Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro review : Is this Note worth the price and the best till date?

Xiaomi brings out the best Note with a larger screen and a gaming-centric chipset.

The Redmi lineup of smartphones from Xiaomi has gained a lot of success ever since its launch, one being the Note series. In the mid-range segment, there are many smartphones giving competition to the Redmi Note series. The Redmi Note series provides the best combination of design, performance, and battery life.

Last year the Redmi Note 7 Pro was launched with a 48MP camera and came with one of the best mid-range chipset the Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 at Rs.13,999 which made the device out of stock on online as the smartphone sold at a huge number.

Realme and Samsung are holding a strong foothold in the mid-range segment so Xiaomi had to pull the latest Note series giving some serious competition.

Realme XT was launched at Rs.15,999 that sports a 64MP camera and Samsung came with the M30s which sports a 6000mAh battery. Xiaomi launched the Redmi Note 8 Pro but this time with a gaming-centric Mediatek chipset.

So we will look at the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro and see is this the best Note made by Xiaomi to date?

Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro Design:

Like the last year Redmi Note 7 Pro, the Redmi Note 8 Pro also comes with a glass design on the front as well as back. This time the Redmi Note 8 Pro packs a larger screen at 6.53 inches compared to the Redmi Note 7 Pro which packed a 6.3 inches display.

On the front, there is a waterdrop notch which houses the front camera. The earpiece sits on top of the camera with the proximity and ambient sensors. On the top, there is a secondary noise-canceling microphone with an IR blaster to control televisions, refrigerators, etc.

The side frame of the Redmi Note 8 Pro is made of plastic but it looks premium. On the sides of the smartphone, there are volume controls with the power button and the SIM trays. You get a dedicated microSD card slot for expansion.

On the back, the Redmi Note 8 Pro houses quad cameras to the back, and under the cameras is the fingerprint scanner which is quite fast and accurate. The macro camera is under the LED flash whereas the 64MP camera and other three cameras are in the middle of the back.

There isn't any IP rating for the smartphone but Xiaomi claims it as splashproof means it can be used during rain or any liquid spills, the smartphone would work fine. At 200gms, the Redmi Note 8 Pro weighs a bit little as it packs a larger 4500mAh battery.

At the bottom, there is a loudspeaker vent with a USB Type-C slot and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Xiaomi ships the Redmi Note 8 Pro with an 18W fast charger in the box. The build of the Redmi Note 8 Pro is quite good but since it has a glass back it is slippery. Though Xiaomi provides a plastic case in the box.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro Display:

The Redmi Note 8 Pro features a 6.5 inches full HD+ panel with (1080 x 2340 pixels) with a screen-to-body ratio of 19.5:9. The display is larger compared to last year's Redmi Note 7 Pro and also some of its rivals like the Realme XT, Samsung M30s, etc. This time Xiaomi has gone for a drew drop notch instead of U-Notch on the Redmi Note 7 Pro.

The screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 and supports HDR content which is very rare to find on a smartphone at this range. The screen is very good with good color accuracy and becomes bright when taken under direct sunlight.

At night the screen can go very dim as the brightness levels are well-calibrated not putting pressure on the human eyes as you have also the option of Blue Light filter.

The screen on the Redmi Note 8 Pro supports Widevine L1 so you can stream HD content using Amazon Prime, Hotstar, Netflix, etc. The Chinese variant of the Redmi Note 8 Pro lacks this feature. The Redmi Note 8 Pro does lack an AMOLED screen that is found on the similarly priced Realme XT but the bright LCD display does make it look good.

Overall the Redmi Note 8 Pro offers very good multimedia and viewing experience in all conditions.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro Performance:

The Redmi Note 8 Pro now sports a Mediatek Helio G90T chipset instead of any Snapdragon counterpart like the earlier Redmi Note 7 Pro. It is a gaming-centric chipset from Mediatek which houses an octa-core configuration where 2x2.05 GHz Cortex-A76 cores & 6x2.0 GHz Cortex-A55 cores coupled with a Mali G76 MC4 GPU built on a 12nm process. This chipset is still more energy-efficient and powerful than some Snapdragon 10nm chipsets.

