Redmi Note 9 pro review- Design, Display, Performance, Camera and Battery Backup.

Redmi Note 9 Pro Review

After having used the Redmi Note 9 Pro for a month and a half, I will tell you guys what I think about it, and should you choose it over the competition or not. We all know that the Redmi Note has been Xiaomi’s most successful series, so much so that Xiaomi feels Redmi is big enough to become a separate brand in itself.

 This year Redmi had made some changes to their most successful lineup. And we will have to wait and see how these decisions will fair in the long term. Up until 6 months back, Redmi was launching 2 Note series phones, the Note 8 Pro and the Note 8, Note 7 Pro and Note 7, Note 6 Pro and Note 6 and so on. But this time they changed things a bit and brought in the Note 9 Pro and Note 9 Pro Max. Where there are less differences between the two, Max is obviously the better one. So why is the Note 9 Pro here, and what does it offer let’s check out. I purchases the Note 9 Pro on the launch day at Rs.12,999, but shortly after that, Indian government increased the GST on smartphones from 12 to 18%, and the rupee has not been very strong against the dollar, so since then, Redmi has increased the price of this particular variants price by 1000Rs. And now it retails at Rs.13,999.

Built Quality

For this price, we get a very well built phone. It is a hair wider, but taller than the Note 8 Pro. And with a 6.67 inch display it is a massive smartphone. To put it to a perspective, It is even bigger than the iPhone 11 Pro max. Slight curve to the back makes it a bit easier to hold the phone in your hand, but make no mistake it is definitely a 2 handed device. 

Thanks to the Gorilla glass 5 at the front and back, it feels like a premium smartphone. Much better than the plastic back ones. But there is a downside to using glass at the back, it gathers a ton of fingerprints and looks very dirty if you are not constantly wiping it. The frame is made of plastic, but you won’t notice it until it is scratched. But in the hope of not letting this happen, Redmi includes a case in the box. And it is a good one, I have been using it since the day one, and it does a good job of protecting the phone.

 There is a small lip at the front, to keep the display protected, and there is also a raised portion to protect the camera module, which if you haven’t noticed by now, sticks out quite a bit. To put most of you guys at rest, Redmi have given gorilla glass 5 protection to the camera module as well.

At the top, there is an IR blaster that lets you use your phone as a remote controller for your home appliances, and a secondary noise cancelling microphone. There is a single SIM tray on the left, that can hold 2 nano SIM cards and a MicroSD card. So if you are running low on internal memory, you can add in more storage anytime you want. At the bottom you get the 3.5mm headphone jack, which is very important at this price point, a microphone, USB type C port for charging and data transfer, and a speaker grill.

Display

 The 6.67 inch FHD+ IPS LCD display is amazing for watching videos or playing games. While the peak brightness is a few nits lower than the Note 8 Pro’s display, this one can get pretty bright, even for most outdoor lighting situations. The colours and viewing angles are also good with really good contrast levels, making sure you don’t have much to complain about while using it.

 Some people will still find ways things to complain, like it being an LCD panel instead of OLED or it not having a 90 or 120Hz refresh rate. And rightly so because competition is giving AMOLED displays and 90Hz refresh rate at or around the same price point. But honestly, you won’t even mention these things if you just look at the display, without looking at the specs sheet. This is one of the best quality displays in terms of brightness levels, colour, accuracy, contrast levels and viewing angles that you are going to get at this price.

 The bezels all around the display are just as thick or thin, as other Redmi smartphones in recent times. This time, there is a small punch hole style cut-out for the selfie camera in the top middle of the display. This is small enough, that it doesn’t get in your way, no matter what you are doing on the phone. And it is in the centre, where not much information gets displayed anyways. So in my usage, I did not find this notch to be intrusive at all. And trust me, in a day or 2 you even forget that it’s there. 

I am just curious, that which notch do you prefer? punch hole type, water drop notch, pill shaped notch, or do you prefer notchless display with motorised pop up selfie camera? I would really like to know what you guys think. Above the notch, there is a wide speaker grill, and the speaker under it gets loud enough for crisp and clear audio calls. Display being a LCD panel, you don’t get an in-display fingerprint sensor on this phone. Honestly I am really glad for this.

 Have you tried the in-display fingerprint sensor on the Mi A3, or any other budget device? If yes then you,know Most of those fingerprint sensors at this price point are too slow to unlock the phone, and they are also highly inaccurate. So it takes multiple attempts to read your fingerprint.

 On this Note 9 Pro, the fingerprint sensor is placed on the right side of the phone, and it doubles as a power button. This one is really fast and accurate. I prefer this side placement over the in display one, but I would have liked it to be placed a bit lower, for more comfortable usage, as its a very tall phone. Anyways I like this placement. Above this fingerprint sensor / Power button, there is the volume up and down button. The speaker can get loud, but at higher volumes, it lacks the depth that you might expect from a quality speaker. That being said, for the price, I think it is pretty good, and as I said it gets loud, so it gets the job done.

Performance

 After using aMediaTek processor inside the Redmi Note 8 Pro, Redmi has decided to go back to using Snapdragon processors. And they have included their 720G processor on this one, which according to them is better than the MediaTek Helio G90T, used in the Note 8 Pro. It’s also built on 8nm architecture, so it is supposed to be much more efficient. I have been using this phone, and I never felt it lagged or stuttered while performing any normal daily tasks.

 It is snappy at opening and switching between apps. But if you like to play a lot of games, specially FPS games or the ones which require higher graphics, I won’t recommend you to get this phones. Because in that case its performance is not the smoothest. There are a lot of framedrops here and there, and I think it has got to do with optimisation. Because the 720G processor is capable of handling these games. You can still fire up these games on the phone, but the gameplay just won’t be as smooth as you would want it to be.

