Redmi Note 7 Pro Price in India, Starting at Rs.13999

The Redmi Note 7 Pro, by all means, is a next big hit for Xiaomi and started off the year for the company with a bang. If not for the ad-ridden UI, the Redmi Note 7 Pro doesn’t have anything against it. The display is good; the design is beautiful, performance is top-notch, battery life is impressive, and finally, the 48MP camera is knocked out. If you get lucky enough during the sale on e-commerce platforms, just hit that buy now button already without any second thoughts.

Xiaomi since its evolution in India has come a long way. From being just a new entrant to the number one brand now, the company’s struggle to match the market requirements and the aggressive pricing is something that every new entrant should take inspiration. It is pushing the boundaries with every launch be it the Redmi Note 5 Pro, the Note 6 Pro or the budget Redmi 6 series in 2018. This year, though, it looks like the brand is prepared to take it up a notch as it kick-started with a bomb that is called the Redmi Note 7 Pro; the successor of the mediocre Redmi Note 6 Pro. Just by looking at the specifications and the pricing at which it is offered, one would understand how serious Xiaomi is about the Indian market. Since number alone can’t justify a smartphone, we take a closer look at the phone to see if it is worth the money it is asking you to pay. Let’s get started.

The Redmi Note 7 Pro sports a 6.3-inch (2340 ×1080 pixels) Full HD+ 19:5:9 2.5D curved glass LTPS in-cell display with 1500:1 contrast ratio, 450 nits brightness, 84% NTSC Color Gamut, and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection. It is powered by the Snapdragon 675 Mobile Platform SoC clocked at 2GHz Octa-Core processor with Adreno 612 GPU. It packs 4GB LPDDR4x RAM with 64GB storage, and the high-end variant rocks 6GB LPDDR4x RAM with 128GB storage. The internal storage is further expandable up to 256GB with microSD. It runs on Android 9.0 (Pie) with MIUI 10.

In terms of camera, the Redmi Note 7 Pro features a 48MP rear camera with LED Flash, f/1.79 aperture, Sony IMX586 sensor, 6P lens, PDAF, EIS, and a 5MP secondary camera. On the front, it has a 13MP shooter. It comes with a fingerprint sensor. Connectivity features include Dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4 /5GHz) Bluetooth 5, GPS + GLONASS, USB Type-C. A 4000mAh battery is on board.

The Redmi Note 7 pro, unlike most Redmi phones, packs glass body design with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection on both sides. This is a refreshing move from Xiaomi as the metal unibody designs are getting pretty dated for today’s day and age. However, the glass back attracts fingerprints, smudges quite easily and you will have to keep cleaning constantly. The glass body design combined with gradient colours sure will make heads turn. It looks stunningly beautiful especially outdoors where there is enough light. This is the Xiaomi we wanted to see for a while now. Giving equal importance to hardware and design is what one would expect from the number one brand in India, and this time, Xiaomi ticked all the right boxes. It doesn’t feel heavy, easy to reach all corners of the display and doesn’t hurt your hands even after extended usage. Without a second thought, the design of the Redmi Note 7 Pro is absolutely brilliant.

Talking about the placement, up front, you find the 13-megapixel selfie camera, ambient and proximity sensor, main earpiece, and down below the 6.3-inches screen are the three touch type capacitive buttons that are placed within the display. On the right side of the mobile, you have volume and power buttons, while the left side houses a hybrid dual-SIM + microSD card slot. The 3.5mm headphone jack and IR emitters are present on top, and USB Type-C ports on the bottom along with speaker grilles on both sides. On the rear, you find the rear camera setup, Redmi logo, a fingerprint sensor. The back panel isn’t removable, so is the battery. Overall, the design, build of the Redmi Note 7 Pro is simply amazing.

