Xiaomi Redmi K50i Review – Hands Down “The Champ”

With its best-in-class specifications and features, the Redmi K50i is an excellent value-flagship smartphone for 2022.

The Xiaomi Redmi K50i 5G comes in two variants in India. The base variant that comes with 6GB RAM and 128GB Storage costs Rs. 25,999. Whereas the top variant with 8GB RAM and 256GB Storage costs Rs. 28,999.

The phone is available in three different colour options: Phantom Blue, Quick Silver and Stealth Black. You can buy the phone online directly from the MI India website or Amazon, apart from offline stores.

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The Redmi K50i 5G packs a lot of items inside the box:

• Phone
• 67W Power adapter
• USB Type-C cable
• SIM eject tool
• Clear soft case
• Pre-applied screen protector
• Warranty card and User guide

Before we go ahead with the Xiaomi Redmi K50i review, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like:

• Display: 6.6 inches IPS LCD
• Chipset: MediaTek Dimensity 8100
• RAM & ROM: 6GB RAM 128GB Storage, 8GB RAM 256GB Storage
• Software: Android v12
• Rear camera: 64MP + 8MP + 2MP
• Selfie camera: 16 MP
• Battery: 5080 mAh
• Weight: 200 grams
• Dimensions: 163.6 x 74.2 x 8.8 mm

The design of the Xiaomi Redmi K50i is not quite as amazing as that of the Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro. The handset is completely made of plastic and features a boxy design. The rear panel has a frosted glass look and appears to be resistant to fingerprints and smudges.

The back of the phone is almost completely flat, but the camera island and lenses stick out quite a bit. This causes the phone to wobble when it’s placed on a flat table. It has flat frames, but the back panel is slightly curved, which makes it comfortable to hold. The Redmi K50i is 8.87mm thick and weighs about 200 grams, which is not so heavy, not so lightweight.

Both the volume rocker and the power button, which also serves as a fingerprint scanner, are located on the right side. Redmi keeps up its tradition of including an IR blaster in its phones.

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The earpiece also functions as a second speaker, and the device comes with a standard 3.5mm headphone jack on its top. The bottom side holds the USB Type-C port, SIM card tray and primary speaker grille.

It has an IP53 rating, so it should be pretty resistant to dust and water splashes. Overall, the Xiaomi Redmi K50i is a fairly nice-looking phone. Its design isn’t very exciting, especially when compared to the K20 series, which has a very intriguing design.

The Xiaomi Redmi K50i 5G features a triple camera setup on the back. It includes a 64MP Samsung GW1 primary sensor, an 8MP ultrawide lens and a 2MP macro sensor. You get to see a 16MP selfie camera on the front.

The primary camera is capable of capturing images with a wide dynamic range and accurate colours. Colours weren’t always oversaturated, but they were usually given a boost to make them more pleasing to the eye. The primary sensor’s low-light photos are only passable at best, and the images appear slightly soft as a result of this.

The ultra-wide images were not as sharp as I would have liked, but the picture as a whole was still pretty good. It captures more of the scene with a 120-degree field of view, which is a nice change of pace. Because the Redmi K50i lacks a telephoto lens, you’ll have to rely on the phone’s digital zoom feature, which is not so good.

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The macro camera, on the other hand, takes pictures with washed-out colours and is mostly hit or miss. Both the ultra-wide lens and the macro sensor struggle to take good shots in low light environments.

The 16MP front-facing camera is able to capture clear selfies. Even in low light, the camera is able to capture beautiful portraits and excellent selfies. Moreover, the skin tones appear to be natural.

While the front camera can only record up to 1080p at 30fps, the main camera can record 4K at 30fps or 1080p at 60fps.

The Xiaomi Redmi K50i packs a big 5080 mAh battery. The phone lasted me a full day of casual use with the auto-refresh rate setting turned on. You can expect it to last more or less, depending on your usage.

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My usage involved some heavy gaming, taking some photos and watching movies. I got about 6-7 hours of screen on time. I can say that the phone might even last for a day and a half if you are a light user.

