  1785
• Realme 8 5G
  1784
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  1780
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  1780
• Poco X3 NFC
  1777
• vivo U20
  1614
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  1599
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S
  1576
• Redmi Note 9
  1292
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  1277

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G 5G
  659
• Redmi Note 9 Pro (Max)
  571
• Redmi Note 9S
  570
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  569
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  569
• Realme 8 5G
  569
• Poco X3 NFC
  568
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  534
• vivo U20
  506
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S
  502
• Redmi Note 9
  361
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  361

Camera

The Redmi Note 10S has a quad-camera setup at the back, consisting of a 64MP wide camera, an 8MP ultra-wide camera, a 2MP macro camera, and a 2MP depth sensor. There is no optical image stabilization and any stabilization done is in software.

At first glance, it seemed like the 64MP main camera could be the same as the Samsung GW3 found on the Redmi Note 10 Pro. However, after Xiaomi refused to give us a straight answer to what the sensor model is, we decided to dig a little and discovered that it is an OmniVision OV64B. Meanwhile, the 8MP ultra-wide camera uses a Sony IMX355, the 2MP macro camera uses OmniVision OV02B, and the 2MP depth sensor uses a GalaxyCore GC02M1.

The camera application is identical to other MIUI 12 devices. The main camera modes can be accessed at the bottom of the screen (in portrait) and you can either choose to have the extra modes be hidden under a separate 'More' screen or swipe up to access all of them, similar to the OnePlus Camera app.

Camera app

At the top of the screen are additional options to toggle HDR, AI mode, flash, color filters, and Google Lens. The settings panel has additional options for changing aspect ratios, countdown timers, guidelines, and enabling macro, tilt-shift, timed-burst, and Pro color modes. If you're wondering what Pro color does, it just makes the colors more saturated and less accurate, which is the opposite of what you'd think a Pro mode would do.

The actual Settings menu then has additional options, such as adding a watermark to images, smart suggestions, orientation warnings, ultra-wide distortion correction, and even options to customize the color scheme and sounds of the camera app.

Camera settings

Now, getting down to the business of image quality, let's start first with the main 64MP wide camera. The image quality from this camera is a bit disappointing. On one hand, things like color performance, dynamic range, and contrast are all adequate good, especially for the price segment.

Wide camera daylight samples

On the other hand, there is absolutely no fine detail in the images to speak of, with everything having a muddled, grainy look to it. When staring at the images at 100% zoom, they look like a watercolor painting with all fine detail and texture being non-existent. The image looks like it was upscaled from a low-resolution original image and then oversharpened aggressively to compensate.

To confirm if the issue was with the hardware or the software, we also shot a few images back to back in raw and compared them with the JPEG files from Auto and Pro modes. All the JPEG files had the same aforementioned watercolor effect to them when seen up close. However, the raw files looked just fine, and exporting them to JPEG produced much more pleasing and detailed results.

In-camera JPEG • JPEG processed from raw

In the comparison above, you can see how much more detail the image made from the raw file is compared to the JPEG generated by the phone. The phone's image looks sharper at first but it's only when you look closely do you realize that it has no actual detail, which is the opposite of the image converted from the raw file. The colors from the raw image are just to taste and not indicative of anything.

The phone has no telephoto camera so all zooming is done digitally. Even at 2x zoom, the image quality falls apart completely and the images are mushy and a complete mess.

Wide camera 2x digital zoom

The phone also allows shooting in 64MP resolution but these images have no real additional detail to offer and just waste space on the disk.

Wide camera 64MP samples

Moving on to the ultra-wide camera, we didn't notice any particular issue with the images. However, the images aren't particularly great to begin with and the 8MP resolution isn't adequate for such a wide focal length. The camera also makes little effort to match the colors of the main wide camera, so the images captured from the ultra-wide of the same subject come out much warmer and generally different looking than the main camera.

Ultra-wide camera samples

The Redmi Note 10S also has a 2MP macro camera. Like most others like it, this camera, along with the depth sensor, basically exists to fill out the spec sheet. The images captured are nothing to write home about as the camera has no autofocus, and the 2MP resolution is just not enough to capture sufficient detail even at the closeup distances. Image quality also degrades considerably in lower light levels.