The smartphone comes in three RAM and storage variants namely 6GB RAM and 64GB storage, 6GB RAM and 128GB storage, and 8GB RAM and 128GB storage. There is also the support of microSD expansion as it has a dedicated microSD card slot. All variants of the Redmi Note 8 Pro come with UFS 2.1 storage.

The Mali G76 GPU takes care of most of the tasks easily and provides a smoother experience throughout for normal usage and also while gaming. Hyper Engine Technology provides good gameplay when dealing with heavier games and also improves WiFi and LTE for a more stable and faster connection.

The smartphone is good at multitasking as it can easily breeze through most of the light to heavily intensive applications easily. On various benchmarks like Antutu, it scored 224769 which is almost close to last year's flagship Snapdragon 845 and above then the Snapdragon 712 powering the Realme XT.

Coming to gaming performance, Xiaomi claims that the Redmi Note 8 Pro comes with a gaming-centric chipset that is the Helio G90T, it should handle all the games easily. PUBG, Asphalt 9 Extreme, Call of Duty all ran smoothly with ease and the temperature at the back of the smartphone was well maintained as the Redmi Note 8 Pro came with a liquid cooling system like the Xiaomi POCO F1 which is having last year's flagship Snapdragon 845 and is priced at Rs.15,999.

Overall the performance of the Redmi Note 8 Pro is really good at this price segment which will give the smartphone a run for its money-making a true gaming-centric smartphone.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro Software:

The Redmi Note 8 Pro runs MIUI 10 out of the box built on top of Android 9 Pie. MIUI 11 update has been released for the Redmi Note 8 Pro and is around the corners. This time with the Redmi Note 8 Pro brings system-wide dark mode, game turbo for enhanced gaming, and does still provide ads on its user interface but you can easily disable ads from the settings option.

It offers a dedicated reading mode for reading in the night and the system-wide dark mode does conserve battery. The face unlocks on the Redmi Note 8 Pro is very fast and reliable as it unlocks the smartphone within a second.

With MIUI you get a lot of themes and customizations and the battery life is also very well optimized for all small to heavy applications. Xiaomi has claimed that the Redmi Note 8 Pro will soon get the Android 10 update which will bring a lot of improvements to the smartphone.

Digital Wellbeing is one feature that wasn't available with Android 9 Pie is available in the Redmi Note 8 Pro as it shows the complete usage of the device and shows how much battery each application uses.

Xiaomi provides good software and security updates to its smartphones and with the Redmi Note 8 Pro having a powerful chipset, the software is much faster and better.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro Camera:

The Redmi Note 8 Pro has significantly bumped up in cameras compared to last year's Redmi Note 7 Pro. Last year the Redmi Note 7 Pro came with a 48MP Sony IMX586 camera which was seen in many of the smartphones this year in mid-range smartphones as well in some flagships.

This time the Redmi Note 8 Pro packs four cameras to the rear: 64MP Samsung GW1 sensor f/1.9 being the main camera, 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide lens for wider shots, 2MP f/2.4 macro lens, 2MP f/2.4 depth sensor for portraits. This same camera setup is found on the Realme XT.

However, both the smartphones miss out on the telephoto lens. The Redmi Note 8 Pro provides Panorama, Pro, Short Video, Slow Motion, Portrait, and Night Modes along with the 64MP shooting mode in the camera software.

The photos taken from the main camera came out to be good with good color saturation in the background. The images do oversharpen a bit but still, it captures good photos in daylight with good detail.

The photos took with the Redmi Note 8 Pro came out to be better than that of the Realme XT as it had lesser noise in the background and the colors looked more natural than on the Realme XT. Coming at night, the Redmi Note 8 Pro comes with a dedicated Night Mode which makes the color in the objects in the photos look punchy and well detailed.

The images taken at the night look good but in certain places, the contrast gets a hit which will be improved in a further update. When the images were taken in 16MP mode, there was less noise in the images but didn't quite match the quality of the 64MP images. You can easily switch between cameras on the Redmi Note 8 Pro.

