3 cheap smartphones with 5G

We took three of these devices for review, all three from leading Chinese manufacturers. Shiomi brought the Mi 10T Lite 5G which costs NIS 1,249, Reali 7 5G which cost NIS 1,299 and OnePlus provided its Nord N10 5G which cost NIS 1,199.

Although these are three phones with a screen that is around 6.5 inches in size, they are not very similar visually. The first thing you notice in Shiomi’s device is the prominent photography component – four cameras arranged in a square, centered across the device. In Brilmi you will probably notice first of all that on its back is written in huge letters realme – a slightly puzzling design choice, but one that will undoubtedly help the company promote its brand. In OnePlus, well, you will not notice anything special. It’s the most “boring” phone of the three, for better or worse. The only unique thing you notice is the fingerprint reader on the back of the device – in the other two phones it is integrated in one of the side buttons.

The three phones are equipped with an LCD screen with a resolution of 1080×2400, which is currently the standard for cheap phones. Their size is also pretty standard – 6.5 inches at Rilmi and OnePlus, and 6.67 inches at Shiomi. These are not screens that can compete with the OLED screens of more expensive phones in terms of contrast – The colors look less sharp, there are fewer shades on the screen – but relative to the price you pay, the value that all phones provide is definitely good.

The three screens come with a high refresh rate. Brilmi and the screen highlights include 120 Hz mode, in OnePlus Nord the refresh rate is 90 Hz. High refresh rate (standard is 60 Hz) means smoother and more pleasant movement, and the price you pay is battery consumption. In this respect, for those who want a higher refresh rate there is a certain advantage here to OnePlus and Rilmi. In the North, the refresh rate is “only” 90 Hz, compared to 120 for the other two companies, but even from a comparative point of view it is not very noticeable. Rilmi benefits from the ability to skip between 60 and 120 Hz depending on the application. On Shiomi’s phone, you can only manually select if the screen refreshes 60 or 120 times per second.

The three devices feature a Gorilla Glass front and a plastic back. Rilmi does not say which generation of Gorilla Glass is on the front of her phone, in OnePlus it is 3rd generation and in Shiomi there is Gorilla Glass 5.

One of the most significant differences on paper between these phones is in their chipsets. In the Mi 10T Lite 5G you will find Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 750G, in the OnePlus Nord N10 5G the same company’s Snapdragon 690, while the Reali 7 5G comes with a MediaTek Dimensity 800U kit. But what does this actually mean?

In standard use, I did not notice too many differences between the devices. All three reach the “okay” level, but hardly cross it. Applications take some time to load, sometimes there are slowdowns. If you have to choose a winner, in games it will probably be realistic and in general use. The One Plus is not far behind in general use, but does have a problem with games that require a lot of processing power.

When it comes to photography there are no hardware surprises here. The three phones come with a rear array that includes a wide-angle, ultra-wide camera, a macro camera and a depth sensor. In the rear camera, the rear camera has a 48-megapixel sensor and in the other two phones it is 64-megapixel – not that it matters that much. In the ultra-wide camera, the sensors are 8 megapixels on all three devices, and the depth and macro camera sensors are 2 megapixels. There are no zoom cameras on any of the phones.

I’ll risk sounding like a scratched record and I’ll repeat again what I write in almost every review of a cheap phone from recent years: it is no longer what it once was. In good lighting, all phones do a very good job. They know how to paint the sky the right color, the pictures do not include strange noise and detailed results. As night falls, so does quality.

One of the things that manufacturers nowadays do not give up on cheap phones is a high-capacity battery, and these three phones are no exception. Rilmi managed to incorporate a 5,000 mAh battery in her phone, which is enough for two days of work without a problem, and sometimes even more – and this with a screen that skips between 120 and 60 Hz. The battery in Shiomi is 4,820 mAh, and in OnePlus it is 4,300 mAh, but here I did not see a significant difference – I got a day and a half of work in both.

All devices support fast charging using dedicated chargers. Van Plus has 6 GB of memory and 128 GB of storage space, Rilmi has 8 GB of memory and 128 GB of storage space, and Shiomi has 6 GB of memory and 64 GB of storage (a model with 128 GB can be purchased for 1,399 Shekels). Everyone also has memory card support, and a lack of support for the new WiFi 6 standard. And as befits cheap phones, all three have a headphone jack.

When it comes to the interface, the OnePlus Nord is the winner in my eyes. One of the things OnePlus has been doing since day one is listening to its users’ interface improvement suggestions, and seeing it. This is a simple, convenient and pleasant interface. Shiomi and Rilmi are not far behind, but these are perfectly reasonable interfaces nowadays. The one thing that does surprise me every time again is Shiomi’s insistence on putting a logo on pictures by default. Sabba, you want to market the phones through the customers, but it’s clear to you that most of them will get upset and go look for how to cancel this option, so why is it good?

One of the problems with the 5G test on these phones is its momentum. Yes, I put a 5G SIM in all three and went to the antenna closest to where I live to see if they connect to the network and download content at high speed. All three did so. But I can not understand the effect of a permanent 5G connection on the battery, for example, because I do not have a 5th generation antenna attached to the house.