Xiaomi launched the Redmi K30 5G Racing in India earlier. On May 11, 2020, the Chinese phone maker introduced the phone alongside its cousins in the K30 series. This series is the successor of the K20 series that was launched in India in July 2019.

Apart from the K30 5G Racing, the series also includes the standard Redmi K30, the Redmi K30 5G, Redmi K30i 5G, the Redmi K30 Pro, and the Redmi K30 Pro Zoom. At the price of Rs 20,999, this K30 5G Racing is a bit more expensive than the standard K30 device (Rs 20,100) but cheaper than its predecessor K20 Pro whose price was Rs 29,999.

Display

This smartphone comes with a Super AMOLED screen that measures 6.67 inches, an aspect ratio of 20:9, a resolution of 1080x2400 pixels, a pixel density of 395 ppi, and a refresh rate of 120Hz. It’s protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 for enhanced safety, featuring HDR10+ support.

AMOLED, or active-matrix organic light-emitting diode, is an OLED screen technology. OLED refers to a screen technology that uses thin films with organic compounds to form the electroluminescent material while active-matrix describes the tech behind pixel addressing. Over that past 13 years, AMOLED has become more and more popular in making smartphone displays, in addition to TVs, digital cameras, and media players. The reason is that it allows for large screens, high resolutions, low production costs, and lower energy consumption.

The K30 5G Racing features a pill-shaped notch on the top-right corner of the screen that houses two selfie lenses. While the notch still eats into the viewing area, it’s much smaller than a regular notch often placed at the top center of the display. This helps avoid impact on your field of view more effectively.

With very thin bezels, the phone offers an amazing viewing experience, which will prove amazing in watching videos and playing games. The 20:9 aspect ratio means the screen is tall, suitable to be used with one hand, but still offers a wide field of view when you hold it horizontally for gaming.

Featuring a pixel density of 395 ppi, the color on this display is a bit dimmer than that on the K20 series. It offers high contrast, deep black, and enough visibility for use outside under the sunlight. As a bonus, you can also use the dark mode when navigating on the phone, meaning less eye strain and more power efficiency.

The Redmi K30 5G Racing has a 120Hz refresh rate, which is a higher rate among existing smartphones. This results in a very smooth navigation experience on the screen and hopefully in gaming too.

In gaming tests, the phone allowed for settings at 90fps frame rate. At the beginning when loading the game and settings, the frame rate dropped to over 70fps then remained stable at around 85-90 fps. However, after about 15 minutes of gaming, there were a lot of frame drops and the frame rate was up and down constantly. All in all, while you can set the graphics for PUBG to 90fps, it turned out the phone cannot handle it quite well.

Chip

This phone is powered by the Snapdragon 768G. This is a 7nm octa-core processor, featuring one 2.8GHz core, one 2.2GHz core, and six 1.8GHz cores, along with the Adreno 620 GPU for graphics performance.

Compared with the Snapdragon 765G, this chip offers a 19% improvement in overall performance. On Antutu 8, the chipset gets 375000 points, as opposed to 316000 points of the Snapdragon 765G.

Qualcomm created this chip to enhance gaming performance for smartphones and the K30 5G Racing was one of the devices to benefit from this. It can surely handle intensive mobile titles like PUBG Mobile and all of your favorite games.

Storage

In terms of RAM and ROM, there is only one option for buyers, 6GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage. While this RAM capacity is not ideal, thanks to the chip, the phone can run all mobile games for you.

However, testing shows that there is an overheating issue when you play games. The device heated up to over 40 degrees C during PUBG Mobile sessions. The temperature was the highest around the camera module where the RAM is placed, up to 44.7 degrees C. This heating issue will result in a very disturbing feeling on your hands and may disrupt your experience.

Battery

The Redmi K30 5G Racing packs a 4500mAh battery with support for 30W fast charging that can juice up the entire capacity within 57 minutes. However, it doesn’t allow for wireless charging.

With this capacity, paired with a powerful processor, the smartphone allows for using all day long, even if you perform intensive tasks. The 30-minute gaming test drained only 7 percent of the battery capacity, which is impressive.

And as we mentioned in the previous part, the phone heats up quite a lot during gameplay and the heat likely comes from RAM and chip as they process the game. The temperature can go up to over 40 degrees C and most of it is concentrated at the top of the phone where the RAM is mounted. 

To avoid this heating issue, you can play games in a room with an air conditioner or try using a cooling fan. 

Camera

On the rear, the K30 5G Racing sports a rounded quad-camera module. This includes a 64MP primary wide-angle lens, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens, a 5MP macro lens, and a 2MP depth lens. The cameras support HDR mode and panorama mode. They also allow for video recording at 4K, 1080-pixel, 720-pixel resolutions with 30 or 120fps frame rates.

On the front, there are dual selfie lenses, including a 20MP wide-angle lens and a 2MP depth lens. The front-facing cameral module also supports HDR mode and allows for video recording at 1080-pixel resolution and 30fps frame rate.