XIAOMI REDMI NOTE 5 PRO REVIEW: KING OF THE HILL

Xiaomi can vày no wrong in India. The manufacturer sold nearly 10 million units of the Redmi cảnh báo 4 in the country last year, và is looking lớn maintain that momentum with the Redmi note 5 Pro.

Bạn đang xem: Xiaomi redmi note 5 pro review: king of the hill

Xiaomi built its entire business mã sản phẩm on offering great value for money — and as the sales numbers indicate, the strategy has paid off handsomely for the brand. But following up on the Redmi note 4 is a tough act, as there wasn"t much wrong with the device.

That"s why with its 2018 budget phone, xiaomi is focusing on core upgrades in all the major areas. The Redmi chú ý 5 Pro introduces an 18:9 display, a dual camera at the back và a 20MP front camera with LED flash, a Snapdragon 636 chipset, và up khổng lồ 6GB of RAM. Xiaomi mi led the category for battery life last year, và things aren"t any different this year — the Redmi note 5 Pro has a 4000mAh battery.

VPN Deals: Lifetime license for $16, monthly plans at $1 và more

With the competition also fielding increasingly powerful phones, does the Redmi cảnh báo 5 Pro have what it takes khổng lồ further Xiaomi"s cause in India? It"s time to lớn find out.

Xiaomi Redmi lưu ý 5 Pro Specs

About this review

I (Harish Jonnalagadda) am writing this review after using the Redmi note 5 Pro for over two weeks in Hyderabad, India. The device is a pre-production unit provided by xiaomi India và is running a nightly build of MIUI 9 (9.2.2.0). I tested the phone on Airtel & Jio"s 4G networks in Hyderabad.

Xiaomi Redmi lưu ý 5 Pro Design

The Redmi cảnh báo 5 Pro marks Xiaomi"s foray into the 18:9 khung factor in the budget segment. The brand led the way for bezel-less panels with the mi Mix & the mi Mix 2, & while the effect isn"t anywhere as striking on the Redmi lưu ý 5 Pro, you vày get a taller 5.99-inch display with significantly reduced bezels when compared lớn last year"s Redmi chú ý 4.

The switch to lớn an 18:9 panel also means there"s an all-new kiến thiết up front. The capacitive navigation buttons have made way for on-screen keys, & you can change the orientation of the back and overview buttons from the settings menu.

Round back, things are more familiar. If you ignore the camera module, the Redmi lưu ý 5 Pro is identical to the Redmi chú ý 5, which in turn shares the same thiết kế aesthetic as the Redmi lưu ý 4. The Redmi cảnh báo 4 had an iterative thiết kế that was nearly identical to lớn the Redmi cảnh báo 3, so what we have here is a kiến thiết language that"s three years old.

Like previous years, the antenna inlays at the top và bottom of the device are made out of plastic, but feature a metallic finish. There"s a minor variance in color between the inlays và the metal back, particularly on the gold version. It isn"t as noticeable on the other màu sắc options of the device.

While the aesthetic has evolved over the last three years, the thiết kế at the back is starting khổng lồ look stale. The kiến thiết works for the Redmi cảnh báo 5, which starts off at ₹9,999, but it would"ve made more sense for Xiaomi lớn differentiate the Redmi chú ý 5 Pro from the standard variant.

Talking about lack of differentiation from the Redmi lưu ý 5, the note 5 Pro also comes with a microUSB charging port. The standard is becoming outdated, và the onus is now on Xiaomi to make the switch to USB-C in the Redmi series. That said, the IR blaster is intact, as is the 3.5mm jack. The volume & power buttons offer a decent amount of tactile feedback as well.

The 18:9 panel up front is one of the best in the budget segment.

The fingerprint sensor at the back is identical lớn what xiaomi mi has used in the past, and it is quick lớn authenticate and the positioning is just right. The sensor is located in the top one-third section and is right next lớn the natural resting position of your index finger. There"s also a more prominent curve where the back meets the mid-frame, leading to better in-hand feel.

Coming to lớn the display, the 5.99-inch LCD panel is one of the best in this segment. Xiaomi mi has made a habit of offering vibrant displays in this category, & the same is true for the Redmi cảnh báo 5 Pro as well. The panel offers a resolution of 2160x1080, which is becoming the standard for the 18:9 khung factor.

Colors out of the box are excellent, và you can tweak the settings to your preferences by going into the settings. The phone also comes with a blue light filter that can be configured khổng lồ automatically kick in from sunset to sunrise. If you"re one khổng lồ use your phone a lot during the night, you should enable the feature as it reduces strain on the eyes.

For better or worse, the camera sensor — with the lenses arrayed vertically & the flash tucked in between — is identical lớn that of the iPhone X. It protrudes from the back as well, which makes the phone wobble when laid on a flat surface lượt thích a table.

Overall though, the build unique as well as fit and finish are all top-notch, with xiaomi mi undertaking stricter chất lượng control measures. At 181g, the Redmi lưu ý 5 Pro is heavier than its predecessors, và the taller panel doesn"t make it conducive khổng lồ use one-handed.