The Redmi Note 7 Pro sports a 6.3-inch (2340 ×1080 pixels) Full HD+ 19:5:9 2.5D curved glass LTPS in-cell display with 1500:1 contrast ratio, 450 nit’s brightness, 84% NTSC Color Gamut, and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection. Since it is a 19:5:9 aspect ratio display, there is a tiny waterdrop notch at the top. This gives a more screen-to-body ratio for media consumption and gaming. Talking about the display quality, since it is a full HD panel, colours, text, image look sharp and accurate. We didn’t notice any off-colours even when viewing it from extreme angles. The viewing angles, in general, are good and don’t distort when tilted. The 450 nits brightness offer good sunlight legibility even with maximum brightness. We were able to access the content under direct sunlight without any issues.

Since there is an ambient light sensor, you don’t have to adjust brightness manually all the time. Since it is a relatively new aspect ratio panel, most apps don’t fill up the entire screen including YouTube videos, but you can pinch and zoom into the video to fill up the display. Thanks to the gestures, you can display on-screen buttons and get even more screen to body ratio which offers pleasant experience while using the phone. Overall, the display of the Redmi Note 7 Pro is top notch (no pun intended).

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 SoC clocked at 2GHz Octa-Core processor with Adreno 612 GPU and 6GB RAM. For the asking, and the bundled chipset, Xiaomi did really pull a bunny out of the hat. Snapdragon 675 is a very capable chipset that can pull off any task you throw at it be it gaming, photo editing, multitasking, etc. Thanks to the 6GB RAM, there’s enough room for you to run pretty much anything. Apps open up pretty fast, and they don’t take time to start running once they load up. With a Snapdragon processor running the show, we didn’t notice any heating issues nor were there any frame drops.

Moving to the gaming department, we played a wide range of games including PUBG, Asphalt 9, Leo’s Fortune, Mortal Kombat and more. Every game we tried ran completely fine with highest graphics settings, and they didn’t lag a bit during the gameplay. While there is slight warmth at the back, it isn’t something that is unbearable. The device comes with a fingerprint sensor; you can register up to five fingerprints. It is quite fast in unlocking the phone, and the quick animation helps too. Overall, the performance of the Redmi Note 7 Pro is one of a kind in this budget segment.

In terms of camera, the Redmi Note 7 Pro features a 48MP rear camera with LED Flash, f/1.79 aperture, Sony IMX586 sensor, 6P lens, PDAF, EIS, and a 5MP secondary camera. On the front, it has a 13MP shooter. It supports features such as AI Portrait mode, AI Studio Lighting, and AI Beautification. Moving along, the Redmi Note 7 Pro captures some beautiful shots in good light and outdoor conditions. The images are rich in details, colours as well. The dynamic range is decent and doesn’t blow out the highlights or shadows. There is a proper balance in pictures for the most, but some times it tends to over saturate making the final output social media ready and more appealing to eyes. While the usual captures are good, the Redmi Note 7 Pro camera does have flaws such as the underexposed backgrounds and hues appeared to be slightly warmer than they are in reality.

While the Redmi Note 7 Pro does pack a 48MP sensor, it is only enabled in Pro mode, and all the other time, it captures a regular 12MP shots. Pixel-Binning technology uses four adjacent pixels to collect data to form a single larger. As a result, the 48MP shots slightly appear dimmer when you zoom in a little. You can capture 48-megapixel shots by manually enabling the 48-megapixel mode while the 12MP pictures are smaller in size and are sharper, more vibrant in comparison.

The 48MP shots in low-light have noise in them, while the 12MP shots are much cleaner and usable. The Night Mode does a good job at brightening up shots taken in low light, and retaining a good amount of details. It worth noting that the Night Mode cannot click images in 48MP. There is also a portrait mode whose edge detection is spot on for the pricing, particularly under daylight. During our testing, we did notice the Redmi Note 7 Pro facing focusing issues resulting in ocassional blurring of the subject. As for the 13MP front camera, the images are good in colours and are social media ready. It does offer a host of beautification filters. Overall, the Redmi Note 7 Pro camera is hands-down the best in the segment and is capable enough to outshine the competition.

