Table of Contents
amazon REDMI NOTE 9 reviews
Design: cheap price still catches the punching trend
Redmi Note 9 has an overall design similar to the two seniors in the same line. The point I appreciate the most in the design of this product is the back that looks fashionable, looks fancy, and luxurious than the price range. The front also catches up with the current trend with a perforated screen to accommodate the selfie camera, making the screen airier than the teardrop notch that is still used on many products of the same price range from other brands.
The back of this product is made of plastic, not Gorilla Glass 5 like on Note 9S and Note 9 Pro. When compared directly, the back of the glass of Note 9S is clearer and more beautiful than the Note 9. However, the plastic back material offers a physical advantage that two senior products do not have: The back and chassis of Note 9 are connected seamlessly like a monolith. This is easy to understand because both the back and the chassis are the same plastic material with the same shrinkage. Meanwhile, along with the connection between the glass back and the plastic frame of the Note 9S and Note 9 Pro, there is still a small gap due to the two different shrinkage materials.
The highlight on the back of Note 9 is still the rear camera cluster. Due to being connected to the fingerprint sensor, the rear camera cluster of this phone is longer than that of Note 9S and Note 9 Pro. The back of the device is plastic but is treated like glass, so it is still easy to save fingerprints, especially the blue version we use. The problem of saving fingerprints may be less visible on the other two colors, gray and white.
You can overcome the problem of easy fingerprints on the back by using the dark plastic panel that comes with the manufacturer. In addition, this case also helps to deal with two more design issues in Note 9: helping the rear camera cluster not to bulge and handcuffing problem due to the screen protruding from the chassis, lack of seamlessness. Of course, using a case will not show off the bold and beautiful back of the product anymore. You have to consider it yourself.
Note 9’s body is quite thick and heavy (8.9mm and 199g) due to its large capacity 5020 mAh battery. The product also has all the familiar things of smartphones in general and Xiaomi phones in particular, including infrared sensors to control home appliances, a 3.5mm audio port, USB C charging port, 2 SIM slots, and an independent memory card.
Screen: natural color, slightly dark outdoors
Redmi Note 9 has a 6.53-inch screen, slightly smaller than the 6.67-inch size of the two senior products. The screen resolution is still Full-HD + with a pixel density of 395 PPI. This is a big plus of Redmi Note 9 when most products in the same price range only have HD + resolution.
The screen of the device is equipped with Gorilla Glass 5, but the manufacturer still has a protective sticker that fits very well. Thus, people who buy this phone save money to buy the sticker outside.
Xiaomi also provides users with 3 color modes: automatic, saturated, and standard like the displays using AMOLED panels. The Auto and Natural modes display colors with high accuracy, while the Saturation mode pushes the colors a little brighter. In addition to color, this phone also comes with 3 color temperature settings: default, warm, and cool.
In default mode (Auto color mode and Default color temperature), the Redmi Note 9’s panel displays natural colors and the viewing angle is also quite wide. However, the maximum brightness of the screen is not as high as that of Redmi Note 9S and Note 9 Pro. So when taking pictures or using the phone outdoors, you will find the screen a bit dark and difficult to see. This screen also does not support HDR as the two in the same line.
Camera: surprising selfie photos
Redmi Note 9 has a rear camera cluster of 48MP main camera, 8MP super wide-angle camera, 2MP macro camera, and a 2MP secondary camera to capture the depth of images that support the function of capturing fonts. In the front, the machine has a 13MP camera to take selfies. According to information from the configuration reader application, the 48MP main camera of Redmi Note 9 uses Samsung’s ISOCELL GM1 sensor, which is older than the 48MP ISOCELL GM2 sensor on Redmi Note 9S.
By default, the main camera captures photos at 12MP resolution. You can also shoot at 48MP resolution. However, the difference between 12MP and 48MP photos is not significantly different. Meanwhile, 48MP photos have a longer processing time and heavier photo capacity. So for normal use, I recommend shooting in the default 12MP mode, which is fast and saves data when sharing online.
In terms of quality, the photos taken from the main camera and the wide-angle camera can be said to be fine considering the price range of the device. The image is detailed and the light band is quite wide, the colors tend to be natural. However, photos taken from both the main camera and wide-angle have a similar feature: the contrast and color saturation are not high. Turning AI scene detection off or on didn’t change much either. This can be easily seen in landscape photos. The sky in the photos taken from both the 48MP camera and the 8MP ultra-wide-angle is often lighter than reality, not very full of color. If Xiaomi pushes the color storm a little, it will get more eye-catching photos.
The macro camera of Redmi Note 9 has a resolution of 2MP, downgraded from the 5MP resolution on the two senior products Redmi Note 9S and Note 9 Pro. Overall, this is a fun camera that captures close-up details at a distance of 2-10cm. The beauty of Xiaomi is the addition of a focus ring to let users know that the subject is in the focusing distance, making it easier to shoot. The color is close to reality and the detail is quite good.
The selfie camera of the Redmi Note 9 has a resolution of 13MP. You can take a selfie in normal mode, remove fonts, beautify your skin, trim your chin, or adjust big eyes. Selfie quality impresses better than the main camera, produces pictures with good detail, bright colors, and smooth human skin. Image deleting fonts has transparency, subject borders are detected and deleted quite smoothly.