Xiaomi Redmi chú ý 5 Pro Hardware

Xiaomi is regularly in the first wave of manufacturers to roll out Qualcomm"s latest hardware. We"ve seen that in years past, và that"s the case with the Redmi lưu ý 5 Pro as well, which is the first device to lớn be powered by Qualcomm"s Snapdragon 636 smartphone platform.

The Snapdragon 636 is interesting as it introduces Kryo cores lớn the budget category. The Snapdragon 660 did the same for the mid-range segment last year, but a majority of the phones powered by the chipset — the oppo R11 and the xiaomi mi Mi chú ý 3 — were limited lớn the Chinese market.

The Snapdragon 636 features eight cores in total, with four performance cores complemented by four energy-efficient cores. We"ve seen that same combination in use in the app android space for a few years now, & it strikes the ideal balance between performance và energy efficiency.

The four high-performance cores are based on ARM"s Cortex A73, one of the fastest cores available today. The energy-efficient cores are based on the Cortex A53, a mainstay in the budget segment over the last two years. Qualcomm has offered fully custom cores in the Kryo platform before, but it is leveraging the "Built on ARM Cortex Technology" licensing agreement khổng lồ build semi-custom cores.

The Redmi note 5 Pro is on par with flagship chipsets from just a few years ago.

The license allows Qualcomm to take off-the-shelf Cortex cores và make modifications lớn tweak the overall performance. We"ve seen Qualcomm go down this road with the Snapdragon 820, 821, và the 835, & the cpu vendor is now doing the same for the downstream Snapdragon chipsets. Going with a Cortex license has several benefits as it gives Qualcomm the ability to lớn go to market faster — it doesn"t need to design a bộ vi xử lý core from the ground-up — while retaining a competitive advantage.

Coming back to the Redmi note 5 Pro, the Kryo cores make a tangible difference in terms of overall performance. You"re looking at anywhere from a 15-20% increase in CPU speeds & a 10% uptick in GPU performance. As we"ve seen in the benchmarks, the Snapdragon 636 is an underclocked version of the Snapdragon 660, which delivers performance equivalent lớn flagship chipsets from just a few years ago.

Xem thêm: Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Review: Speedy Performance For Cheap, Xiaomi Redmi Note 2

The performance on tap with the Redmi note 5 Pro is nothing short of extraordinary, và it"s safe to say that this is the fastest phone in the budget segment by some margin. The GPU performance means that the phone can now handle visually intensive games as well, which was a limitation with last year"s Redmi note 4.

Xiaomi Redmi chú ý 5 Pro benchmarks

The Redmi chú ý 5 Pro is also decked out with LPDDR4X RAM, which thus far has been limited khổng lồ the high-end segment. It would"ve been great had the device offered UFS storage as well, but the global demand for storage meant it wasn"t viable for Xiaomi to lớn include it in the Redmi cảnh báo 5 Pro. The phone instead features eMMC 5.0 storage, và with both variants offering 64GB of internal memory, you"re not going lớn run out anytime soon.

Also new with the Redmi chú ý 5 Pro is Wi-Fi ac as well as bluetooth 5.0, with both features limited to the Pro variant & not available in the standard version. Talking about connectivity, the Redmi chú ý 5 Pro had no issues with calls, và the speaker at the bottom is astonishingly loud. In short, if you"re looking for the most bang for your buck in the budget segment, this is the phone to lớn get.

Battery life

Xiaomi prioritized the battery segment last year, introducing a 4100mAh battery in the Redmi cảnh báo 4. The huge battery combined with MIUI"s optimizations allowed the Redmi lưu ý 4 to lớn run rings around its rivals. A year on, that hasn"t changed. While the Redmi note 5 Pro has a marginally smaller 4000mAh battery, you"re guaranteed the same great class-leading battery life.

You"ll easily get a day-and-a-half worth of usage from that battery consistently, even if you"re a nguồn user and rely on your thiết bị di động primarily for your entertainment needs. In my usage, I averaged nine hours of screen-on-time spread over two days.

My main issue with the battery on the Redmi lưu ý 5 Pro is the lack of fast charging. With the battery easily lasting more than a day on average, more often than not you"ll be looking to đứng đầu up your device in the middle of the day, và that poses problems as the bundled charger maxes out at 5V/2A. The phone itself is not compatible with fast charging, taking an agonizing two hours to get from zero khổng lồ a full charge.

Fast charging isn"t a big giảm giá on a device with such great battery life, but the lack thereof is one of the few areas where the Redmi cảnh báo 5 Pro is behind the competition.

Xiaomi Redmi note 5 Pro Software

On the software front, it"s business as usual. The Redmi chú ý 5 Pro comes with the latest version of MIUI 9, but if you were hoping for Oreo, get ready khổng lồ be disappointed. The phone is still based on apk 7.1.1 Nougat, with an Oreo update slated for sometime later this year.