The Redmi Note 7 Pro comes with a 3.5mm audio jack, but like always Xiaomi didn’t include earphones within the box, and they are an additional cost. Moving on, the audio quality when tested with the headphones we had with was good. There were no distortion or squeaking sounds even when playing music with maximum volume. Since the speakers are present on the bottom, you might block the output when holding the phone in landscape mode. MIUI 10 offers the option to tweak the audio quality depending on your taste. The default music player was able to play a wide range of music formats without any problem. As said, you will have to spend some more on a pair of earphones for a decent audio listening experience.

In terms of video department, the Redmi Note 7 Pro was able to play 1080p videos, and the playback was smooth without any issues. It can play a wide range of video formats. We didn’t notice any heating or freezing issues at any point in time. Since the 18:9 aspect ratio brings more screen real estate, watching videos and movies was an excellent experience. Overall, the audio and video department does a good job.

The Redmi Note 7 Pro packs a 4000mAh battery with support for Quick charge 4.0 fast charging. However, the company doesn’t bundle the adapter; you will have to buy it separately. With our kind of usage that includes calls, texts, GPS navigation, media consumption, browsing and more, the battery of the Note 7 Pro lasted until the end of the day with enough juice to push through the first hour in the second day. We managed to get a screen-on-time of 6-7 hours which is more than acceptable for the price it sits in. Another good thing about the battery is that there is no idle battery drain, even while gaming.

With heavy to moderate usage, the Redmi Note 7 Pro was able to last until the evening. This kind of usage includes gaming, watching movies, clicking pics, taking calls, and much. Getting a full day’s battery with such heavy usage is still a pretty big deal for the price. Since the company didn’t include a fast charging adapter within the box, the default one took close to 3 hours to charge fully from 1-100% which is a stretch. Overall, the battery department of the Redmi Note 7 Pro like most Redmi phones is impressive.

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro runs on Android 9.0 Pie with MIUI 10. This happens to be one of the very few Xiaomi phones to run on Android 9.0 Pie out of the box. Starting off with the interface, much like most Redmi phones, it is straightforward. Apps and widgets are present on the home screen with no app drawer by default. It comes with a theme store where tons of themes are available to download most of which are free. These come as saviours when you feel bored with existing look and feel of the U.I. As with most MIUI versions, MIUI 10 too comes with a host of new features including gestures, fluid transitions, improved notifications, split screen, and more. It comes with App Vault and App lock feature that is very useful if you crave for privacy. There are dual apps feature that lets you run an app like WhatsApp in two different instances at the same time. Apart from Google apps, there are tons of Mi apps like Mi Drop, FM Radio, Screen recorder, Scanner, Compass, Explorer, Community, Mi Remote, Mi Store, and few others which can’t be removed unless rooted. The U.I animations are very smooth with no frame drops, and transitions are also lag-free as well.

Speaking of MIUI, the company off lately has been subjected to criticism for pushing full-screen ads within the interface which is quite annoying after having paid around Rs. 14,000. The company says that it is doing so to generate revenue since most of its phones are being sold at a 5% profit margin. While this may sound reasonable, many brands in the same segment offer a much cleaner interface and launch phones with equally powerful hardware. So, this doesn’t justify Xiaomi’s doing. We hope the company realises before it is too late and puts an end to the ad fiasco.

It comes in two variants; one with 4GB RAM, 64GB storage and another with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage. There is no 3GB RAM variant. If you were to pick the Redmi Note 7 Pro, we suggest you go with the high-end model as it gives more storage and two extra gigs of RAM. Out of the 6GB RAM, around 4.8GB is user usable. The default cleaner app frees up space by clearing cache and useless files. As said, MIUI 10 is refined, improved to match device hardware, and the gestures are also now smooth. The interface was smooth, and the device was able to handle multitasking quite good. We had over 5-6 apps in the background, and the device didn’t lag or stutter. Overall, the software and the U.I experience of the Redmi Note 7 Pro is decent, but the inclusion of full-screen ads is a big let-down.