Redmi Note 8: The Budget Killer Phone

Redmi Note 8: The Budget Killer Phone

The bottom end of the smartphone market is full of models and variants of them, in many cases with only very minor differences between them just so as to cater to people with limited budgets and specific requirements. A case in point is Xiaomi, which has launched overflow a dozen options priced below Rs. 15,000 thus far this year. Regardless of whether you prioritise CPU power, RAM and storage, camera features, or battery life, Xiaomi wants to place enough options ahead of buyers that they will not even need to check out what the competition has got to offer. Still, it is a tough balancing act.

The Redmi Note 8, which the corporate just surprise-launched alongside the Redmi Note 8 Pro (Review), has been designed to hit the critical Rs. 9,999 price point. Xiaomi has stated very clearly that it could have made this phone less costly, but it didn't want to compromise on specifications in the least. Interestingly, there's also a variant priced quite bit higher at Rs. 12,999 which suggests it straddles quite one price segment. We're reviewing the upper priced version, but we're still getting to consider how both options are equipped to appeal to their respective target audiences.

Redmi Note 8 Design

If you were hoping that the Redmi Note 8 would be a cheaper version of the slick Redmi Note 8 Pro, you will be a touch disappointed. From the front, this phone is far more like what we have seen on the recently launched Redmi 8 (Review) and Redmi 8A (Review), including a chin that's thick enough for a brand logo. It is a fairly ordinary-looking 2019 budget phone, with a 6.3-inch screen that covers nearly all of the front and a waterdrop notch at the highest. There is a tiny white notification LED above the screen.

Xiaomi has added slightly of differentiation here within the sort of a highlight colour running round the edges of the front glass. Our review unit is that the Neptune Blue version, then it's a blue streak, almost sort of a halo, running down the edges and across rock bottom. We do not adore this, and think it's quite cheesy. It is also distracting when trying to enjoy full-screen content. We hope that the Moonlight White and Space Black versions are more subtle.

The rear of this phone is additionally nothing just like the Redmi Note 8 Pro or the Redmi 8 siblings. The camera strip is in one corner instead of within the centre, and it stands proud quite bit. This phone will rock awkwardly when lying flat on a table. The rim of the camera bump is additionally relatively rough.

Xiaomi has gone with Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and back of this phone, and each side have rounded edges. The rear of our Neptune Blue unit had a mirrored gradient finish with light aqua at the highest fading into purple lower down. It might be a challenge to stay this finish freed from smudges and fingerprints.

The power button and fingerprint sensor are easy enough to succeed in but the quantity buttons are a touch too high. You get a USB Type-C port, 3.5mm audio socket and single speaker on rock bottom. There's an Infrared emitter on the highest, and therefore the dual-SIM plus microSD card tray is on the left.

Thankfully the glass back isn't slippery, and that we found it relatively easy to measure with and use this phone. The screen is big, but reaching all corners with one thumb wasn't too difficult. The camera bump was much less within the way once we used the plastic cover that's included within the box.

Xiaomi says it's used a P2i coating to form this phone splash-proof, which is good to possess. Overall, the Redmi Note 8 feels alright built, but there's nothing new or interesting about it in terms of design.

Redmi Note 8 Specifications and Software

We start with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 processor, which also powers the sub-Rs. 10,000 Realme 5 (Review) and therefore the even cheaper Vivo U10 (Review). This is often an update to the favored Snapdragon 660, and is claimed to be more power efficient. It features an equivalent arrangement of 4 performance cores and fore efficiency cores, also as improved integrated graphics.

Xiaomi undercuts its competition in terms of other specifications though. The bottom variant has 4GB of RAM with 64GB of storage, and costs Rs. 9,999. While the Realme 5 (Review) and Vivo U10 (Review) may need cheaper starting prices, their equivalent variants cost over Rs. 10,000. You’ll also get the Redmi Note 8 with 6GB of RAM with 128GB of storage for Rs. 12,999, and this is often the variant we're reviewing. It competes more with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy M30s (Review), Vivo Z1 Pro (Review), and Realme 3 Pro (Review).

The screen measures 6.3 inches and features a full-HD+ 1080x2280 resolution, which is sweet to ascertain at the sub-Rs. 10,000 price point. This is often an IPS panel but its colour reproduction is merely rated at 84 percent of the NTSC colour gamut. It is also certified by TUV Rheinland for blue light reduction when using it in reading mode. Other noteworthy specifications include a 4000mAh battery, support for 18W fast charging (the 18W charger is included), Bluetooth 5, and Wi-Fi 802.11ac support.

Our review unit was running MIUI 10.3.1 running on Android 9 with the September 2019 security patch. You’ll read all about it and therefore the many capabilities it offers in our very recent reviews of the Redmi 8 and Redmi Note 8 Pro, since nothing much is different here. There's still many preloaded bloatware, most of which may be uninstalled. You will have to measure with infamous spammy notifications and ads unless you carefully tweak the permissions surely troublesome apps like the GetApps store and MIUI browser.

Redmi Note 8 Performance and Battery Life

The Redmi Note 8 may be a pleasant enough phone to use. The full-HD+ screen is crisp and bright, though not especially vibrant. It's good for entertainment and most of the people won't find anything to complain about, especially considering the worth of this phone. The blue trim round the front of this phone wasn't as distracting as we'd feared, and a bit like screen notches, we got wont to it in time.