The battery size is not the highlight here, but the fact that it supports 67W fast charging. I am very happy that Xiaomi still bundles the charger in the box. It takes around 55 minutes to fully charge the device from 0 to 100 per cent. The battery can juice up to 50 per cent with just 30 minutes of charging.

The Xiaomi Redmi K50i 5G has a 6.60-inch LCD display with a 1080 x 2460 pixel resolution. Although the Redmi K50i lacks an OLED display, this isn’t necessarily a deal breaker given the display’s extensive feature set, which includes a 144Hz refresh rate, a 270Hz touch sampling rate, HDR10 and Dolby Vision support, and much more.

The 144Hz refresh rate provides an unparalleled scrolling experience and smooth UI navigation. Users can choose between 60Hz, 90Hz, and 144Hz refresh rates manually in the settings. For those who prefer to keep things simple, there is a Default mode in which the phone will automatically switch between the seven refresh rates based on what is displayed on the screen.

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For an LCD screen, the colours and contrast are very good. It only gets as bright as 500 nits, which is not as bright as other phones on the market. This makes it harder to see outside, especially in direct sunlight.

Note that while the phone can play HD streams, it does not support HDR streaming on OTT platforms like Netflix. Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protects the display from minor scratches and drops. All in all, I was quite happy with the picture quality of the display.

Expectations from the K50i were already high due to Redmi’s promotion of the “Live Extreme” tagline. Xiaomi Redmi K50i features a solid MediaTek Dimensity 8100 chipset which is paired with 8GB LPDDR5 RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage.

To sum it up, the Dimensity 8100 SoC-powered Redmi K50i is one of the fastest phones in its price range. The phone is capable of handling all of your regular day-to-day tasks as well as multitasking.

You can expect silky smooth animations and a seamless scrolling experience. Talking about the numbers, the phone secured a score of 858 in single-core performance and 3644 in multi-core performance, which is just great for a phone costing around 25K.

The Redmi K50i is also great for gaming, thanks to its high-end performance and 144Hz screen. I tried a couple of demanding titles like BGMI, COD Mobile, and Apex Legends Mobile. All the games could run in high settings with no signs of lags or heating.

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BGMI maxed out to HDR graphics with Ultra frame rate settings. However, I enjoyed the gameplay in Smooth + 90FPS settings. The game ran flawlessly with no visible frame drops. Similarly, COD Mobile and Apex Legends also ran smoothly on high settings.

The Redmi K50i’s Liquidcool 2.0 technology ensures that the phone doesn’t overheat even under heavy use. Trust me on this, you can have long gaming sessions on high settings without worrying about thermal throttling.

Xiaomi Redmi K50i runs on MIUI 13 skin which is based on Android 12. Now we all know that MIUI skin is one of the most feature-rich skins out there. The user interface is smooth and easy to use.

The latest MIUI 13 update brings a slew of system-level improvements and customisation options. These include processor priority optimisation, optimised file storage system, and more. The animations were smooth, and I didn’t notice any stuttering whatsoever.

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This UI is very user-friendly aside from a few minor quirks like the control centre and notification shade being separated.

On top of that, there are some features like Floating Windows, Second Space, and Lite mode. It comes pre-loaded with a number of third-party applications, but the good thing is that you can uninstall most of them.

Xiaomi has promised to provide two years of OS updates and three years of security patch updates.

When it comes to the speakers, the K50i has stereo speakers and supports Dolby Atmos. The sound quality is excellent and the speakers are pretty loud. Additionally, the headphone jack supports high-res audio with compatible wired audio products, which is a big plus.

Xiaomi Redmi K50i comes with 5G connectivity and support for 12 5G bands. These include: N1, n3, n5, n7, n8, n20, n28, n38, n40, n41, n77, and n78. Other connectivity options include Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi 6 and GPS.

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You will see a side-mounted fingerprint scanner on the K50i 5G, which is accurate and quickly unlocks the phone. You can also use the face unlock feature which works equally good.