Following weeks of teasers by Xiaomi and its executives, the Redmi K30 series has finally been made official in China. Not only is it the most affordable 5G smartphone currently, but it also sees the debut of many hardware components.
The Redmi K series by Xiaomi was introduced earlier this year, marking the entry of the sub-brand into the premium smartphone space. That started with the Redmi K20 series, which expectedly brought high-end specifications to a never-before-seen price segment. The Redmi K30 was soon teased as a new series of affordable 5G smartphones. Now that they are official, here’s everything you need to know about them.
Redmi K30 5G specifications
The new crown jewel of Redmi’s smartphone lineup is the K30 5G. As the name suggests, it is an affordable 5G smartphone. It achieves that with the all-new Snapdragon 765G chipset. It is the first smartphone to be powered by this new SoC, which is built on a 7nm+ EUV process and has an integrated Snapdragon X52 modem that supports dual-mode 5G (SA and NSA) with MultiLink. It has an octa-core configuration, with the new Kryo 475 cores clocked at up to 2.3GHz. The Adreno 620 GPU takes care of the graphics processing.
It’s not just the insides where we get big upgrades, as the Redmi K30 sports a 6.67-inch IPS LCD panel with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. It has a resolution of 2,400 x 1,080 (20:9 aspect ratio). The bezels are 2.05mm thick, whereas the chin measures 4.25mm. The display has a punch-hole notch for the dual selfie cameras, which Xiaomi claims is only 4.38mm tall. The fingerprint scanner moves from behind the display to the frame and is now embedded in the power button.
The back now houses a quad-camera setup, located vertically along the spine, surrounded by decorative circles. The new Sony IMX686 makes its debut here, as the 64MP primary camera. It is a big 1/1.7-inch image sensor with an adequate pixel size of 1.6µm. An 8MP ultra-wide camera follows it with a 120-degree field-of-view, a 5MP macro shooter, and a 2MP depth sensor. On the front, there's a 20MP primary sensor and a 2MP depth sensor.
The Redmi K30 5G runs off a 4,500mAh battery with support for 30W fast charging over USB Type-C. Xiaomi mentioned that this charging is faster than the competition’s (Honor V30) 40W charging owing to a quicker delivery in the trickle phase during the end. The headphone jack is still around.
Redmi K30
A non-5G Redmi K30 was also unveiled, which was instead powered by the Snapdragon 730G chipset and the Adreno 618 GPU. It swaps out the 5MP macro shooter for a 2MP one, and supports slightly slower 27W fast charging. The rest of the specifications are similar.
Redmi K30 series pricing
The phones have been announced only in China for now. The Redmi K30 5G starts at CNY 1,999 (~ Rs 20,200) for the base variant with 6GB of RAM and 64GB storage. The 6GB + 128GB variant is priced at CNY 2,299, CNY 2,599 for the 8GB + 128GB model and CNY 2,899 for the top model with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The 4G model starts at CNY 1,599. Colour options include blue, red, violet, and white.
The phones are expected to launch in India next year, as the Redmi K30 has seemingly cleared its BIS certification.
