My cousin lives in Dubai and was coming to India so I asked him to bring me a Redmi note 5 Pro . But he said that the phone I was telling him to buy was already bought by him and was really happy with it. So it was good for me to review the phone without actually buying it. When I asked him that since when he was using this phone he said its 15 days of usage and was completely satisfied with the performance. But he did cursed the camera quality of this phone . For photography he was using an Iphone 8 plus which he bought last year. When I asked him that why did he bought this mi phone he said that he was not able to play good games that android platforms have so he bought the mi 5 pro just as a secondary phone for gaming . And he was fully satisfied with it. Yes the battery charging was taking long time to get fully charged .
He Arrived here yesterday morning and I was nothing to do else than getting this beast in my hand. I used ferociously and dig every single detail of the phone. I found it a treat for 17000bucks or say 1100 dirham as it was bought in Dubai. He forgot to bring the box and invoice so cant upload its photos. Lets start my review on the phone.
Sound reception : its not that it is not good but in mi phones the voice from the other side have some distortion in it. I dont know why it could be due to network problems but I tried three different company sims and all of them had the same problem. Ya 8t could also be possible that there are some tweaks done on this phone for its working in Dubai but I didn’t noticed any. The quality you get on Iphones samsung , and motos cannot be found on Mi phones. Specially the ones sold in India.
User friendly : The user experience of mine was good enough due to my previous mi phones experience but for a new user it would be tough to use the MiUi interfaces. But for me it was easy I would say. Though the MiUi 9 update didn’t came handy at first . The user interface is good and tacky . Its animations are good . I was satisfied with it . Although Mi A1 I has a way more better experience as it has pure android but by visual wise this one is better.
Style and design : the build quality is good and is premium to feel and holding is easy. It has round curves for easier holding but didn’t worked so well . The physical buttons are very tactile and I suffered no problem in using them . They are placed nicely to reach. The fingerprint position is as usual at the back side of the phone but it woyluld have been better to Place it in front . Except that the fingerprint was very responsive. The back panel was made of metal and feels very premium. Rhe camera has a new design interface . Yes it is purely copied from Iphone X but couldn’t outperform the beauty that Iphone X carries.
Other features : well now that every mobile brand is competing very tight now no feature is left for any brand to use. Every brand has every feature implemented in there phones. Talking about Type c port yes it has that. Talking about fast charge yes it has that. Talking about dual cameras yes it has that.
Performance : Just one word for it. SUPERB . Nothing can be thrown on it that it cannot run too smoothly. The snapdragon 636 along with 6 gb ram made me fell in love with this beast. Its gpu is bew and too strong to play any graphics intensive application on it. The processor outpergoms any smartphone in the market available. And I mean it. Any snarphone even the phones with snapdragon 820 or 821.
Camera : and this parts dissapoints me badly. The dual camera setup cannot be a magic tool for great Photography . The camera should be good. Mi could have gone with a single lens with bigger aperture to perform good . But to sell more phones abd to capture the market it opt for dual camera setup and was heavily dissapproved by me. The macros were good but the random pics we captured were bad. I was dissatisfied with it. Its literally bad . But chances are it could be resolved by a software update I think.
Value for money : it could have been placed more aggressively on its pricing as it fails to perform via camera but leaving that it is a very good product. A must to buy if you are not a camera enthusiast . But apart that It is a beast for playing graphic intensive applications and games . The 2d glass is usaual so forgot to metion above. The screen is good. Some sample shots via this phones camera are down below.