It seems there’s no stopping the Chinese giant as yet another mid-range phablet, the Xiaomi Redmi Pro, found its way to Philippine shores to try and take a chunk off the market share. Aside from the dual lens, dual main camera setup of the Redmi Pro, what other features are worth looking at? We find this out on our in-depth review.
The very first thing you’ll notice is the obvious lack of a camera bump on the Redmi Pro’s flat back. It’s brushed aluminum that tapers off to the edge to meet the elevated front panel with subtle chamfering of the edges for extra grip. It’s all slightly slippery and cool to the touch with noticeable heft that veers away from making you think you’re holding a mid-ranged smartphone.
The uni-body brushed metal is a step away from the Redmis of old that utilized plastic that leads to dings and scratches from daily usage.
The elevated front panel is protected by a 2.5D scratch resistant glass covering the ambient light sensor, LED notification, and 5MP camera on top and the backlit capacitive keys flanking the fingerprint sensor embedded home button.
The volume rocker sits above the power button on the right panel and the hybrid dual nano-sim tray can be found on the opposite end.
The 3.5mm audio jack is housed above beside the IR blaster and its dual bottom firing speakers flanking the USB type C charging slot to round out the ports.
The fingerprint scanner works fast and quite accurate though not as fast as those that can be found on flagship devices. This can be achieved by pressing the home button from a locked screen. We got 8 out of 10 successful attempts through our testing which should give you a good idea of how accurate this is.
Xiaomi opted to go with a 5.5inch QHD OLED display that produces bright and punchy colors with some struggles when being viewed under direct sunlight but still a good improvement over previous models of the Redmi.
An obvious interesting choice for the Redmi Pro is the main dual cameras setup at the back. The first or the main shooter is a Sony 13MP camera and the bottom one is a 5MP Samsung camera. The purpose of the second shooter is for depth of field that adds blur to parts of the image not being focused on. This can be achieved through Xiaomi’s proprietary camera app through a slider to give you some handle on focusing.
The dual camera setup is good in taking daylight shots focusing on natural colors leaning on blues and yellows for some scenarios.
HDR mode improved on the experience a little bit but the difference is very minimal. The Redmi struggles in low light shots, however, with red and green noises apparent in the final image output and the occasional blur.
Selfies are average on the 5MP front facing the camera with Xiaomi adding some post processing magic that smooths out the face resulting is an awkwardly taken selfie.
Videos max out at 1080p at 30fps with average overall performance especially with the lack of OIS that make videos stutter and shake.
While we’re at it, the MiUi is a hit or a miss depending on the user. The aesthetics agree with some converting from an iDevice and fails for Android fanatics with the absence of an app drawer. Some of the animations feel sluggish like the calling up power options, for example, but it comes down to personal taste and preference.
Underneath all of the refreshed aesthetics is a Mediatek Decacore Helio X20, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of onboard storage with an option to expand for the base model that we received. We were told there will be 2 more versions that employ the Helio X25, 64GB of internal memory and 3GB of RAM and the Pro-Pro version with an extra GB of RAM, Helio X25 processor, and 128GB of storage.
Clocked in at 2.1ghz and 3GB of RAM our review unit whizzed through our daily task with ease. The Marshmallow skinned MiUi, however, ate up some of the RAM that slowed when demanding apps were queued and this is more apparent when multitasking is needed. It can, however, play NBA 2K16 set on max settings so that should give you a good benchmark in the playtime department.
You’ll be glad to hear Xiaomi bumped up the battery to a whopping 4,000 mAh that can last you the whole day easily. The absence of quick charging will mean waiting a painful 1 hour 50 minutes for a full charge on its 2amp power brick.
Speakers were loud with a tiny bit of struggle on full blast and being placed at the bottom mean it will impede immersing yourself in full entertainment mode. All in all above average speakers on a mid-ranged smartphone.
Expected to retail at P13,500 official price ($280 US) for the base model, Xiaomi placed their mid-ranged phablet at a competitive edge against others in the same tier.
All in all, a good choice for people looking into performing budget phones with some nifty tricks.
+ Metal design
+ Solid battery life
+ Snappy performance
+ Affordable pricing
– Camera struggles at night
– Selfie cam is mediocre
– MI UI is dated
ManilaShaker is a tech media producing insightful and helpful content for our local and growing international audience. Our goal is to create a premier Philippine digital consumer electronics resource that provides the most objective reviews and comparisons globally.
Keith says:
hi po ask ko lang po kung meron po kayo available LCD para dito sa unit na to??
julieta chua says:
I mean with Xiaomi, you get what you paid for. Good product
pol says:
QHD ba siya or FullHD? Also, nagwowork ba sa LTE ng globe and smart especially sa newest frequencies?
Paul Ponce Aya-ay says:
Waaaa! Ang pangit ng camera. Deal breaker. Hanap ng iba. Mahal pero parang Meizu M2 Note lang camera nito eh. Mas maganda pa nga ata phone ko dito base sa cam. Zzzzz
Jcleofas says:
ang hirap naman ijustify ng camera nito, due to mediocre shots sa review na to, 🙁
Jade Jardinico says:
That’s the con to Redmi products lately ;D