Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 - Best Budget Phone 2020

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These days we've been seeing a lot of shell meas Redmi note phones and the latest we'll talk about is the Redmi Note 9. The Redmi Note lineup this year is a bit confusing. We have the Redmi Note 9 s also known as the Note 9 Pro in India then there's the global Redmi Note 9 Pro aka the indian Redmi Note 9 Pro Max and finally here is the Redmi Note 9. It doesn't stray too far looks-wise from his cousins though you'll notice the punch hole cutout is in the corner here ours is in forest green miss slightly curved back seems like glass. But we're not sure of the material the frame is plastic though it doesn't feel cheap and there's even some water repellent coating on the phone's. Internals the Note 9 is well balanced and comfy in hand. But a bit on the heavy side perhaps due to its large battery one small complaint. We have is that the power button and volume rocker as well as a fingerprint reader on the back are placed a bit too high.

If you have larger hands this isn't much of a problem besides the slightly off placement. The scanner works great it's fast accurate and reliable to wake up and unlock the phone. The Redmi Note 9 screen is a 6.5 inch IPS LCD protected by Gorilla Glass 5. It is a 1080p resolution a standard 60 Hertz refresh rate and in nineteen point five by nine aspect ratio. The punch hole cut out for the selfie cam was tucked away in the upper left corner and like on other LCDs you will notice some uneven backlighting around it it's most visible when there's something white on the screen overall this LCD is alright. But we've seen better sharpness is decent in contrast is fine for a budget phone. But not great colors aren't the most accurate. But you can make them more accurate in settings it's the brightness that falls behind the competition though it goes up to only 317. It's maximum with a slider auto mode can boost it to 416. It'ss which may not be enough out in the bright Sun for audio the Redmi Note 9 has a single bottom firing loudspeaker loudness is below average here and the sound quality is a bit flat vocals sound clear enough though.

There is a 3.5 millimeter audio jack if you wanted to plug in standard headphones without need for an adapter and you shouldn't have to worry about running out of storage on the Note 9. You can opt for 64 or 128 Gigs on board and it's expandable through Micro SD the phone runs shammies latest interface miui 11 over android 10. it's a bit closer to stock android compared to previous iterations. You have the option for an app drawer to keep your apps in as well as Android style quick toggles in the notification shade and one of the major differences between this model and the Note 9s is that here you have support for NFC for wireless payments and connectivity you also get an IR blaster on the Redmi Note 9. Which lets you control certain appliances through the phone the Redmi Note 9 runs on a Helio G85 chipset unlike the Snapdragon chips. You'll find on the Note 9 Pro or Note 9 s granted it is a small upgrade over the previous Helio G80 and it's a power efficient chip but the CPU and GPU scores fall behind the Snapdragon powered competition and the overall performance.

Here isn't as solid whether in games or just everyday tasks battery life is just as great here is on the Note 9s. The Redmi Note 9 has a large 5 thousand milliamp hour battery and is scored an outstanding endurance rating of 125 hours in our proprietary tests. The phone ships with a 22 point 5 watt charger the the Note 9s charging limit is 18 watts charging speed is rather slow in 30 minutes. We were able to charge the phone from 0 to 31 percent there is a unique feature here though. You can use the Redmi Note 9 as a power bank to charge another device at 9 watts, maybe this could be useful in a pinch now on to the Note 9s Quad camera setup it's nearly the same as that on the Note 9s there's a 48 Megapixel Quad bear main cam an 8 Megapixel Ultra wide and a 2 Megapixel Depth sensor however the macro camera here is a 2 Megapixel unit rather than five and it has autofocus 12 Megapixel shots taken with the main camera are decent with good sharpness in well-lit areas and lively colors however.

The detail is a bit behind the competition darker areas are a bit soft and the dynamic range leaves more to be desired two times zoom photos have identical processing to the main camera as they're just a crop from it due to the upscaling the pictures appear noisier softer and the edges are jagged. If you look close enough portraits are taken with the main cam and the depth sensor these require a lot of lights but in good conditions they come out quite nice with natural skin tones decent dynamic range and good subject separation the ultra wide cameras 8 Megapixel photos are noticeably softer and noisier than the main cams dynamic range isn't great either highlights look clipped and details. Get lost in the shadows at least the barrel distortion correction is on point here shots with the macro cam are good. The autofocus is great to have it makes it a breeze to get your close-up photos to come out sharp at just 2 Megapixels the detail level is in the greatest but we're still happy at this price point it's funny. But it seems like the Note 9s main camera is more competitive at night than during the day we were impressed by the dynamic range. We got at this price and the contrasting colors look nice too you do get plenty of noise though and a general softness. But that's to be expected here we recommend night mode which makes a great improvement the noise is still there. But the dynamic range and sharpness are vastly improved. There's even more detail in the dark and highlights are well contained.

Unfortunately we can't say much good about the Ultra Wide Camera at night photos will quit they are out-of-focus muddy and noisy with washed out colors and there's no night mode to make things better selfies are taken with the 13 Megapixel front-facing can and they're ok the colors pop and the dynamic range is wide. But we weren't impressed by the sharpness or detail level here. If you're in a backlit situation though the HDR does a great job in restoring detail in the background as far as video recording goes we were disappointed here the Redmi Note 9 only supports recording and up to 1080p at 30fps clips from the main camera bit on the soft side and the dynamic range is a bit narrow the Ultra Wide 1080p video offers similar processing but it gets even softer towards the edges of the frame.

So that's the Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 you get a pretty sturdy design chart-topping battery life and some pretty versatile cameras for the price which is just around 180 Euros. However this price is quite similar to phones like the Redmi Note 9s and others which improve upon the Note 9 shortcomings the major ones being is lackluster chipset performance. The display that doesn't get very bright and the lack of 4k video recording. So unless you can find the Redmi Note 9 at a discount it's tough to recommend over the better equipped alternatives out there many of which also come from Xiaomi.

Price INR: 15,999 (4GBRAM + 128GBROM)

Price BDT: 19,999 (4GBRAM + 128GBROM)

Price PKR: 33,999 (4GBRAM + 128GBROM)

Price NEPAL: 22,999 (4GBRAM + 128GBROM)