Xiaomi announced their third smarpthone in the Indian market, the Redmi Note few weeks back and it is now available on sale on Flipkart. The device comes with a 5.5 inch HP display with IPS technology and is powered by a 1.7Ghz Octa Core processor with Mali 450GPU. The device has 2GB of RAM and also comes with 8GB internal storage which is expandable to 32GB via microSD card. The phone also comes with a 13MP rear camera with LED flash and 1080p recording. The phone also features a 5MP camera for video calls and Selfie. It runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with MIUI which is a custom UI from the company. The phone is powered by a 3200mAh battery.
Here is the detailed review of the device.
Related Reading: Xiaomi Redmi Note Unboxing
Design and Build:
The Redmi Note has almost the similar design as that of the popular Redmi 1S and is a fairly good looking phone in this price point. The front panel has a massive 5.5 inch display and below it you have the three capacitive touch button which are red in color and is backlit and offers haptic feedback. Above the display you have the sensors and the front facing camera along with ear piece.
The power and volume keys which have a chrome finish sits on the right side. The 3.5mm audio jack is placed at the top while the micro USB charging slot is at the bottom. The rear panel has a curved design with glossy finish unlike the Redmi 1S with matte finish. The device is huge and if you have small hands using the phone is quite a task. The design isn’t anything exciting, but overall build quality is excellent. At 196gms, the device is heavy as well.
The removable back cover houses the 13MP camera with LED flash and also speakers places at the bottom. Remove the back panel and you can see the dual SIM card slots, micro SD slot and the removable 3200mAh battery.
Display:
The display on the device is a 5.5 inch IPS LCD HD panel (1280 X720) with 220 pixels per inch. The display is vibrant and has good colors and is a treat to use. The touch response is amazing and this can be felt when using the apps. Watching movies is a great experience on this massive 5.5 inch display which is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3.
Overall, we are pretty happy with the display being offered on this device.
Software and Performance:
The Redmi Note runs Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) which is even older OS when compared to 4.3 on Redmi 1S. But you seldom know it is running an outdated OS because it has the MIUI v5 on top of it. t. The company has already mentioned that the phone will get MIUI v6 and probably KitKat would come for this device. Similar to Xiaomi’s Mi3, one of the strong points of this device is the amount of features MIUI offers when compared to core Android, even though the Android version is not the latest.
MIUI offers tons of customizations, features and also tweaks which is seldom available on core Android.
The apps are all arranged in multiple home screens instead of the app drawer found on core Android UI. The notification center of the device is really useful and comes with options to customize the quick toggles and also the ability to customize it to your liking.
One of the strong points of MIUI is the amount of options available to personalize the device in the form of lock styles, home screens, icons, themes, wallpapers, fonts and more. All these can be managed from the Themes app which comes pre-loaded on the phone.
Redmi Note also comes with the Security app similar to Mi3 and Redmi 1S and it offers lots of added features like Cleaner, Data usage monitor, virus monitor, call blocking and more. Xiaomi has also included a ‘Lite Mode’ which resembles Windows Phone’s UI and has a tiled interface which makes the phone UI simple and easy to use.
The Redmi Note runs on 1.7Ghz Octa Core MediaTek processor with 2GB of RAM. The overall performance of MIUI with 2GB RAM is pretty good and we never had any issues with lag or other crashes. Unlike the Redmi 1S where the gaming performance was an issue, the Redmi Note has good gaming abilities and the 5.5 inch HD display is suited for gaming. Related Video: Xiaomi Redmi Note Gaming Review.
The phone comes with dual SIM cards and SIM card 1 supports 3G while the second one is 2G. The call quality on the device was pretty good and there are no complaints here. The speaker on the device was disappointing and the volume levels were very low. Xiaomi hasn’t included headphones with Redmi Note similar to Mi3, but you can use any earphones and the quality is also good. The device comes with 8GB of internal storage and also has microSD card support, so you can extend the storage.
Camera:
The Redmi Note comes with a 13MP shooter with LED flash and also a 5MP front facing camera. The camera interface is very similar to what we have on the Xiaomi Mi3 and Redmi 1S with MIUI v5 and comes with good set of features to manage your photos. It has options to change the ISO, exposure, white balance and also offers variety of filters and scene modes to chose from. It also features HDR, Hand held Twilight, Panorama and also audio modes.
The phone supports video recording in 1080p. The camera app has simple as well as advanced modes which can be toggled from the settings. Watch: Xiaomi Redmi Note Camera Review
The camera performance of the device was overall good and the photos have pretty good amount of detailing. The colors were fairly good and so is the sharpness level. The low light photo ability of the device was not the best and there was noise, but with flash the clarity was acceptable for a phone in this price point. The 13MP shooter is probably one of the best camera smartphones below Rs 10000 in India.
The 1080p video recording is also fairly good.
Here are some of the camera samples from the device.
Battery Life:
Xiaomi Redmi Note comes with massive 3,200 mAh battery and this is one the strengths of the device. The battery performance is really good and the battery can last for more than a day on a single charge. We tested the battery capacity on 3G with social apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram running in the background along with email apps configured and we got more than a day of usage.
Xiaomi has included the Power management app which allows you to manage battery usage. You can enable auto switch to different mode to make the battery last longer.
There is also option to schedule these modes.
Verdict:
Priced at Rs 8999, the Xiaomi Redmi Note is probably the best phablet you can buy. and is a device which you can’t really go wrong with. You can’t really find devices in the sub 10k pricing which has the impressive specs of Redmi Note. With excellent display, software and battery life along with decent camera, the Redmi Note is total value for money if you don’t really care about the latest Android OS.
We definitely recommend this phablet for the excellent hardware being offered at a shockingly low price!
