The Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro is the first smartphone to feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 636 processor under Rs 15,000. Xiaomi has been hinting at this exciting development for weeks, and it finally unveiled the phone on Wednesday. At a media briefing in New Delhi, Xiaomi didn’t just launch the Redmi Note 5 Pro, but also launched the Mi LED TV 4, Mi Router HD and Mi Power Strip for the Indian market.
The Redmi Note 5 Pro features a full-HD+ display with an 18:9 aspect ratio and 2.5D curved glass on top … it looks gorgeous. There’s an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 SoC, coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage that is expandable via microSD card.
The highlight feature on the Redmi Note 5 Pro is its dual rear camera setup – it sports 12-megapixel primary sensor with 1.4um pixels, along with a 5-megapixel secondary sensor for depth sensing. Xiaomi says the Redmi Note 5 Pro’s rear dual cameras are designed for enhanced low-light photography, along with a high level of detail even in macro shots.
Display Screen:
Redmi Note 5 Pro comes with a full-HD+ display screen that supports 2.5D curved glass on top, and an 18:9 aspect ratio. This is Xiaomi’s first full-HD display smartphone in the Redmi Note series, and it looks gorgeous. The screen sports rounded corners that blend into the frame smoothly … it has four capacitive multi-touch navigation buttons at the bottom of the screen, but you can change them to on-screen buttons from the settings.
Performance:
The Snapdragon 636 processor is an octa-core chipset that features four Cortex-A73 cores clocked at 1.8GHz, and four power-efficient Cortex-A53 cores that can clock up to 1.6GHz. The chipset supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge technology, but the bundled charger does not support this feature.
The Redmi Note 5 Pro is Xiaomi’s first smartphone to come with 4GB of RAM, and it makes a big difference in terms of performance compared to its predecessor which came with 3GB or RAM. There was no sluggishness whatsoever while launching apps, switching between running apps or playing graphic-intensive games like Asphalt 8 … the phone didn’t even heat up when playing the game for an extended period of time.
The Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro comes with 64GB of onboard storage that is expandable via microSD card (up to 256GB). The dual-SIM slot supports 4G along with VoLTE, and you can set either in the SIM 2 slot. The smartphone also comes with dedicated slots for the Nano SIM and microSD card.
The fingerprint scanner on the Redmi Note 5 Pro is quick to authenticate, but it can be a bit tedious to use as it does not support touch-based navigation … you must press the home button first before you can swipe up or down through menu screens. The smartphone also comes with a Face Unlock feature that unlocks the phone as soon as it detects your face, but it takes a couple of seconds to authenticate.
Camera Details:
The highlight feature on the Redmi Note 5 Pro is its rear camera setup. It sports 12-megapixel primary sensor with 1.4um pixels, along with a 5-megapixel secondary sensor for depth sensing. Xiaomi says the Redmi Note 5 Pro’s rear dual cameras are designed for enhanced low-light photography, along with a high level of detail even in macro shots.
In daylight, the pictures clicked from the Redmi Note 5 Pro came out to be quite detailed with fairly good amount of contrast and colours. Low light pictures were also surprisingly better than other phones in this range thanks to its wide f/2.0 aperture … they come with lots of detail even when you zoom in all the way (cropped to 100 per cent). The images clicked in lower light also come with very less noise and distortion.
The front 20-megapixel sensor on the Redmi Note 5 Pro comes paired with a soft selfie flash that lights up your face in low-light conditions … this is quite useful indoors. There’s also a Face Recognition feature on the phone that lets you unlock the phone by just looking at it.
Battery Life:
The Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro comes with a large 4000mAh battery that easily lasts more than one day on a single charge under normal usage. We used the smartphone to browse through various social media apps, stream high-definition videos on YouTube, shoot pictures and play graphic-intensive games … in spite of all this, the Redmi Note 5 Pro easily lasted a full day before hitting 15 per cent battery level.
In our HD video loop test, the handset lasted 16 hours and 12 minutes which is quite impressive when you consider other phones in this range last only 8 to 9 hours. In case you run out of juice, the Redmi Note 5 Pro supports Quick Charge 3.0 that charges it from zero to 100 per cent in just under 2 hours.
Redmi Note 5 Pro specification
| OS | Android v7.1.2 Nougat |
| UI | MIUI 9 |
| Dimensions | 158.6 x 75.4 x 8.1 mm |
| Weight | 181 g |
| SIM | Hybrid Dual SIM, Dual Standby (Nano-SIM) |
| Colors | Black, Champagne Gold, Rose Gold, Blue |
| 2G Band | SIM1: GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900SIM2: GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 |
| 3G Band | HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 |
| 4G Band | LTE band 1(2100), 3(1800), 5(850), 40(2300), 41(2500) |
| CPU | 1.8 GHz Octa Core Kryo 260 |
| Chipset | Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 |
| GPU | Adreno 512 |
| Technology | IPS LCD Capacitive Touchscreen, 16M Colors, Multitouch |
| Size | 6.0 Inches |
| Resolution | 1080 x 2160 Pixels (~403 PPI) |
| Built-in | 64GB Built-in, 4GB RAM (LPDDR4X RAM) |
| Card | microSD Card, (supports upto 256GB) (Uses SIM Slot 2) |
| Main | Dual 12 MP (f/2.2) + 5 MP (f/2.0), phase detection autofocusses, dual LED, dual tone flash |
| Features | Geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection, panorama, HDR, Video ([email protected]) |
| Front | 13 MP (f/2.0, 1/2.8) + Selfie Flash |
| WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot |
| Bluetooth | v4.2, A2DP, LE |
| GPS | Yes + AGPS, GLONASS, BDS |
| Radio | FM Radio |
| USB | microUSB v2.0 |
| NFC | No |
| Infrared | Yes |
| Data | GPRS, Edge, 3G HSPA, 4G LTE |
| Sensors | Accelerometer, Compass, Fingerprint (rear mounted), Gyro, Proximity |
| Audio | 3.5mm Audio Jack, DivX/Xvid/MP4/H.265 player, MP3/WAV/eAAC+/FLAC player, Speaker Phone |
| Browser | HTML5 |
| Messaging | SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM |
| Games | Built-in + Downloadable |
| Torch | Yes |
| Extra | 24-bit/192kHz audio, Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic, Photo/video editor, Document viewer |
| Capacity | 4000 mAh (Li-Po, Non removable) |
| – Fast battery charging 5V/2A |
