Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S hands-on review

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