Naina Khedekar

The onslaught of Chinese vendors has made the once-dull sub-Rs 10,000 smartphone market extremely lucrative in the last couple of years. Moreover, as newer smartphones start entering the now-favorite sub-Rs 15,000 segment, the older devices in that range are pushed down to a lower price bracket, placing them within the reach of many. Today, there is no dearth of budget smartphone options. If you are planning to buy a new sub-Rs 10,000 smartphone, then here are top 5 options to look at.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3

This smartphone has been around for a while, and definitely makes it to the top 5 options in the price bracket. The 16GB + 2GB RAM variant is priced at Rs 9999, while if you are willing to pay slightly more than 32GB + 3GB RAM model is priced at Rs 11,999. Xiaomi has clearly delivered enough goods with the Redmi Note 3 for us to recommend it. However, you need to keep in mind that this phone does not perform well in the low light photography department. So if all you are looking for is a great battery life and fast performance – the Redmi Note 3 has little competition. Read our complete Redmi Note 3 review, to know more.

LeEco Le 1s

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3’s closest competition is the LeEco Le 1s, housing MediaTek Helio X10 processor with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage. Though the device was launched at Rs 10,999, it is available online for as low as Rs 9300. The LeEco Le 1s is a great smartphone and certainly impressed us with its performance, which was similar to what we experienced on its bigger sibling – the Le Max. However, it has plenty of niggling issues, like a problematic kernel that ends up eating into the smartphone’s battery life and call quality issues that simply kill the EUI software experience that seems to be well thought of. Read our LeEco Le 1s review to find out more.

Lenovo K5 Plus

The Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus, priced at Rs 7999, makes another good option dipped in Champagne gold, Platinum silver, and Graphite Grey. It is the first in the sub Rs 10,000 smartphone to support TheaterMax. In our review, we found it to be decent in the price bracket, but facing stiff competition from others, even the older Coolpad Note 3 and Huawei Holly 2 Plus. However, only if you are looking for a seasoned OEM over newer Chinese entrants and budget below 8k, then this would be an option worth considering. The specs sheet includes a 5-inch IPS LCD Full HD display with a 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution and 441ppi, 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 616 processor, Adreno 405 GPU and 2GB RAM. The 16GB storage can be expanded up to a 128GB via microSD card.

Meizu m3 Note



Adding to the competition is Meizu m3 Note. Priced at Rs 9999, it brings refined looks and software experience, along with a good specs sheet. Meizu ropes in a 5.5-inch full HD display which translates to 403 pixels per inch. It includes MediaTek’s new MT6755 Helio P10 chipset, 32GB storage and 3GB RAM. Take a look at our first impressions of the device to know how it fares.

Coolpad Note 3

The Coolpad Note 3, though slightly older, is a great phone in this price range. At Rs 8499, it brings in large 5.5-inch display, 3GB RAM, 13MP rear snapper and a fingerprint scanner that is actually quick and efficient. The user interface is more or less what most of these Chinese vendors have on offer. If you could let go the shoddy plasticky look and poor screen resolution, the device is a complete value for money package with a decent camera, good performance, efficient finger print scanner and a very good battery life, we had written in our review. There's also the a ‘Plus-sized’ version of its Note 3 smartphone, called the Note 3 Plus at Rs 8999.

If you are willing to pay slight more than the Lenovo Vibe K4 Note is a tad better option at Rs 10,999. Those looking for a device running near-stock OS, there's the Moto G3 too priced at Rs 10,999 too. Besides, the newest entrant TCL is brining iris scanner at Rs 7,999 among a list of other decent features (at least on paper) at that price point. Another device, again tad old, but deserves a mention is the Huawei Honor Holly 2 Plus. At Rs 8,999 there was clearly no reason to buy anything else in this price segment, when we had written our Huawei Honor Holly 2 Plus review. Huawei had impressed us with a good combination of hardware and then added the right mix of software to help push the hardware to its limits, making it a no compromises smartphone then, when its only contender was the Coolpad Note 3.