Xiaomi Redmi K30 review

Display

The Redmi K30 features a larger 6.67 IPS LCD screen with an elliptical hole for the dual-selfie camera. We established those are actually two smaller punch-holes, but the phone does not use the space between them for whatever reasons. On top of the whole thing lies a flat Gorilla Glass 5 for protection.

The screen resolution is 1,080 x 2,400 pixels, making for 20:9 aspect ratio and nice pixel density of 395ppi (same as Redmi Note 8 Pro).

The screen supports HDR10, but unfortunately, you will be able to enjoy HDR content only on YouTube. The Redmi K30 supports only the basic L3 security level of Widevine CDM, meaning Netflix, Amazon, and similar digital streaming services will serve you basic 480p content only. Pity!

The Redmi K30 is the first-ever Redmi to support higher than 60Hz refresh rate. It does even better than the OnePlus phones, and the screen is set by default on 120Hz refresh rate!

The first thing you will notice is the MIUI optimization for 120Hz refresh rate - the added smoothness to transitions throughout the phone is an instant love at first sight. Every scroll and swipe will feel buttery smooth, and once you experience this, it is hard to go back to 60Hz.

You can go back to 60Hz, of course, if you need to save some battery or if some compatibility issues arise.

The 120fps support should offer a superior gaming experience for mobile games, previously impossible smoothness while scrolling pages and text, and, probably, the most noticeable - the amazingly smooth MIUI. There is the fact that the Redmi K30 is not packing a flagship-grade processor and graphics, though we still believe there are many games that will be capable of exceeding the previous 60fps cap.

The display maxes out at 550 nits of brightness when adjusted manually, and when set to the Auto setting and faced with bright light, it will go as high as 708 nits. The blacks aren't the deepest we've seen, but still enough for some very good contrast ratios.

The minimum brightness we measured was just 1.2 nits!

The screen is tuned to comply with the sRGB color space. The Automatic calibration has a more pleasant and saturated appearance while Natural is tuned closer to accurate colors.

And the color accuracy is quite good. The Automatic profile is not too saturated; Color is just punchy enough but not overwhelming, and we measured an average deltaE of 6.8. The Standard profile has superb accuracy though - we got an average deltaE of 1.0.

Battery life

The Redmi K3 is powered by a large 4,500 mAh battery - the same as Redmi Note 8 Pro's cell, but it has 500mAh capacity more than the K20's battery.

The Redmi K30 supports 27W fast charging and comes with the appropriate 27W brick. It replenishes 56% in 30 mins of K30's depleted battery, while a full charge takes 69 minutes.

Of course, we completed the Redmi K30 battery test, and it did splendidly. The K30 can last nearly two days on a call and does very good when it comes to standby endurance.

When the screen uses a 60Hz refresh rate, you can watch videos or browse the web for more than 16 hours. If you are going to use it on 120Hz, you will lose 2 hours of web time or 4 hours of video playback. And that's a deal most of the users will make in a heartbeat as the overall smoothness will win before a couple of extra hours of runtime.

Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating above denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Xiaomi Redmi K30 for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so that our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritty. You can check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.

Audio quality

Turning to the output via with 3.5mm audio jack, the Redmi K30 went off to a solid start. When connected to an external amplifier, its scores were perfect, and its loudness was nicely above average.

Our standard 32oHm headphones did cause a fair bit of damage though - volume dropped to below average, a significant amount of stereo crosstalk appeared and some intermodulation distortion, too. A mediocre performance by the mid-ranger on this occasion.

Redmi K30 frequency response

You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.