This is a nice design touch that will set the Redmi Note 9 series apart and make this phone and its siblings recognisable. The camera module does stick out quite a bit though. The front and rear of the Redmi Note 9 Pro are both made using Gorilla Glass 5, while the frame is polycarbonate. The most distinctive feature on the front is of course the new embedded selfie camera, which is centred at the top of the screen. It is somewhat distracting, and the screen's backlighting is a little uneven around it.
Interestingly, we noted that the picture of the Redmi Note 9 Pro on the cover of its box seems to show a smaller hole and narrow chin than the device actually has. That said, the phone still looks modern and definitely defies expectations for its price category. The next interesting design touch is the side-mounted fingerprint sensor, which is embedded into the power button. This sits in a slight recess on the right of the phone which lined up fairly well with the thumb of our right hand.
You'll find this inconvenient if you're left-handed, and we'd suggest registering multiple fingers so you can unlock this phone whether it's in your hand or lying on a table. Xiaomi says that this approach was chosen because it's quicker than an in-display sensor and more convenient than having one on the back, plus it doesn't disrupt the design of the rear panel.
This is definitely a trend in the budget segment right now, though. The volume buttons are placed awkwardly above the sensor, and aren't easy to reach while on a call. Xiaomi's trademark infrared emitter is on the top, and can be used to control several home appliances. Many people will be happy to note that there is in fact a notification and charging LED hidden in the earpiece. There's also a P2i coating for splash resistance, though of course no proper waterproofing.
The fingerprint sensor is embedded into the power button on the right. Redmi Note series phones typically have impressive specifications, and Xiaomi has gone with a larger screen and battery than ever before. You get a 6. Xiaomi claims that there aren't many apps that take advantage of a high refresh rate, people can't really tell the difference, it isn't worth the battery life tradeoff, and the Snapdragon G SoC isn't powerful enough.
We don't necessarily agree with all these points, but we do have to remember that some compromises are to be expected at Rs. The mAh battery is also interesting. Xiaomi claims 29 hours of VoLTE calling and 14 hours of gaming per charge.
The Snapdragon G is a modern SoC with two high-performance 2. Buyers will note that the Redmi Note 8 Pro's support for Amazon's Alexa alongside Google Assistant has been dropped — Xiaomi tells us that this relied on specific capabilities of the MediaTek processor used for the previous model.
Redmi Note 9 Pro Review
There's an IR emitter on the top, and the speaker, Type-C, and 3. Xiaomi has noted that this is the first time we're seeing a 7xx-series Snapdragon processor in a Redmi Note series device at this price. It's a predictable move considering the arms race manufacturers are in, but calls into question Qualcomm's strategy of launching the 7xx-series as a premium tier to offset the downward migration of the 6xx-series. The fact that these two sibling models overlap might cause some confusion in the market. Along with the 18W charger and USB Type-C cable, you get only a SIM eject tool and plastic case in the box along with this phone — the blue and white variants will ship with a clear case while the black one will get a smoky translucent one.
Sadly, bloatware and promotional content remain parts of Xiaomi's business strategy. There's no app drawer, but you do get some level of UI customisation. Swiping up on the homescreen launches the MI browser which also lets you search for installed apps. This is somewhat convenient but we wish we could reassign this shortcut.
Smart Devices
You can clone apps and store sensitive data in a Second Space for privacy, and type quick replies to messages from within the notification popups for some apps. At this point, with the kind of hardware used at even the low end of the market, there isn't much that can be said about everyday usage. The Redmi Note 9 Pro is more than powerful enough to handle anything from basic calls and messaging all the way up to heavy 3D gaming, with no trouble whatsoever.
Multitasking was also smooth and trouble-free. Ergonomically, this isn't the easiest phone to use, as we've said. The large screen does work nicely for videos and games, but the size and placement of the camera bump make holding the Redmi Note 9 Pro in landscape while playing games just a little uncomfortable. Holding it up to take long calls could also get fatiguing. The side-mounted fingerprint sensor and face recognition were both quick and effective in our experience. The screen is reasonably bright and crisp. Colours do look vibrant, and there are some adjustments in the Settings app if you want to play with them.