Overall in terms of camera, Xiaomi has done a good job with the selfie camera and portrait mode on the main rear camera. In normal shooting modes, the main camera and ultra-wide angle need to push the color saturation and contrast up a little more, the photo will be much more impressive.
where can you get a REDMI NOTE 9 online
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 4GB RAM + 128GB, 48MP Quad Camera Hotshot, 5020mah Battery, 6.53 ”FHD +, LTE Factory Unlocked Smartphone – International Version (Forest Green): Buy it now
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 4GB RAM + 128GB, 48MP Quad Camera Hotshot, 5020mah Battery, 6.53 ”FHD +, LTE Factory Unlocked Smartphone – International Version (Polar White): Buy it now
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 (128GB, 4GB) 6.53″, 5020mAh Battery, MTK Helio G85, Dual SIM GSM Unlocked Global 4G LTE (T-Mobile, AT&T, Metro, Straight Talk) International Model (128GB SD Bundle, Midnight Grey): Buy it now
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 4GB RAM + 128GB, 48MP Quad Camera Hotshot, 5020mah Battery, 6.53 ”FHD +, LTE Factory Unlocked Smartphone – International Version (Onyx Black): Buy it now
Performance: Comfortable basic use, not powerful enough to smoothly play heavy games
Redmi Note 9 is the first smartphone to use Mediatek’s new Helio G85 chip. This chip is a slight upgrade in the graphics performance (GPU) of the Helio G80. Helio G85 features 2 Cortex-A75 high-performance cores clocked at 2GHz and 6 Cortex-A555 energy-efficient cores clocked at 1.8GHz. The integrated graphics chip is a Mali-G52 clocked at 1GHz, slightly higher than the GPU on the Helio G80 (950MHz). Along with Helio G85, Redmi Note 9 comes in 2 versions of 3GB / 64GB RAM and 4GB RAM.
On performance measurement applications, the 3GB RAM version of Redmi Note 9 we experience is about 190,708 points on Antutu v8.3.6, not too much compared to Redmi Note 9S (220,321 points). However, the GPU graphics power score of the Redmi Note 9 is significantly lower than the Snapdragon 720G on the Redmi Note 9S.
Using the Gamebench tool to measure the performance when playing games, BiaReview chooses the three most popular games today: Arena of valor Mobile, PUBG Mobile, and Call of Duty Mobile, with graphics settings so that the gaming experience is smooth.
In the game Lien Quan Mobile, Redmi Note 9 is locked at 30 fps, does not trigger the effect of haze or HD image quality. Pushing the setting to the highest possible level, the phone still plays smoothly with an average fps of 30, frame stability 95%
PUBG Mobile is not an easy challenge with Redmi Note 9. Choosing the “smooth” graphics quality, the game is unlocked at 40 fps, but during the game, the frame mainly fluctuates 29-30 fps. According to Gamebench, the frame stability of Redmi Note 9 reaches 82%.
Call of Duty Mobile limits the Redmi Note 9 to the option of “low” image quality and “average” number of frames per second, it is not possible to play at a higher level. When in the match screen, the number of frames per second was mainly over 50, played smoothly, and had little lag, but because in the lobby and when the game load, the fps dropped to the average fps when measured by Gamebench also decreased.
In general, the configuration of Redmi Note 9 can play heavy games but not as smooth and stable as Redmi Note 9S. However, this is a reasonable reduction considering the price of the $200 segment. Besides playing games, the device satisfies daily activities.
MIUI 11 software, Android 10
Redmi Note 9 currently comes pre-installed with the customized MIUI 11 based on Android 10 similar to the recently launched Xiaomi devices. The beauty of the MIUI platform is that it is versatile and allows users to customize many things. You can use many gesture controls, change themes, use two accounts in parallel with multiple applications (Facebook, Messenger …), game mode, create a second private space when for people borrow, Dark Mode now supports more applications and even has a speaker cleaning feature (turn the speaker volume on for 30 seconds).
However, Xiaomi is also very actively monetizing the services and advertising in the MIUI platform to compensate for the cheap hardware prices. As a result, Xiaomi phones are now pre-installed with more third-party applications than other brands and not all applications are for users to remove. Besides, the MIUI platform also displays ads in many places during the user experience. But only the advertising story, you can actively remove if you find it uncomfortable.
Battery time
The battery is unchanged on all three products of the Redmi Note 9 series. The battery has a capacity of 5020 mAh and supports fast charging 18W like Note 9S. In the familiar battery measurements of BiaReview with watching movies, surfing the web, and playing games, the usage time of Redmi Note 9 is not too different from the Redmi Note 9S and Note 9 Pro, despite using the different processor. Looking at the results of this phone’s battery life below, surely you can be assured of comfortable use during the day even when the demand is at high intensity.
The full charge time of this phone is 30 minutes longer than the Redmi Note 9S which also supports fast charging similar to 18W but uses Qualcomm’s fast charging technology. Specifically, Redmi Note 9 takes up to 2 hours 40 minutes to fully charge the battery with the included charger, in which the first half-hour is 25% charged and 1 hour is about 46%.
Summary
Redmi Note 9 is still a bold product of the Note line from Xiaomi, with much better configuration than the price range of other brands. Significantly new in the Redmi Note 9 this year is the design. It also has good battery life and a good camera in the price range, especially the selfie camera.
The most formidable rival of Redmi Note 9 today is the Realme 6i, with a similar configuration and price. The Realme 6i also has a 6.5-inch screen, a rear camera cluster with a 48MP main camera, a 5,000 mAh battery with fast charging 18W, and an Helio G80 chip that is not inferior to the Helio G85. However, the Realme 6i has a lower resolution (HD +) and a waterdrop design screen, not a hole.