Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 smartphone which is the successor of India’s best selling smartphone Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 was launched in India last month. Xiaomi has a huge fan following in India and this is the only reason that the company has a strong grip on the budget segment phones. Xioami Redmi series and Note series are the favourite ones of Indian smartphone users and that is why Xiaomi easily become the number one smartphone seller company in India surpassing the Samsung and other smartphone maker companies.
After a long gap of one year, Xioami finally launched the Redmi Note 4 successor. The successor of Redmi Note 4 was first launched in India. So it will be interesting to see whether the Redmi Note 5 will become India’s most loved phone or not. Do make a note that, Redmi Note 5 has been positioned as the elder sibling of Redmi Note 4 which recently became India’s Best Selling phone.
Design of Redmi Note 5
In the Redmi series of smartphone, Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 is the first phone that comes with 18:9 aspect ratio display. The first thing that catches the eyes is the display of the phone. The display size is 5.99 inches which is easy and comfortable to hold in hands. The display almost covers the front. There are rounded corners which also gives a dashing look to the front of the phone. The front has a thin bezel on the sides and thicker bezels on the top and bottom.
Above to it, the display is protected with a 2.5D Gorilla Glass 3. On the top of the display, there is a front camera, LED flash and sensors. The smartphone comes with a metal body. The top and the bottom of the phone has plastic caps. The volume buttons and the power buttons are on the right side of the phone while the sim card slot is on the left side. The sim card slot is a hybrid dual sim card.
The Micro USB port or the charging port is at the bottom of the phone in between the speaker grille. There are two speaker grills on the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 but only one work and other is only for show. On the top of the phone, there is a headphone jack and an IR sensor. At the back side, the design is similar to the design of the Redmi Note 4 smartphone. The rear camera is on the centre of the phone and below to it, there is a fingerprint sensor. The phone is available to purchase in different colours including Rose Gold, Blue, Black and Gold.
Redmi Note 5 Camera
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 has a 12MP camera at the back. The camera comes with a larger pixel size of 1.25um pixels and the aperture of the camera sensor is f/2.2. The camera of the phone manages to take great shots in the well light conditions. The rear camera focuses so quickly which is the perfect thing in the camera and it allows to take pictures of moving objects easily. In the low light conditions, the camera struggles and this is common in the mid-range segment phones.
For selfies and video calling, there is a 5MP camera on the front. The front camera comes with f/2.0 aperture. The camera is good to click photos in well light conditions. But in low light conditions the camera struggles. Although there is a flashlight too still it struggles to capture the perfect selfies. The front camera records videos at 1080p and the rear camera records videos at 1080p too.
Software
The new Redmi Note 5 smartphone runs on Android Nougat operating system. Over the Android Nougat operating system, the phone also has a company MIUI Layer. The phone runs on MIUI 9 which is based on Android Nougat 7.1.2 OS. This is something disappointing about the phone that the first phone of Xiaomi in 2018 does not have the Android Oreo operating system. There is no info about the upgrade of the OS to Android Oreo. The MIUI 9 has a lot of features including the split screen feature, better performance and bunch of other features too.
Storage & RAM
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 smartphone has two RAM options to get. The phone has 3GB RAM variant and the 4GB RAM variant. As for the storage of the phone is concerned the phone has 32GB storage and 64GB storage. The internal storage of the phone is expandable via microSD card. In the storage section, there is also one more thing that is disappointing and that is the storage expansion feature. The phone has hybrid sim slot in which two sim card can be used at a time or one sim and microSD card. Users will have to remove the one sim card to use the microSD card. Xiaomi Has few phones that comes with a dedicated MicroSD card slot with which users can use two sim cards with one microSD card at a time.
Processor & Battery
The smartphone is powered by a Snapdragon 625 processor. This is a good processor for a mid-range smartphone and can deliver a great performance and energy efficiency. But still, it is not like the powerhouse Snapdragon 636 which is integrated into the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro. the battery of the phone is 4000mAh which is the biggest highlight of the phone.