Mobile technology is changing at a tremendous pace and the budget segment is affected the most by it, allowing it to sport features like 3GB RAM, fingerprint scanners, 1080p display and even 16MP cameras. You name it, these phones have it. Further, the budget segment has become the most competitive market in recent times and that means consumers like us get a lot of options to choose from.
To find out how they fare, we picked all the popular and best budget phones in the market and put them head to head. Out of those we further filtered 3 phones, which fall in the 10,000 price band. This range has been chosen as I believe this to be the most important price segment in the smartphone market today.
The Honor 5C is a good smartphone that gets a lot of things right. The edges are now more rounded and making it feel smaller than its size. The choice of material is still metal but it feel more premium compared to previous budget phones from the company. Further, the build quality is certainly better than most of its competitors. Like most budget smartphones, the Honor 5C brings a Full HD resolution to the table, although on a slightly smaller 5.2-inch display, which adds to the ergonomics and pixel count of the display. The Honor 5C is the only phone in India to be powered by a HiSilicon Kirin 650 SoC. This octa-core SoC combined with 2GB of RAM is able to sail through most tasks quite smoothly. Gaming experience on the phone was not that bad either, but heavier game titles such as Asphalt 8 stutter now and then. The 13MP rear camera on the phone does a good job in well lit conditions and the images taken showcase good saturation levels and the colours reasonably close to source. The 8MP front facing camera doesn’t disappoint either and is good for taking selfies, and that is what these are mostly used for.
The LG K10 is LG’s bid in the smartphone segment. The phone relies on a plastic build which is quite good but still inferior compared to the various smartphones offering a metal build in the budget segment. The design of the phone is typical LG as the volume rocker and the power key are situated at the back below the rear camera. The design is certainly a highlight of the phone as the pebble like look, rounded edges and the 2.5D curved display makes it ergonomic and good looking. The 5.3-inch display is nice to look at, has good viewing angles, is sharp enough and offers good sunlight legibility. On the flip side, it is just a 720p display, which for a phone priced around 10K, is not good enough. The user interface is typical of LG with large widgets, distributed settings and LG apps. As for the 13MP rear camera on this phone, it does a decent job but it still lags behind the competition. The smartphone also has the poorest battery life making it a hard choice to go for.
The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 is the best performing phone and not just that, the 4050mAh battery ensures an all day battery life without any hassles. The only subtle part about this phone is certainly is design. The Redmi Note 3 follows a very simple design language offering a metal body with nicely rounded edges. The fit and finish of buttons and materials is nothing to write home about, but the choice of materials do make the phone seem sturdy, although Gorilla Glass display is missing. Powering the device is the very powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 SoC. This hexa-core SoC combined with 2GB of RAM is able to provide the best performance in a budget segment. It is also the best performing smartphone for 10K. This means, no matter what you throw at it, the phone hardly slows down. Further, heat issues due to constant gaming are also kept at minimum, adding more to the battery life.
Speaking of battery life, it has a very heavy duty battery. Also, unlike many other smartphones, the Redmi Note 3 packs a high density 4050mAh battery. This means the battery takes less space and is able to provide day’s worth of usage. The 16 MP camera on the rear is able to take good images in well-lit conditions only. The camera seems to struggle in low lighting and even indoor lighting.
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