For anyone who has a grouse with the Redmi Note 5 not coming with enough of a change over the previous version, step up the budget a notch and think of the Redmi Note 5 Pro instead. Confusing as this salvo of smartphones from Xiaomi may get, you can’t go terribly wrong with them as they have proved themselves to last out pretty well.
Still, the Note 5 Pro does come with some enticements. First, despite being roughly the same size and weight as the Note 5, it feels much better to hold in the hand, though taller. Its rounded sides somehow make it easier to grip and give it the impression of being slimmer than it is. The 5.99 inch LCD screen has been updated here as well to get that 18:9 ratio that is quickly becoming standard and soon won’t be a talking point unless it’s absent. The 2160x1080 pixels display is quite vivid and bright with strong colours. Xiaomi’s phones are among the few that let you increase the text size to XXL in case the purchase is for someone elderly or someone who can’t see that well. Very helpful, along with the reading mode, if you’re going to consume a lot of text. There’s good loud sound from 5 Pro’s speaker so gaming and video is pretty good on this device. This better-of-the-two Redmis comes with the Snapdragon 636 platform and Qualcomm’s 260 Kryo cores — and yes, it feels faster even though I checked out the version with 4 GB of RAM not the 6 GB that’s also available as a variant. In fact, the 4 GB version happens to be a better value-for-money proposition. There’s 64 GB of storage onboard and additional if you give up one of the two SIMs possible and use a memory card. That arrangement is a bit of a crib with many, but I would say you can’t have everything at the price.
The highly customised MIUI interface that Xiaomi uses doesn’t seem to be getting in the way of its blazing speed and nor does the fact that it isn’t running on Android Oreo, which is still a pity as that brings some features techies will miss. MIUI comes with a lot of useful features like Second Space with which you can install two instances of certain apps, tap to wake, and other gesture features. There’s also a ton of Mi apps, from themes to community forums and more. The whole suite of Microsoft apps is there, though that’s among the ones you can uninstall. Many of us like to have a brand new phone that’s more of a clean slate, but that is not to be.
The highlight on the Redmi 5 Pro is its camera. It has a rear dual camera set (12 MP and 5 MP) to get that portrait photography — photos with focused foregrounds and creamy blurred backgrounds — that has become so hyped by phone companies these days. There’s a separate Portrait mode that works when you’re in good enough light and at the right distance from the subject, but there’s a decent amount of blur that you get even without that. The 1.25m sensor captures more light than with previous phones in the series. Colours are good. But it’s the selfie camera that’s been given special attention seeing as this is India, selfie-lover land. The front camera is a 20 MP with a Sony sensor. There’s also a special flash to light up your face in darker places. An adjustable Beautify mode ensures you look as flawless as you want to be. I found the colours a little wanting with the front camera with everything feeling a little too lit up and over-exposed or improperly white-balanced. But it’s not bad. Unfortunately, the manual mode on this phone is just perfunctory and you can’t really control much.
The Note 5 Pro has a hefty 4,000 mAh battery for all-day and more battery life.
Price: ₹13,999 (4 GB) ₹16,999 (6 GB)
Pros: Good ergonomics despite a little weight, very fast performance, very good camera for the price, bright thin-bezels display Cons: No Android 8, bare bones camera app with cursory manual mode, no 4K recording, no fast charging, disappointing absence of USB Type C