The segment of inexpensive smartphones is becoming more and more interesting, because good processors, rather beautiful displays, more advanced cameras and good flagship design elements have reached it. At the same time, even inexpensive smartphones have good ergonomics and generally look good. Perhaps it was the Redmi / Mi series that most clearly demonstrated this trend, proving that a modern smartphone for $ 100-150 does not have to be a “dialer for grandma”.


Despite the price tags, a typical low-cost employee from Xiaomi / Redmi can hardly be called a child of total savings. Usually, it has not the most powerful, but quite performant hardware (8-core processor + 2-3 GB of RAM), a good IPS screen by the standards of this class with a decent margin of brightness, a smart fingerprint scanner and modern wireless modules. Increasingly, there are USB-C ports with fast charging and NFC modules for contactless payment, which are more common to see in smartphones of a higher class. In terms of performance, these are quite ordinary handsets that can take out almost any everyday tasks, but at the same time they can choke on heavy games. Snapdragon chipsets of the 400th or 600th series are most often used as the basis, less often entry-level processors from MediaTek.

Of the minuses of a typical state employee from Xiaomi / Redmi, it is worth highlighting, usually, not the highest resolution of displays and mediocre photo features. Both the front and the main cameras of Mi / Redmi state employees do not shine with quality. Even despite the presence of three or four modules, these are more options for photos and Instagram stories. However, good cameras in entry-level smartphones are nonsense from any manufacturer.