Xiaomi has also done an honest job with the only speaker, and although there is no real bass to the sound, voices and dialogue in videos came out crisp and distinct. Fingerprint and face recognition were both quick.

MIUI ran smoothly and that we didn't feel any hiccups even when multitasking. It should be noted again that we're using the higher-end version of this phone, which is 30 percent costlier than the bottom variant. we expect that even with 4GB of RAM, the experience should be ok for many people.

Performance as measured by our benchmark tests was just about in line with what we expected. The many 1,69,832 in AnTuTu also as 314 and 1,327 in Geekbench 5's single-core and multi-core tests show that there is enough power for mainstream apps and tasks. GFXBench's T-rex and Car Chase tests ran at 33fps and 6.3fps respectively, which was disappointing, rwe've seen far better from the Vivo U10 (Review) which has an equivalent processor but a lower-resolution screen.

PUBG Mobile ran at its low preset and therefore the graphics quality wasn't great, but the sport ran perfectly smoothly. Gameplay didn't suffer once we raised the standard manually, but the rear of this phone did get pretty warm even after only one match. Asphalt 9: Legends was a touch laggy within the menus and there was stuttering in races.

The battery is enough to urge you thru a full workday, and that we did not have to stress about running out of power even after playing games, streaming videos, and taking many photos over the course of each day. We were left with about 25 percent by the time we were able to plug this phone in in the dark. Our HD video loop test ran for 13 hours and 10 minutes which is additionally pretty good. The 18W charger took the Redmi Note 8 from zero to 37 percent in half an hour, and 81 percent in one hour.

Redmi Note 8 Cameras

One of the most important selling points of the Redmi Note 8 is its rear quad-camera setup. the most one may be a 48-megapixel f/1.79 camera which takes 16-megapixel shots by default and may record video at up to 4K 30fps or 1080p 60fps. Next, there's an 8-megapixel f/2.2 wide-angle camera, a 2-megapixel macro camera, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. If you think that that sounds familiar, tons of those specifications are shared with the Realme 5 (Review).

MIUI's camera app is fairly simple but does have some quirks. The way you turn between cameras isn't especially intuitive — there are three dots above the shutter button which correspond to 0.6X, 1X, and 2X. As you would possibly have guessed, the primary two switch between the wide-angle and first cameras, but 2X just does a digital zoom. If you would like to use the macro camera, there is a separate toggle above the viewfinder where the flash and HDR controls are.

We struggled a touch bit with locking focus in low light and when using the macro camera on the Redmi Note 8. We frequently had to tap the screen to urge the Redmi Note 8 to lock on what we wanted. Another odd issue was the over-aggressive Pocket Mode, which resulted within the screen locking up fairly often once we held the phone in landscape to require a photograph, because the proximity sensor was covered.

When it involves photo quality though, we were impressed overall. The first 48-megapixel camera on the Redmi Note 8 gave us crisp, bright shots with excellent detail. Subjects at a distance attended be grainier than we might have liked, but closeups came out looking great. Colours were good and there was some nice natural depth of field.

Details were sometimes lost when shooting brightly coloured objects, or in scenes with contrasting backgrounds. Shots crazy the wide-angle camera on the Redmi Note 8 attended suffer in terms of clarity and exposures weren't balanced also, but there was little to no warping at the sides of our frames.

Other than the difficulty with autofocus detection, we found that our low-light shots were sometimes blotchy and noisy, and there might be some motion blur if we weren't very still. Quality was decent but nothing to urge excited about. Again, the wide-angle camera produced far less detail.

The macro camera on the Redmi Note 8 are often fun to use and lends itself to creative framing. We managed to urge some interesting perspectives. The depth of field it produces can make subjects stand out, but they are not captured in very top quality. We had to experiment a short time before deciding how far we would have liked to face from our subjects, and that we found it hard to capture anything that was moving.

As for video, we found that the Redmi Note 8 managed decent quality at 1080p, but colours were pretty overblown at 4K. There was also little to no evidence of stabilisation, which limits usability. At night, video quality was expectedly not nearly as good.

The Redmi Note 8 features a 13-megapixel f/2 front camera. We felt that our skin texture had been smoothened and softened an excessive amount of while the background was crisper and stole attention. Beautification has got to be turned off manually, which may be a multi-tap process. At night, selfies came out grainy and blurry.

Verdict

We're more positive about how the Redmi Note 8's base variant fares against its competition at the Rs. 9,999 price point than we are when considering the Rs. 12,999 tag of the unit we've actually reviewed. The corporate has chosen its specifications wisely and while you'll devour the Realme 5 (Review) or Vivo U10 (Review) for fewer, you do not get an equivalent combination of RAM, storage, or screen resolution.

With the Redmi Note 8, you get enough power for everyday tasks, a robust battery, and crisp screen. Heavy games didn't run so well due to the high-resolution screen. The cameras are often impressive in favourable conditions, but there are limits to what you ought to expect. Finally, the phone's styling could be a touch divisive, whilst the general package looks hard to hammer in terms useful.

However, when stepping up to the higher-priced variant, there are other options including the Vivo Z1 Pro (Review) and even the Xiaomi Mi A3 (Review) to think about. These options do not have the maximum amount RAM or storage at that price, but you'll recover performance, style, software, or cameras counting on which one you select. The selection isn't as clear-cut in favour of the Redmi Note 8.