 Coming back to the overall daily performance, I feel RAM management has been approved a lot compared to the Note 8 Pro, and it feels like an overall more refined smartphone. Speaking of RAM, you can either go with 4GB of RAM and it is coupled with 64GB of internal storage, or you can choose 6GB of RAM and it will give you 128GB of built in storage.

Battery Life

 To power the phone, it packs in a monstrous 5020mAh battery. It is enough to make you phone easily last for a day and a half, even if you are a heavy user. With average usage, and not playing too many games, I was even able to get 2 days worth of usage from this phone, on a regular basis. When it is time to charge this huge battery, you get the 18watt fast charger included in the box. It still takes a bit over 2 hours to charger it, but I am glad they just didn’t give the usual 10watt charger, coz that would have just taken ages to completely charge it. But then again, some of the Realme phones in this price range have started shipping with 30watt fast chargers, so it would have been great to see the 27watt Xiaomi charger bundled with it, like the Note9 Pro Max.

UI and OS

 It is running the latest version of MIUI 11on top of Android 10. And while there are lot of features and customisation options that MIUI offers and that it is pretty smooth, OS is the one thing that I wish to change on this phone. If you can slap a new skin or a new launcher like POCO launcher or completely change the look and feel of the OS by installing Nova launcher, you could live with this phone without any issues. 

Now my problem is not with the MIUI, but more to do with all the bloatware that comes preinstalled, and all the horrible ads and spam notifications that its default apps keep on sending you. There should just be a way to completely disable all this stuff, because it is really annoying to get these ads and notifications, even when you de-select and opt out of all the settings while setting up your phone.

 I just hope Xiaomi realises these ads are spoiling their users experience and just ruining their brand reputation on a daily basis, and that they dial these ads down a bit and make sure to keep them children friendly.

Camera Performance

 Coming to the quad cameras on the back. Unlike its bigger brother the Note 9 Pro Max, this Note 9 Pro gets the 48 megapixel Samsung GM2 sensor for its primary camera. It gets F/1.8 aperture and a 26mm lens. Next camera gets a 8 megapixel sensor with F/2.2 aperture, and a13mm ultra wide lens. Then there is a5 megapixel sensor with F/2.4 aperture, and this one gets a macro lens. Finally there is a 2 megapixel depth sensor with F/2.4 aperture. For the selfie camera, Note 9 Pro gets a 16megapixel sensor with F/2.5 aperture.

There is fair amount of detail, in these outdoor daylight shots, provided you don’t zoom in a lot on them. There is an extra bit of saturation and extra contrast in all of these images, and depending on your colour preferences, you may or may not like it. Like with most Redmi smartphones, Note 9 Pro also tends to over expose its images, so very often, you will have to adjust the exposure by pulling the brightness slider down. Most of the average users should be happy with the daylight performance of this camera. As we would expect, Portrait mode images are really good from this phone.

And the new Moviemode, which lets us capture 21:9 portrait mode images, with black bars at the top and bottom, makes these images look amazing. In low or artificial light, there is a lot of noise and the images don’t hold on to any details. There is a night mode, but that doesn’t help a lot either in these low light situations. I don’t think anyone will be even remotely satisfied with the Note 9 Pro’s low light performance.

 It does make up by shooting crispy electronically stabilised 1080p videos at 30fps. It can shoot4k 30fps videos as well, but those ones are not stabilised, and are a bit over saturated for my liking. Although the cameras are decent in daytime, I think at this price, there are a few better options in the market, specially for low light photography.

So if camera is the main deciding factor for you, I just won’t suggest you to get this phone. Spend a bit extra and get the POCO X2 or even the Redmi Note 9 Pro Max, but not this one.

Sensors

 Moving on, Redmi has made sure to include all the necessary sensors starting with the Ambient light and proximity sensor, gyroscope, accelerometer, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, NavIC, IR sensor and so on. So you have a wide array of all the necessary sensors.

Final Thoughts

 Overall, I think the Note 9 Pro hits the right note with its internals, and the build quality and design, and will give most of the average users the smooth performance that you might expect. But for it is lacking in some parts, that would have made it the best budget smartphone to beat in the price range, like the Note8 Pro or the Note 7 Pro were when they came out. I feel the camera and the GPU is holding this phone back.

 So I can’t suggest this phone to someone who likes to play a lot of games or who like to take a lot of images. If you like to take lot of images, take a look at the Redmi Note 9 Pro Max, and if you like to play games, turn towards the POCOX2. Sure that will cost more, but they will also give you overall better experience.

 At this price point, the competition is tough, and Redmi is trying to get people to buy the Note 9 Pro Max for a higher price, and with their current ads situation, they are sort of loosing their grip in this market. Sure their market share is growing, and they might be the number 1 budget smartphone brand in India, but the competition is closing in, and are ready to mop up, every unsatisfied customer that Redmi is leaving behind. Instead of launching the regular powerful Note 9 Pro, and then bringing in the Note 9 Pro Max with more added features on top. Redmi decided to make the Note 9 Pro Max their new favourite, and diluted the features on the Note 9 Pro in this process.

 By doing this, I think they have watered down the Note Pro series phones, and this move might just not go very well for them in the long run. So now who should be looking to get this phone? If you just can’t stretch your budget beyond 14K, or if you just want to use the basic features on your phone, then go for it. Big display is amazing for consuming content, huge battery keeps it powered for more than a day, dual VOLTE means you are always connected,  and the headphone jack lets you listen to your favourite music in isolation. And for all these things, the Note 9 Pro is an amazing phone.

But if you do anything more than playing casual games, or taking lot of images, specially in lower light, you should look elsewhere. So these have been my thoughts about the Redmi Note 9 Pro.

Also Read Redmi 9 Spec, Price and Review ,Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition Review