Furthermore, with the Redmi chú ý 5 Pro being the first to lớn run the Snapdragon 636, there are odd glitches along the way. My unit is on the nightly 9.2.2.0 build, and the stable 9.2.4.0 update is scheduled to lớn make its way to the phone shortly after its release. The stable build should iron out the kinks và allow the phone lớn take full advantage of the Snapdragon 636.

Optimization could also be the reason why mi stuck with the Snapdragon 625 for the standard version of the Redmi note 5. The manufacturer has been optimizing the chipset for well over a year now, khổng lồ the point where it runs with nary a lag or stutter. It"ll take a few weeks at least lớn get the Redmi chú ý 5 Pro khổng lồ the same level, following which we"ll hopefully see the Oreo update make its way khổng lồ the device.

MIUI is a ROM that needed a visual refresh yesterday.

Apart from the lack of Oreo, the user experience on offer with the Redmi cảnh báo 5 Pro is similar to lớn Xiaomi devices released over the course of the last twelve months. There"s a ton of customization options và more features than you"ll kết thúc up using, but that"s one of the main draws of MIUI. Xiaomi mi has invested considerable resources in building out features, & MIUI 9 has plenty to offer in the size of quick replies in the notification window, an all-new Mi clip app, native split-screen functionality, & much more.

Then there"s older features lượt thích Dual Apps — which let you run two instances of an app simultaneously — & Second Space, through which you"ll be able khổng lồ create a separate profile on your device. The SMS phầm mềm has been tailored for Indian customers, taking the information from a ticket confirmation SMS & automatically creating a thẻ with all the relevant details highlighted.

MIUI 9: Nine new features you need to know

As I said last year, MIUI is never going khổng lồ adhere khổng lồ "pure" android in terms of a visual layout, & that"s because a majority of its users are in China. The unregulated nature of the Chinese app market is what led to lớn features lượt thích a dedicated Security app và granular control over autostart permissions.

But with usage vastly increasing in markets lượt thích India, we may see a wholesale change heading to MIUI in the coming years. The retooled notification pane is definitely a step in the right direction, but the interface as a whole is in need of a refresh khổng lồ make it more modern. The recents menu, for instance, hasn"t changed from the KitKat era, và if you need an phầm mềm drawer, you"ll need lớn look lớn a third-party launcher. Xiaomi will hopefully address these issues và make much-needed changes to lớn MIUI sooner rather than later.

Xiaomi Redmi chú ý 5 Pro Camera

If you ignore the fact that the dual-lens arrangement at the back is identical to that of the iPhone X, there"s plenty to lượt thích in the Redmi note 5 Pro"s camera. The phone features a 12MP primary camera that"s joined by a secondary 5MP depth camera, và up front you get a 20MP camera with LED flash.

The Redmi lưu ý 5 Pro does a stunning job in daylight conditions, with images offering plenty of detail và accurate colors. HDR is off by default, and while the mode was more of a hindrance in past Redmi devices, it"s actually usable in the Redmi cảnh báo 5 Pro. Finally, the phone does a decent job in low-light conditions, which is a huge giảm giá khuyến mãi seeing as how most budget phones struggle in this area.

The camera on the Redmi chú ý 5 Pro beats other phones in this category by a country mile.

I put the phone khổng lồ the kiểm tra by using it as my daily driver during Xiaomi"s launch event earlier this month, và came away impressed with the overall results. I normally rely on either the px 2 XL or the lưu ý 8 for launch event coverage as the lighting at these venues isn"t ideal, but the Redmi note 5 Pro did an admirable job.

The dual camera thiết đặt also enables portrait mode, which we"ve seen in the ngươi 6 và more recently the mi A1. The background blur effect is more conservative this time around, but as xiaomi pointed out at the launch event, its edge detection algorithm is spot-on.

Should you buy it? Absolutely

The Redmi cảnh báo 5 Pro is Xiaomi"s strongest showing in the budget segment in the last two years, and puts the brand in a great position as we head into the launch cycle for 2018. The 18:9 display is a much-needed change lớn keep the device competitive, & the Snapdragon 636 ensures class-leading performance for the foreseeable future.

This is the first Redmi device I"d consider using as my daily driver.

The Redmi chú ý 5 Pro is the first phone in the Redmi series I"d consider using as my daily driver. Previous phones in this series weren"t short on power, but the camera was the one area where mi lagged behind.

The phone is offered in two variants — a mã sản phẩm with 4GB of RAM & 64GB of storage, and a version with 6GB of RAM & 64GB of storage. The 4GB mã sản phẩm retails for ₹13,999 and is on sale, & the 6GB version is available for ₹16,999. The phone should be making its way lớn Xiaomi"s offline partners shortly after its launch, & head to the 22 Mi trang chủ stores in the country.

The Good

18:9 displayClass-leading cameraPowerful hardwareTwo-day battery lifeUnmatched value for money