Redmi K30 Hands-On Review: A Few Drawbacks Compared To Redmi K20

On December 10, Xiaomi's sub-brand Redmi launched the next smartphone in the K-series, succeeding the Redmi K20 that was launched less than half a year ago. This time, Redmi only released the Redmi K30 while the Pro version was confirmed by Xiaomi to launch in the first half of next year.

The biggest change on the Redmi K30 over its predecessor K20 is probably the exterior design. Instead of continuing to use the pop-up selfie camera design, Xiaomi has removed that mechanical design in this generation and replaced it with a hole-punch screen similar to the Galaxy S10+. For those who love the full-screen display, you probably will not like this display design very much.

The company even brought some downgrades on the K30 compared to the K20, when it removed the Super AMOLED screen and replaced it with an IPS LCD panel. That is also the reason why the Redmi K30 only has a side-mounted fingerprint sensor instead of an under-display sensor like the K20. For now, that technology is only available for AMOLED panel, not LCD one. Not only that, the frame of the device is now only made of plastic instead of metal like on the K20 and K20 Pro.

The side of the device. The power button is housed on the right side, mounted with a fingerprint sensor. It still has a 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom edge and the infrared sensor on the top edge.

The price of the Redmi K30 4G in China is RMB 1,599 (roughly Rs. 16,100) for the base 6GB RAM / 64GB storage option and RMB 1,699 (roughly Rs. 17,100) for the model with 6GB RAM / 128GB storage. You can also get two more variants with 8GB RAM / 128GB storage and 8GB RAM / 256GB storage for RMB 1,899 (roughly Rs. 19,100) and RMB 2,199 (roughly Rs. 22,200), respectively. 

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