Coming to the ultrawide camera, the photos taken from this camera came out to be good but some photos turned out to be soft and the dynamic range isn't as good as one on the main camera. In terms of color and contrast, lots need to be improved. At night, the photos came out to be well detailed using the dedicated Night Mode and with the HDR on the main camera and the ultrawide camera shoot good and detailed shots.

The 2MP macro lens worked well most of the time as there were good contrast and dynamic range. There was proper background blur and the edge detection worked well. When zoomed in, the photos do get a hit but still, it is a good macro camera.

Coming to portraits, the Redmi Note 8 Pro took some really good portraits with good natural-looking skin tones, wider dynamic range, and proper background blur.

The front camera on the Redmi Note 8 Pro is a 20MP that takes very good photos with a wider field of view. Now coming to portraits from the front camera, they come to be good though the edge detection needs improvement overall the front camera on the Redmi Note 8 Pro is good.

Coming to videos, the Redmi Note 8 Pro supports 4k video recording at 30fps. The smartphone also supports slow-motion video recording which can go as high as 960fps at 720p but there is a certain lack of detail at that resolution. Xiaomi will fix that issue in a future software update. At 1080p at 60fps, the videos come out to be well detailed and stabilized.

The dynamic range is very good and with the HDR turned on the videos come out to be great at 1080p. At 4k the videos come out to be good but there is little bit loss in detail and the stabilization isn't that great. With the ultrawide camera, the 1080p videos come out to be good with a good level of detail.

Overall the cameras are very good for the smartphone at this range. The cameras are better than the one on the Realme XT but in some areas it needs improvement.

 Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro Battery Life:

This year the Redmi Note 8 Pro gets a massive 4500mAh battery which is 500mAh more than that of the Redmi Note 7 Pro. This results in good battery life overall as compared to its predecessor. The smartphone supports 14hrs of video playback and a screen on time of 5-6 hrs which is very good in our opinion.

When used on a normal basis the phone breezes through all applications easily and with high usage that includes heavy gaming, viewing videos, etc. there is a 20-30 percent left at the end of the day. This time the Redmi Note 8 Pro comes with an 18W fast charger which charges the smartphone to 62 percent in just half an hour and to 100 percent within 2hrs.

It also supports USB Type-PD charging which means the Redmi Note 8 Pro can be charged fast using a cable with power banks. The battery life on the Redmi Note 8 Pro is a slight improvement from the last year's Redmi Note 7 Pro.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro Sound Quality:

The Redmi Note 8 Pro houses only a single downwards firing loudspeaker which sounds loud and good. The audio quality is good and the smartphone comes with Dolby Atmos which instances the audio quality even better.

It gets the 3.5mm headphone jack which gives a very good output.

The Redmi Note 8 Pro comes with a built-in Alexa support through which you can play the Alexa and can wake up using the commands. That is a good feature and the Google Assistant also works very well.

Verdict:

Overall the Redmi Note 8 Pro is a good option for the smartphone users at the 15k. The Redmi Note 8 Pro starts at Rs.14,999 for the 6GB RAM and 64GB storage, Rs.15,999 for the 6GB RAM and 128GB storage and Rs.17,999 for the 8GB RAM and 128GB storage both on Mi.com and Flipkart making good value for money option.

Sure there are many rivals at this range like the Realme XT which has a lot going for it as it has an AMOLED screen, in-display fingerprint scanner, and faster VOOC charging. Samsung M30s is also a very strong smartphone with that 6000mAh battery and an AMOLED screen at this range.

What works for the Redmi Note 8 Pro is the new glass design, quad cameras to the back and the most interesting is the gaming-centric chipset Mediatek Helio G90T which is the absolute chipset for gaming at this price range. If gaming is your priority then the Redmi Note 8 Pro is the smartphone for you.

Overall the smartphone offers good build, good battery life, and exceptional performance. With a good price tag starting at Rs.14,999, it will surely make a huge sale in the market and fill the gap where its predecessor the Redmi Note 7 Pro left.