Redmi Y2 vs Moto G6 Play vs Oppo Realme 1 vs Redmi Note 5: Which is the budget smartphone king?

Xiaomi has just announced the very selfie-centric budget smartphone, the  Redmi Y2 , in India for a price of Rs 9,999 for the 3+32 GB model and Rs 12,999 4+64 GB model. Now this phone has already seen the light of day in China, albeit under a different name.

Back in 2014, Moto G was the budget smartphone to buy. It came with buttery smooth stock Android at a time when every other manufacturer was busy skinning their smartphones with custom operating systems.

Now for quite some time, Xiaomi has been perhaps the king of budget smartphones in India, and rightly so given its philosophy of providing great hardware for low prices.

However, it would seem that there is a new player in town which, at least on paper, could give Xiaomi a run for its money. There has been a lot of hype currently about the Realme 1 smartphone and it is tipped to be a more than worthy competitor to rivals Xiaomi and Honor in the under Rs 10,000 price range.

While we haven’t gotten around to reviewing the Oppo Realme 1  yet, we have reviewed the Redmi Y2 and concluded that it has a great selfie camera along with one of the best rear cameras in the sub-Rs 10,000 categories. Some more phones which can be considered as rivals to the Redmi Y2 are Xiaomi’s own Redmi Note 5 and also the Moto G6 Play.

A quick look at the spec sheet shows that Redmi Note 5 and Y2 have nearly the same hardware configuration of 3 GB/ 4 GB of RAM + 32 GB/ 64 GB of internal storage along with the Snapdragon 625 SoC. The Moto G6 Play has weaker Snapdragon 430 SoC that’s paired with 2 GB / 3 GB of RAM and 16 GB / 32 GB of internal storage. The Oppo Realme 1, on paper, tops all these phones in terms of hardware with its Helio P60 SoC along with 3 GB / 4 GB of RAM + 32 GB/ 64 GB of internal storage.

But who amongst them is the budget smartphone king? Let’s have a look at a comparison of their spec sheets. To be noted here, this comparison is only based on specs offered by the smartphone on paper. Real world tests may differ.

So which phone seems to be the best? Well on paper the Oppo Realme 1 seems to steal all the glory from the Redmi Y2 and Redmi Note 5 in terms of hardware. The Moto G6 Play doesn’t give much competition with its low-powered Snapdragon 430 SoC. In terms of camera the Redmi Y2 seems to be ahead of its competition with its 16 MP front camera and dual 12 MP + 5 MP setup at the back. The Redmi Note 5 and Oppo Realme 1 do have FHD+ displays, which is absent in both the Y2 and Moto G6 Play.

It can be said that the Moto G6 Play, on paper, comes last when compared to the other three smartphones. The competition between the Realme 1, Redmi Note 5 and Redmi Y2 is close as each phone offers something that the other doesn’t. However, the fact that Oppo is giving such intense competition in the budget segment should be a worrying factor for Xiaomi.