Redmi Note 9 Pro: A champion midranger

When we talk about the mid-range smartphone market, it is difficult to not mention Xiaomi phones in the mix. And true to this trend, one of their latest phones to cause a stir in the under-Tk30,000 market is the Redmi Note 9 Pro.

Two of the phone's key features are the big 5000+mAh battery and the quad-camera setup at the back with a 64-megapixel primary shooter. But, do these two features on paper make this phone a must-buy in the mid-range market? Let us dive into the full review.

Design

With a big frame of 165.8x76.7x8.8 mm, the phone has Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and back but has a plastic frame around the sides. It gives a phone a pretty premium, shiny look but can easily become a fingerprint magnet, so, using a cover would be essential.

The Note 9 Pro also has your usual ports along with a 3.5 mm jack and FM radio and IR blaster as well - connectivity features that are often missing from much more expensive flagships - which is a pleasant surprise.

The phone houses its fingerprint reader on the right side of the phone on top of the power and lock button which can be a bit wobbly and finicky and not the fastest either. The phone also is splash proof, so, using it under the rain is not impossible but submerging it underwater might not be the best idea.

Display

The phone houses a 6.67-inch IPS LCD screen which is of 1080 x 2400-pixel resolution and supports HDR10. While phones in this price bracket have switched to AMOLED screens, the IPS panel is capable of producing nice colours and sharp images.

The phone offers a 2.2 deltaE score when the display is under the "Standard Contrast" setting, and the closer this is to zero, the more colour accurate the screen is.

The colours aside, the phone's display is capable of lighting up to an impressive 616 nits under direct sunlight, which made viewing things possible no matter what. As it is an LCD panel, the phone does have some colour shifting when viewed at an angle and it does shift around the punch-hole of the front facing camera.

The top of the display has the earphone grille which is super thin and there is also a tiny notifications LED light in there, which is pretty nifty.

Performance

The phone is packed with a Snapdragon 720G chipset which is not the most powerful around but it does the job.

To get into the specifications and raw numbers, it is an octa-core chipset with 2x2.3 GHz Kryo Gold and 6x1.8 Ghz Kryo Silver cores. It has an Adreno 618 GPU and is packed with 6 GB of RAM, which makes gaming and multitasking a breeze.

However, playing high-end games on the highest settings might not be possible and there are occasional stutters and lags in the UI when navigating, but that is mostly down to the software we feel.

Speaking of software, the phone is packed with Android 10 with MIUI 11 on top and this is a pretty useful but clutter-free software.

You will get nice features such as screen recording within the drop down menu and there is a dedicated gaming software built in to enhance your phone's performance and to also multitask in apps like Facebook and WhatsApp while gaming, which is a very cool feature.

The 5020mAh battery easily lasts over 100 hours on moderate usage and can last up to eight hours on gaming, which is a super impressive score and by far, one of the best battery performances of any smartphone out there.

That is coupled with a 30W fast charger; it means, you can charge your phone from 0-80 percent in just 30 minutes!

Camera

The Note 9 Pro has four cameras at the back - a 64MP primary camera, an 8MP ultrawide camera, a 5MP macro camera, and a 2MP depth sensor. The phone can shoot up 2k videos at 30fps and 1080p videos at 120fps which are all impressive on paper.

In real life, the photos produced by the phone are quite impressive and even under low light, the phone manages to capture decent photos. As far as videos go, it is more of the same and those looking for a good camera phone in this price range will not be disappointed.

There is a front facing 16MP selfie camera as well and that can also shoot 1080p videos at 30 fps but it is not as impressive as the back cameras.

Competition 

The Galaxy M31, Huawei P40 Lite, and the Realme 6 are phones that offer more or less similar specs at around the same price and will definitely be phones that one will want to consider before buying the Note 9 Pro.

But, overall, if you want excellent battery life and a camera that is better than average at this price, the Note 9 Pro is the way to go.

Priced at around Tk26,000, we give this a solid 4 out of 5 stars.