We did find the camera hole a little distracting when watching videos full-screen. Some apps are designed to mask notches at the top of the screen with a black band, and these might need to be updated to account for the size and placement of camera holes like the one on this phone.
How to Record Screen in XIAOMI Redmi Note 8 Pro?, how to - kevinhambrick.com
We weren't very impressed with the speaker though — sound was loud, but harsh and tinny. For the latest news , tech news , breaking news headlines and live updates checkout Gadgetsnow. View comments Post a comment. Characters Remaining: Continue without login. Login from existing account Facebook Email. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter.
All Comments Your Activity. The capacitive touchscreen in our review unit responds precisely to inputs, while it implements commands without delay. The device has a fingerprint scanner too for biometric authentication, which also worked well during our tests.
Discover more than 7 million comparisons
The fingerprint scanner takes a while to unlock the device for some reason though. There is a face unlock method too, but this is not as secure as using a fingerprint. One of the highlights of the Redmi Note 8 is its 6. The panel resolves at x for a pixel density beyond PPI, which is sharp enough for everyday usage. The panel gets impressively bright too.
If PWM was detected, an average of minimum: 5 - maximum: Hz was measured. The Redmi Note 8 also has a respectable black level, which we measured at 0. This puts the panel on par with many of our IPS-equipped comparison devices and helps yield a respectable 1, contrast ratio.
Price Redmi Note 8 Pro
All values are better than the ideal value of three, while its colour temperature of 6, K is only just shy of our ideal value of 6, K. The display also gets bright enough to use the Redmi Note 8 outside without any restrictions. This only applies to when automatic mode and the ambient light sensor are active though, as otherwise the panel will look washed-out. You should encounter no readability issues even on bright sunny days too. The panel has stable viewing angles, as the photo montage below demonstrates. There is some slight hazing and halo effects at acute viewing angles, but nothing that should affect readability.
Xiaomi has equipped the Redmi Note 8 with a Qualcomm Snapdragon , an SoC that represents a minor performance upgrade over the Snapdragon found in devices like the Redmi Note 7. The 11 nm chip should offer better energy efficiency than its predecessor too. The SoC has eight cores split across two performance and energy-saving clusters, with four Cortex-A73 cores occupying the former and four Cortex-A53 cores in the latter.
The Snapdragon has an Adreno on-board too. This applied to our experiences in daily use too. System performance is usually good in everyday use too, although there are some slight delays while multitasking. The Redmi Note 8 performed well in browser benchmarks with Google Chrome. The device loads websites quickly, and scrolling animations always remained fluid. The Redmi Note 8 also proved competitive in browser benchmarks. Unsurprisingly, sequential read speeds are the most significant differences between the two Xiaomi smartphones here.
The Redmi Note 8 has faster storage than all our comparison devices, though. Our review unit has a slightly slower microSD card reader than many of our comparison devices, but it is still satisfactory for a smartphone at this price. Incidentally, the touchscreen and associated sensors worked perfectly during our gaming tests. We verified what framerates some popular games run at with GameBench, our go-to frame-rate tool.
However, Asphalt 9: Legends proved unplayable regardless of the graphics settings to which we set it. As the graphics below demonstrate, frame rates are all over the place and never exceed 31 FPS even on low graphics. The chassis and the display of our review unit hardly heat up in everyday use, as demonstrated by our chart below.
The heat development inside the Redmi Note 8 is more interesting, though. We checked the heat dissipation behaviour of our review unit by running several GFXBench benchmarks on a loop, screenshots of which we have included below.
Many smartphones thermal throttle during the complex Manhattan 3. On the contrary, framerates remained consistent throughout, so you should not experience any throttling under sustained load. Xiaomi claims that the Redmi Note 8 has an ultra-linear speaker, and our review unit lives up to its marketing.
The mono speaker reproduces audio linearly and reached almost 88 dB A during our tests, which is surprisingly loud. There is a 3. The jack in our review unit outputs audio cleanly and pleasingly loudly, as is often the case with Xiaomi smartphones. The Redmi Note 8 has a 4, mAh battery, which can be fully recharged in two hours with its 18 W charger.