Friends+Design
- Fresh, bright and vibrant design, with a gleaming, reflective rear panel - you'll see light play across the surface when using this phone, giving the feeling of depth
- The distinctive new camera bump design plays into the theme of symmetry - this is a beautiful design touch that sets the Redmi Note 9 series apart and makes this phone and its siblings recognisable
- The front of the phone looks modern and defies expectations for its price category
- Fingerprint sensor is integrated into the power key, and it is swift at unlocking the phone
- Xiaomi's trademark infrared emitter is on the top and can be used to control several home appliances
- There's also a notification and charging LED hidden in the earpiece, a rarity to find in modern smartphones
- At 8.8mm thick and 209g in weight, the Redmi Note 9 Pro is bulky and unwieldy
Display
- Bright, crisp and large 6.67-inch IPS display with a tall 20:9 aspect ratio - the panel delivers punchy and vibrant colours and the large screen work nicely for consuming videos and games
- It is a standard 60Hz panel and doesn't have a high refresh rate - this is a missed opportunity that puts the Redmi Note 9 Pro on the back foot compared to its peers
Software
- MIUI is one of the more refined and smooth Android skins around, and has a lot of customisation/theming options - there are ample features for power users - from gestures to the ability to switch around button layouts as well as a robust home screen customisation experience, you can make the phone your own
- It continues to pack a lot of bloat though - you get many pre-installed applications with wide-ranging requirements for user permissions
Performance
- Class-leading performance for the price backed by the snappy Snapdragon 720G - the Redmi Note 9 Pro is more than powerful enough to handle anything from basic calls and messaging up to heavy 3D gaming, with no trouble whatsoever, multitasking is also smooth and trouble-free
Camera
- Decent quad cameras for the price - a 48MP primary shooter, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens, a 5MP macro camera and a 2MP depth sensor
- In daylight, the primary camera takes reasonably good shots - Xiaomi has opted for a very natural-looking colour science, the colour temperature and white balance are spot-on which is very good to see, and the dynamic range isn't too bad either (though, there is a certain softness to images, which can be fixed with a software update)
- The ultra-wide-angle mode works well to capture a wide frame without much effort, and the quality is decent
- Xiaomi has done a particularly good job at optimising the portrait mode, and the phone does a fantastic job at edge-detection, creating a natural-looking blur
- The macro camera delivers much higher quality shots than from most other 2MP macro cameras
- The 16MP front camera is fairly good in the daytime as well as at night - details are good, and portrait shots had nicely blurred backgrounds
- Low light photography is average, images are grainy with digital artefacts and splotches creating a nearly unusable shot
- Overall, this is not the best camera setup at this price and this time Realme has done a better job which with its Realme 6 which offer better cameras at this price
Battery
- Very good battery life with the 5020 mAh battery - with ordinary use, the Redmi Note 9 Pro easily lasts through a full day and nearly half of the second day before needing a recharge
- Decent fast charging with the 18W fast charger in the box, takes nearly 2 hours to fill the phone (though this isn't the fastest charging phone and the Realme 6's 30W charging is much better)
Verdict
- The Redmi Note 9 Pro which succeeds at delivering value, a decent camera, class-leading internals and beautiful design for the low price is certainly tempting - if flat-out performance at a low price is what you want, the Redmi Note 9 Pro delivers the best bang-for-the-buck
- However, the Realme 6 out-specs the Redmi Note 9 Pro with its high refresh-rate 90Hz display panel, as well as the inclusion of a 64MP camera that genuinely takes better images, and the phone supports faster 30W charging as well
