Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro/9 ProMax review
The Redmi Note lineup has been an essential pillar in Xiaomi’s smartphone business and rightfully so as it ranks highly on the bang-for-buck scale. Now, in their ninth generation, the Redmi Notes are as attractive as ever, but the maker did not make it easy on the consumers by adopting a rather confusing naming convention.
Design
The Redmi Note 9 Pro is your typical glass sandwich specimen, this time around with a punch-hole for the selfie camera and a black square for the quad-camera on the back. Xiaomi has opted out of the gradients and whatnot, and the phone is painted in one solid color, be it Tropical Green, Glacier White, or Interstellar Gray. There is a noticeable black chin under the 6.67″ IPS LCD panel, but other than that – you will be enjoying one large and bright screen with cinematic 20:9 aspect. The punch hole for the 16MP selfie camera is centered around the top and Xiaomi likes to brag with the Note 9 Pro symmetrical design.
Display
The Redmi Note 9 Pro packs a large 6.67″ IPS LCD display with a punch-hole notch at the top. The resolution is extended 1080p – 2,400 x 1,080 pixels – making for a 395ppi density and 20:9 aspect ratio. A piece of Gorilla Glass 5 keeps the screen safe.The backlighting around the round notch is uneven, and that is easily visible on bright backgrounds. Such uneven backlighting is a glaring disadvantage of the LCD panels when compared to OLEDs.
Camera
The main camera uses a 64 MP sensor with a Quad-Bayer filter, probably the ISOCELL Bright GW1 sensor by Samsung. It’s a large sensor with 0.8µm pixels, and the lens has f/1.9 aperture. The image output after the pixel binning is 16MP.The 119-degree ultrawide-angle camera has an 8MP sensor with an f/2.2 aperture. There is automatic distortion correction applied when necessary, but you can opt-out of it. Then there’s the 5MP macro camera with 1.12µm pixels and lens with f/2.4 aperture. Autofocus is available, which is a rarity among those type of snappers and much appreciated. The last camera on the back is the 2MP depth sensor.
Performance
The Redmi Note 9 Pro runs on the Snapdragon 720G chipset, just like the Redmi Note 9S and the Realme 6 Pro. The SoC uses an octa-core CPU in a 2+6 configuration – 2×2.3GHz Kryo 465 Gold (Cortex-A76 derivative) cores and 6×1.8GHz Kryo 465 Silver (Cortex-A55 derivative) cores. The GPU in this chip is Adreno 618 – the same one found in the Snapdragon 730.
Battery life and Storage
The Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro is powered by a large 5,020mAh Li-ion battery. It supports 30W quick charge, and the Note ships with a 30W charger. It will replenish about 80% of its dead battery in 30 mins. The Redmi Note Pro is available only with 6GB RAM in both storage configurations – 64GB and 128GB.
