Tech reviews

Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Review


Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Review


Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Review&nbsp

Key Highlights

  • Pros: Exceptional battery life, good design language, accurate rear-mounted fingerprint sensor
  • Cons: Software needs tweaking, low light camera performance, slow charging

Product Name:Redmi Note 9

Brand Name:Redmi

Price:Rs 11,999 /-

Adding another smartphone to its Redmi Note 9 series, Xiaomi has now unveiled the Redmi Note 9, thus, adding to a pretty confusing Redmi Note 9 line-up. However, the fact remains that Redmi Note series, since quite some time, has been one of the most compelling in its category with powerful internals. The new Redmi Note 9 is no different and comes with powerful specs.

Xiaomi, which dominated the Indian smartphone market with a 29 per cent market share in the second quarter (Q2) of 2020, according to Counterpoint Research, made an upward revision in the prices of previously launched Redmi Note 9 Pro Max and Redmi Note 9 Pro smartphones in the wake of the GST hike, thus, making the newly-launched Redmi Note 9 an interesting package. The smartphone essentially fills the gap in the Rs 10,000-Rs 15,000 price segment, but, is the Redmi Note 9 worth your buck? Here is our review.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Review: Design, looks and display

The back of the phone is beautifully curved but is not made of glass. The unibody curved plastic design meets the Corning Gorilla Glass display in the front sans any creeks or gaps. The Redmi Note 9 has been launched in Aqua Green, Pebble Grey, and Arctic White colours. Interestingly, the Aqua Green colour variant is not reflective and has a matte finish. The Aqua Green variant looks more premium than the other two variants. The Arctic White coloured unit that we received is not plain white but features a gradient at the rear.

Redmi Note 9

Since the back is pretty reflective, it is prone to attract fingerprint smudges, and, thankfully, Xiaomi is providing a protective silicone case in the box to address that. The design of the phone does not feel cheap at all and also comes with a splash-resistant design. The phone is definitely on the heavier side, but that is due to the hefty 5020mAh battery housed inside. 

The power button, as well as the volume rockers, are placed on the right while the left side houses the SIM card slot that can accommodate two nano-SIM cards and a microSD card. The back of the phone houses the unique square camera set-up, and the fingerprint scanner sits right below. We feel the scanner is placed a little higher than usual. However, despite the slightly off placement, the sensor is accurate and fast in unlocking the phone. The traditional rear-mounted fingerprint sensors always have the edge over the under-display ones and side-mounted fingerprint scanners. Also, people with relatively large hands would not face a problem in handling and unlocking the device. 

Redmi Note 9

The front side has a large 6.53-inch Full HD+ screen that has a brightness of 450 nits and has a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection and has a standard 60Hz refresh rate and a 19.5:9 aspect ratio. There’s a punch hole cut-out that houses the selfie camera sits on the upper left corner which is a significant change from the centrally placed selfie cameras on both the Redmi Note 9 Pro and the Redmi Note 9 Pro Max. The display is sharp, but alike some LCD displays, we noticed some uneven backlighting in this device too. The contrast and sharpness are pretty decent for a phone in this price segment. The colours were very accurate, and with the auto mode, the brightness can be increased to 450 nits.

There is a single speaker grille at the bottom of the phone that is not very loud. Also, housed are a USB Type-C port, a microphone and a standard 3.5-mm headphone jack alongside the mono speaker.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Review: Software and performance

The phone runs Android 10 with its latest custom MIUI 11 on the top that felt closer to vanilla Android this time when compared to previous versions of MIUI skin. The Redmi Note 9 is not completely free of bloatware. For example, apps such as Mi Community, Helo, Osom Rummy, and so on were pre-installed on the phone. A few of these have been banned in the country and Xiaomi has confirmed that it is working on the new MIUI version for the Indian market that won’t come with these banned apps. 

While setting up the phone, we got reminders to install a handful of other bloatware apps too. The Mi Video app keeps sending spam notifications which are a put off for sure.

Redmi Note 9

The phone houses a gaming-centric octa-core MediaTek Helio G85 processor. Contrary to our expectations, the gaming performance of the phone is disappointing. We could run only PUBG Mobile at high frame rates on the phone while other games such as Asphalt 9: Legends suffered from spotty graphics and freezes. The Redmi Note 9 scored 356 points in Geekbench’s single-core test and 1325 points in the multi-core test. The 128GB RAM and 4GB of RAM are enough to make every task pretty smooth.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Review: Camera

The Redmi Note 9 packs in a quad-camera comprising a 48-megapixel, an 8-megapixel wide-angle lens, a 2-megapixel macro lens and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. The camera set-up is decent, given the price point and the images taken in proper lighting conditions look sharp with the right amount of details. Images shot in low light had noise. 

The camera app is what we have usually seen on other Redmi devices. The camera makes use of AI that detects the scenes and up the game accordingly. Images taken at 48-megapixel resolution were highly detailed, but the photos shot using the wide-angle lens led to the loss of details and some change in colours. The images looked good until we zoomed in. The close-up shots were good, and the macro sensor lets you get very close to the subject to click a picture. The bokeh effect was very natural, with good edge detection.

Redmi Note 9

Redmi Note 9

Redmi Note 9

Redmi Note 9

The 13-megapixel selfie camera with f/2.25 aperture clicks decent selfies with natural skin tone in a favourable light. Like the primary cam, the selfie shooter also struggles in low light. The Redmi Note 9 supports video recording of only up to 1080p@30fps with the primary shooter. The video output was decent and offered some amount of stabilisation.

Redmi Note 9 Review: Battery

Surprisingly, the battery is the USP of the Redmi Note 9. The handset maker has fitted a hefty 5020 mAh unit inside the phone, and it easily lasted one and a half-day on a single charge, thanks to the battery optimisations. The battery supports 22.5W fast charging via a USB Type-C port. Even though a 22W fast charger is included in the box, it took more than two hours to juice up the battery from 0 to 100 per cent. Also, according to Xiaomi, the phone will be charged at 18W instead of the 22.5W until an OTA software update arrives. Having said that, once charged, this phone will not need plugging in any time soon.

Redmi Note 9

Redmi Note 9 Rating

Design: 8/10
Display: 7/10
Performance: 7/10
Cameras: 7/10
Battery: 9/10
Overall: 7/10

Redmi Note 9 Review: Price and verdict

The Redmi Note 9 is available at a starting price of Rs 11,999 and offers exceptional battery life and decent overall performance. The camera also takes good pictures in favourable lighting. Despite being a budget phone, the design where the phone scores the highest. That polycarbonate unibody design minus any creeks look good in the hands. Those looking to buy a Redmi Note should invest in the base variant of Redmi Note 9 that offers all the features, except that it comes with 4GB of RAM.



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