Redmi note 5: The phone you need to know about

Xiaomi has been undoubtedly ruling the Indian smartphones’ market. The Redmi series of the Xiaomi has been a great hit for the company. Also, the Redmi note 4 became the highest selling phone in the country last year.

Xiaomi has gained great popularity in the Indian markets so much so that it has dethroned Samsung to become the number one smartphone seller in the country. With the sales numbers of Xiaomi Redmi note 4 thrashing all the previous records, the phone became a milestone in the history of Indian smartphone market. Mi has now decided to launch the successor to this great phone almost after a year it launched note 4. Indeed, the new Mi note has got huge shoes to fit in.

Mi has been consistently coming up to the expectations of the Indian users, but would it be able to replicate the same this time with Redmi note 5, is the question we will try to answer here.

The 18:9 Display

The first thing that will grab your attention in this phone is its 5.99 inches, 1080X2160px resolution display. Most of the front is covered by the display which is a little larger when compared to its predecessors. At the top of the front, it has a metallic earpiece for voice calls and a selfie camera equipped with diffused LED flash. The ends of its back panel are covered with plastic for better antenna reception.

A Well Built Phone

The phone is narrow and tall in its looks and weighs 180g which is not much given the size of the phone. With that being said, it is essential to mark that the extra size and some extra grams not at all make this device difficult to handle. It fits and works quite well even with one hand. Though, people with smaller hands may find their fingers and thumbs stretching too much while using the device.

The power button and the volume rockers are fitted on the right while the hybrid sim slot is provided on the left of the phone. One can use the hybrid slot to put either 2 sim cards or a combination of one sim card and one MicroSD card. The power button is placed on the right at a very comfortable reach but the volume buttons will need you to stretch your thumb a bit.

At the bottom of the phone, you have a micro-USB port, and not a type C port, which is gradually becoming the norm for the smartphones nowadays. Speakers are also placed at the bottom of the phone. Speaking of the top, there a 3.5 mm Jack and an IR blaster which can be used to control IR based appliances.

At the back, we didn’t find any surprises and the new Mi note 5 looks pretty similar to its predecessor. It has the rear camera supported by a dual tone LED flash. Also, it has a fingerprint sensor placed just below the rear camera. The new note is also a bit thinner when compared to earlier notes by Xiaomi. Finally, one can expect a well built phone in the Mi note 5.

Almost The same old yet reliable hardware

The phone is powered by a snapdragon 625 octa-core processor, clocked at 2.0 GHz, the phone has eight cortex A53 cores. For the graphics support, note 5 has Adreno 506 GPU.

The phone ships in two variants, the 3GB RAM-32GB ROM Variant for INR 9,999 and one with 4GB RAM-64GB ROM for INR 11,999.
The phone has a 12 megapixels rear camera with a camera lens of f/2.2 Aperture equipped with face detection and auto focus. Xiaomi has used a 4000 mAh battery for the note 5 which is 100mAh short of the Redmi note 4. The phone supports quick charging but you will need to spend some extra bucks for a compatible charger. The note 5 runs on Android Nougat 7.1.2 with a layer of MIUI 9 on its top. It is all familiar for the Mi users but the new users may take a while to get used to the interface.

The Redmi note 5 comes with quality hardware but with almost nothing new on the software front. One considerable point in the new note is its larger and better display which helps it turning into a great media player. The note 5 plays all the formats of videos with any glitches and the 4000mAh battery supports the phone well.

Camera Performance

Speaking of the cameras, both the rear and the front camera worked well even in low light conditions. The photos taken in daylight are detailed and the camera manages to get the exposure right. The camera is quick to focus. With the HDR mode enabled, you get better details in the darker areas but the areas with light appear burnt out.

New note 5: Bigger size, smaller changes

Xiaomi has been very innovative with its Redmi series. Relying upon great hardware at an affordable price, Mi’s note series seems to have won the hearts of the Indians. With the new note 5, Mi seems to have avoid taking the risks and has banked upon the same old, tried and tested Mantra of affordable yet durable.