Solid Mid Range Hardware, But At that place Are Trade-Offs

As I mentioned at the start of this review, the Redmi Pro is a phone that requires some tweaks to get a decent experience outside of China. This is by far the main trade-off for those looking to import the handset: y'all may go a decent collection of hardware, just the software simply isn't set up for immediate use in North America or Europe.

And that's a shame, because autonomously from a drove of problems relating to Google integration and notifications, Xiaomi's MIUI skin does include handy functionality that expands upon what you get in stock Android. The skin is still heavy, and in that location's a ton of bloatware to contend with, simply MIUI could have been half-decent were it localized appropriately for outside of China.

There are some aspects to the Xiaomi Redmi Pro'due south hardware that are nifty. Perhaps my favorite characteristic is the design, which combines excellent brushed metallic with a fashion reminiscent of HTC's best work. I appreciate features like USB-C for charging and data transfers, and the responsive, accurate fingerprint sensor found beneath the display. The entire phone feels solid, and its premium look rivals the best flagship phones on the marketplace today in some respects.

The four,050 mAh battery delivers nifty battery life, even though the ability efficiency of this smartphone isn't particularly outstanding. Xiaomi has basically beast forced long bombardment life, and you can expect to achieve at least an entire day of moderate to heavy usage from the Redmi Pro.

While the Redmi Pro does not take the best system operation, then it'south hard to call this a high-end device, the MediaTek Helio X20 is capable enough to comfortably slot into the mid-range. Aside from in Google Chrome, where a driver consequence hampers the ten-core CPU, the X20 trades blows with Qualcomm'southward Snapdragon 650. I don't recall the inclusion of an extra 4 cores over the S650 adds much to the functioning, yet the Redmi Pro is withal faster than any Snapdragon 617 or 410 device, peculiarly in GPU workloads.

Other aspects to the hardware aren't that spectacular. NAND performance is weak, which leads to slow app loading. The lack of 5 GHz Wi-Fi is disappointing in a mid-range handset that has Category 6 LTE support. The display, while it is a vibrant 1080p AMOLED, lacks decent brightness for outdoor viewing and isn't very accurate.

The most interesting hardware feature to the Redmi Pro is the highly touted dual camera system on the rear. The quality from the principal xiii-megapixel sensor is acceptable for a mid-range phone, and although information technology doesn't match the all-time phones on the market, you tin go some decent photos from information technology. Unfortunately, the depth sensor isn't great, and the simulated bokeh effect only works properly on occasion.

Starting at a little nether $250, the primary competitors to the Redmi Pro are Motorola's Moto G4 Plus, and last yr'due south Google Nexus 5X. Considering neither of these phones include abrasive software issues, to me it'south a simple choice.

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With that said, there are some reasons to consider the Redmi Pro. Xiaomi clearly has the best mid-range phone design and battery life of the trio, and the depth sensing features could appeal to some. At $250 for the 64GB model, the Redmi Pro also provides a lot more storage than either the Nexus 5X or Moto G4 Plus, which only include 16 GB at that price (and the 5X doesn't include expandable storage). When storage is factored in, and you end up saving $30-l, this could swing things in favor of Xiaomi'south strongest mid-range offering.

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  • Xiaomi Redmi Pro on Newegg

Pros: Fantabulous brushed aluminium chassis. Nifty battery life. The Helio X20 is much faster than the Snapdragon 617 frequently seen at this price. 64GB model is surprisingly cheap.

Cons: Software requires pregnant tweaking outside of China. Dual camera organization adds little to paradigm quality. Poor storage performance.