Friends+Design
- Looks stunning, with an all-glass design - Xiaomi has gone the extra mile here and really knocked it out of the park in terms of an exquisite design
- Excellent, flagship-worthy, premium build quality
- Great hand feel
- The front and the back are fitted with Corning's Gorilla Glass 5 with an additional 0.8mm-thick layer for extra durability
- The LED notification light sits comfortably on the chin - it can only be seen when it lights up, it's really subtle
- Splash resistant body
- The capacitive fingerprint sensor is easy to reach with your index finger and it also has a different texture, so it's hard to miss - plus it's quick
- Apart from the quick fingerprint sensor, the phone also has decently quick AI face recognition (under good light)
- At 186g, it's a bit on the bulky side
Display
- Big 6.3inch LCD screen with fairly thin side bezels - and a small, unobtrusive notch
- Good overall display quality, with especially good brightness levels - though it's not quite as good as the AMOLED panel on the Galaxy M30 - that's the one area where the Samsung phone takes a clear lead
- You also get software tweaks to adjust the contrast and colour temperature, which is nice
Software
- Xiaomi's custom skin overlay, MIUI, has come a long way and the latest version takes a more simplistic and clean approach
- There is also an option to chose between the standard navigation buttons and navigation gestures
- There continue to be pesky ads in the MUIU interface these days, and these do somewhat diminish the experience of using an otherwise excellent smartphone (there are ways to disable these through settings, but not a lot of people who buy the phone are going to be technically aware enough to know how to do that)
Performance
- The powerful Snapdragon 675 SoC makes sure that the device runs super smooth without performance drops even with complex games - everything is fast and lag-free - this is best-in-class performance for this price segment
Camera
- The primary camera is the rear dual camera setup is a huge 48MP sensor - which shoots 12MP at default settings (there is a way to shoot in the sensor's full 48MP resolution if you prefer that, but you'd have to go to the camera's Pro mode for that)
- In daylight, the performance is good, as expected - there's plenty of detail, contrast is good, colors are punchy, and noise is virtually non-existent
- The actual benefit though of the large sensor is that users get sharper 12MP photos with less noise even at high ISO values compared to the regular 12MP sensors - what that means is that the night time shots are the real strong point of the phone, and are surprisingly good for a phone at this price point - there's no prominent noise, details are good and light sources appear to be rather well-preserved
- Additionally, the Night mode really makes a difference by restoring the highlights and bringing out the shadows - the result is nicely balanced and subjects look more detailed
- Portraits with the dual rear cameras are also very good - comparable to much more expensive handsets - the detail is nice while the edge detection is stellar - indoor portraits are good too
- With the front camera, the selfies turn out to be quite nice as well - there's enough detail from the 13MP snapper and its focus sweet spot is almost a full arm's length so you don't need to get really close to the phone to get the sharpest possible result - the portrait mode also seems to do quite well despite the hardware limitations of the front camera (no secondary unit for depth sensing)
- Overall, the cameras on the Redmi Note 7 Pro are top-notch, and this is now the camera package to beat in the under Rs. 20k price segment
Audio
- Despite having just a single bottom-firing loudspeaker, the handset impresses with a loud sound - and it sounds clean at high volumes as well
- Audio quality via headphones is very good too - and loudness remains just as impressive when headphones come into play - one of the highest in the market, let alone the price range
Connectivity
- Has a modern USB Type-C port
- Like other Redmi phones, the Note 7 Pro also packs a handy IR blaster, which can be used for remote controlling home appliances via the Mi Remote app
Battery
- Excellent battery life, as has been the hallmark of the Redmi Note series - the 4000 mAh battery paired with the fairly efficient Snapdragon 675 SoC makes sure that it easily overtakes some upper-mid-range and high-end smartphones when it comes to endurance - you will comfortably get a 1.5-2 days of use
- While the smartphone supports Quick Charge 4.0, the included adapter maxes out at 5V/2A, and though it has a decent charging speed (about 57% in 1 hour), you will have to look for a QC 3 or QC 4-capable brick to enjoy true 'fast charging'
Verdict
- The Redmi Note 7 Pro is yet another winner from the Xiaomi camp, again going on to redefine the expectations of a budget phone
- It's main competition will likely come from the Realme 2 Pro - and here the Redmi Note 7 Pro takes the lead with more premium glass build, faster processor, better battery life and more capable camera
