Smartphone brands have been on a launch spree lately and we have been seeing back to back smartphone launches from various brands in India. On similar lines, Xiaomi’s Redmi brand has launched the Redmi Note 9 Series and this comes almost after 5 months of the launch of Redmi Note 8 Series. At an online event today, Redmi India launched two new smartphones – Redmi Note 9 Pro and Redmi Note 9 Pro Max. We got the Redmi Note 9 Pro and here’s our first impressions of the same. Check out our unboxing of Redmi Note 9 Pro (in Tamil) here.
Unboxing Video (in Tamil)
Box Contents
- Redmi Note 9 Pro smartphone 6GB + 128GB in Interstellar Black color
- USB Type-C Cable
- 18W charger (5V-3A/9V/2A/12V-1.5A)
- SIM Ejector tool
- Protective case
- User manual and warranty information
Design and Display
Redmi Note 9 Pro features a glass sandwich design and has Gorilla Glass 5 protection on the front and back. The button placements are similar to Redmi Note 8 Pro except the position of the fingerprint scanner. The volume rockers and the power button are located to the right and this time around, the power button houses the fingerprint scanner, just like the POCO X2. The USB Type-C port, primary microphone, 3.5mm audio jack, and speaker grill are present at the bottom. The left side houses the Dual SIM + microSD card tray and the top part houses the IR blaster and the secondary microphone. The design of the camera module has changed from the Note 8 Pro and this time, the Note 9 Pro packs back quad rear cameras housed in a squared camera module (with a noticeable bump) along with a LED flash.
The Redmi Note 9 Pro flaunts a 6.67-inch (2400 × 1080 pixels) 20:9 Full HD+ LCD Display with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection and 60fps refresh rate. Lately, OEMs are doing away with notch display and going with a hole-punch display, and on similar lines, Redmi Note 9 Pro packs a centered punch-hole display. Honestly, this looks a lot better than the notch display and offers an immersive experience (to an extent at least). It can play HDR content on YouTube, has Widevine L1 certification and can play FULL HD contents out of the box on NetFlix and Amazon Prime. In our initial impressions, the display quality seemed good with vibrant colors and detail. Having said that, we will reserve our verdict on the display in our full review.
The all-new Snapdragon 720G Mobile Platform!
Redmi Note 9 Pro is powered by the new Octa-Core Snapdragon 720G 8nm Mobile Platform (Dual 2.3GHz Kryo 465 A76 + Hexa 1.8GHz Kryo 465 A55 CPUs) with Adreno 618 GPU. It is paired with up to 6GB LPDDR4X RAM with up to 128GB UFS 2.1 storage and the storage can be expanded up to 256GB with microSD.
It runs on MIUI 11 based on Android 10 out of the box with the February security patch. Snapdragon 720G Mobile Platform has been introduced recently and is positioned below the Snapdragon 730G Mobile Platform. Snapdragon 720G brings in support for NavIC (The Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System) and you can check out the image which shows the number of satellites displayed in the GNSS Test App. Moving on, we have to test the Snapdragon 720G’s performance on the Redmi Note 9 Pro thoroughly before coming to a conclusion and we will have to say reserve our verdict in our full review.
Camera and Battery
The Redmi Note 9 Pro sports quad rear cameras and are a combination of 48MP (primary) Samsung ISOCELL GM2 with f/1.79 aperture + 8MP 120° ultra-wide-angle lens + 5MP 2cm macro lens + 2MP depth sensor. The primary 48MP sensor has a 0.8μm pixel size, supports PDAF and EIS. The front-facing camera is 16MP shooter and in terms of video recording, it is capped at 4K at 30fps (rear). We will have to say more about the cameras in our full review.
The Note 9 Pro packs a larger 5020mAh battery with support for 18W fast charging and the fast charger comes bundled in-box.
Pricing and Availability
The Redmi Note 9 Pro comes in Interstellar Black, Aurora Blue, and Glacier White colors starts at Rs. 12,999 for the 4GB RAM with 64GB storage version and will be available from Amazon.in, Mi.com and Mi Home Stores starting from 17th March.