Macro camera samples

The low light performance is disappointing. Shooting within the standard Photo mode, you get okay results that may or may not be usable depending upon the lighting conditions. However, it's the Night mode images that are abysmal. It's rare to see image quality somehow get worse when the Night mode is enabled, but that's exactly what's happening here.

Lowlight auto vs Lowlight Night mode

The Night mode also works only on the main wide camera, so it's not usable with the ultra-wide camera at all.

The Redmi Note 10S can capture 4K 30fps video from the main wide camera and 1080p 30fps video from the ultra-wide camera.

The 4K 30fps mode from the wide camera is practically useless, as there's no image stabilization of any sort. This results in an incredibly jerky video that becomes nearly unusable the moment you start walking with the camera.

To produce usable results, you need to drop down to 1080p 30fps mode, which is the default and what the camera will always reset to when you reopen the app. This looks decent as the image stabilization does a decent job of making the videos look watchable, so if you can't prop the phone somewhere, better use this mode.

There's also a 1080p 60fps mode but like the 4K 30fps mode, there's no image stabilization, and coupled with the generally soft image makes this mode completely useless outside of select scenarios.

Finally, the ultra-wide camera also produces stabilized 1080p 30fps videos. These videos are also usable and the wider perspective helps mitigate some of the crop from the digital stabilization. However, the videos are very soft and don't look good on anything other than smartphone displays.

We'd be remiss to not mention the issues we had shooting sample videos from this phone, or even still images for that matter. As mentioned in the performance section, the phone tends to overheat quite easily and then takes a while to cool down. This happens even more rapidly if you're outside shooting photos or videos under the sun.

While we were shooting our samples, the phone overheated to the point that while it was working the samples we shot were unusable because of all the massive stutters and frame drops recorded in them, causing us to reshoot everything once the phone had cooled down. This also affects the still photo experience but to a lesser extent. While you can't see it in the final images, the camera app becomes extremely unresponsive and photos take ages to capture and save.

We think using a case exacerbates the issue as the heat gets trapped between the phone's body and the silicone case. Unfortunately, we don't really foresee people not using cases on their phones so you should probably factor this in if you also plan on shooting outside in the sun with this phone.

Competition

Most of the competition for the Redmi Note 10S in India comes from other Xiaomi phones, namely the cheaper Redmi Note 10 and the slightly more expensive Redmi Note 10 Pro. The Redmi Note 10 has a lower resolution camera and worse GPU performance but otherwise is identical. The Redmi Note 10 Pro has a better main camera and also a 120Hz display, so it does seem like the more sensible choice overall.

The other option in this segment is the Poco X3. It has a 120Hz LCD display with a 64MP camera, Snapdragon 732G, and a 6000mAh battery, at the same price as the Redmi Note 10S, which does make it a bit better value if you don't have to have an AMOLED display.

Aside from Xiaomi, you can also consider going with the new Realme 8 5G. It isn't significantly different or better than the Redmi Note 10S and the two go back and forth between their features and specifications. The Realme 8 5G does have a 90Hz display and the main camera produces much better-looking images but it has no ultra-wide and it can't shoot 4K video - two things which may be deal-breakers for many people.

Verdict

With the Redmi Note 10S, Xiaomi is just pulling an NVIDIA, shoving in a model where you didn't think one could exist. It's also not particularly different from the ones the company already offers, so it's highly debatable why it even exists aside from just filling out the tiny gap between the existing Redmi Note 10 and the Redmi Note 10 Pro.

We don't see any particular reason to consider this model over the other two. The cheaper Redmi Note 10 is better value for money overall and the Redmi Note 10 Pro offers better features and performance for slightly more money. In that sense, the Redmi Note 10S exists merely to create a decoy effect because there are very few reasons to consider it over the other two. It's a cool marketing trick but hopefully, consumers will be able to see through it.

Pros

• Lightweight, attractive design with IP53 rating
• Good display performance
• Good UI performance
• Good battery life and fast charging
• Stereo speakers and a headphone jack

Cons

• Screen has regular 60Hz refresh rate
• Mediocre camera image quality
• Overheats easily
• 4K video lacks stabilization
• MIUI 12.5 is still quirky and bloatware-ridden

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