Redmi 9 (Prime) Unboxing & Review: New Budget King 👑 By GadgetByte

Xiaomi's Redmi series caters to the budget audience. Last year's Redmi 8 was such an impressive device that I personally recommended it to many people. Its successor, the Redmi 9 offers a better chipset and quad cameras and with Samsung launching so many overpriced phones off late, like the galaxy m11 and the galaxy a21s, it only leaves the realm c3 or the also 10a as the only viable competitor in the market. Even if you look at the spec sheet well, it's evident that the Redmi 9 is the clear winner, anyways, let's unbox this device now alright. So this box has a pretty standard: Redmi packaging um. Let me unbox it there you go first, we have a mini paper box where in we have the sim ejector tool um, we have some paperwork and the silicon case keeping this aside.

We have the phone itself in the purple color. I'm going to take this off. Okay, so keeping this aside uh we have the charging brick, which is a 10 watt, brick, and then we have the USB type c charging cables. Alright. So now that we're done with the unboxing, let's get to the design first and uh, to be honest, considering the price, this design looks and feels perfect.

It's not glossy, like the Redmi Note 9. Rather it has this textured matte finish, which really helps prevent smudges. The phone is a little white, though I don't know if you've noticed, but mostly Xiaomi phones are a little wider than the others anyways. I love the color and even the camera arrangement. It kind of shares an uncanny resemblance to last year's Redmi Note 8 pro and even the fingerprint sensor is at the same spot.

I wouldn't say that this is the best placement for the sensor. As many times my finger reached the camera sensor while trying to unlock the device, but I guess you'll get used to it after some time. The performance of it is fast and accurate, except for the times that your hands are wet or greasy, and yes, like many other Xiaomi phones. This one also has an IR blaster down below. You have the USB type-c port, along with the headphone jack and a single firing speaker, both of which have an average audio output.

Overall, I like the design of this phone considering its budget price. It is well-built and looks good too. Moving on this phone also provides a full HD display at this price range. Most of the other brands like Samsung and realm have skimmed on this aspect by providing a HD display. But thankfully that's not the case here.

It's a 6.5 inches panel with a 20 is to 9 aspect ratios, vibrant enough colors and acceptable contrast levels as opposed to the room c3 or the also 10a. The display here has good sharpness, so that's nice. The brightness is also plenty enough for indoor usage, but outdoors you will wish for some more luminance and comparing its display against the more expensive Redmi Note 9. It is pretty much the same display except for the notch and the inferior gorilla glass 3 protection that you get on the Redmi 9. But again, the highlight feature of this display remains the fact that it is a full HD panel which we usually don't get in other phones of this price range.

Moving on to the performance. Here too, I am really satisfied. Not only it has a much better performance than last year's Redmi 8, but I even compared its performance with the costlier Redmi Note 9 and found it keeping up really well. What do I mean by that? Well, let me explain. I ran a couple of tests for multitasking app opening and video rendering and found that the Redmi 9s hello g80 competes with the hello g85 of the Redmi.

Note 9 very well, yes, the Redmi Note 9 is slightly faster, but the Redmi 9 is a very close second for what it's worth. I found it to be very impressive. Surprisingly, I found the gaming on the Redmi 9 to be better than the Redmi Note.9. playing PUBG in smooth graphics and ultra frame rates resulted in a smooth experience in the Redmi nine, whereas you might know from our review that it's a bumpy ride on the Redmi Note 9. , and it's not just in that setting, but even if you go higher to HD graphics and high frame rates, the Redmi 9 will serve you better in PUBG.

Similarly, playing Call of Duty was also quite good on the Redmi night, a couple of Call of Duty sessions in high frame rates and high graphics were susceptible to a few lags here and there, while toning down the graphics to medium, gave me gameplay with no issues at all with all this. It's kind of self-explanatory that running normal tasks on the device will not be a problem at all. However, while multitasking, sometimes you do feel like apps take some time to load by the way the unit I have has 3gb ram and 32gb internal storage. But if you're really opting to buy this phone, I would suggest you go for the 4gb ram variant for slightly better performance. Also, you get a dedicated micro, SD card slot for further storage expansion, which is always a plus overall, with the Redmi 9 you're, getting almost similar performance to that of the more expensive Redmi Note 9 and in the gaming regard.

It's even better software wise, the Redmi 9, runs on mini 11 on top of android 10. , it's a pretty heavy UI. So sometimes you might feel that navigating through the UI is not buttery smooth. I also have felt some lag while closing PUBG app and getting back to the home screen. Also, one problem that has always prevailed in budget Xiaomi devices is the ads, and here do you get presented with ads in instances such as when you install an application all right.

Let's get to the cameras. Now, like the Redmi Note 9, there are four cameras at the back, but instead of a 48 megapixel primary lens, you get a 13 megapixel sensor here, followed by an 8, megapixel ultra-wide angle, lens a 2 megapixel web sensor and a 5 megapixel macro lens. The normal daytime pictures from the Redmi 9 have good enough details and colors too, they are fairly sharp and have decent dynamic range. I even compared its cameras to the Redmi Note, 9 and surprisingly, found very little differences among them. The images almost look similar, however, with the Redmi Note 9, you get slightly better details, but overall, these cameras give a very similar output.

However, the image quality is strictly limited to daytime, as during the nighttime, the Redmi 9 takes miserable shots. Also, there is no comparison between the nighttime capabilities of the Redmi 9 and the Redmi Note 9, because the note 9, as evident from these samples, has way better details and exposure maintenance. Besides, you don't have a night mode feature on the Redmi nine okay about the portraits you get decent shots from the Redmi 9, and they are comparable to the Redmi Note 9 as well. I have even found the Redmi 9 doing better, sometimes in terms of the subject. But when you look at the details in subjects the Redmi Note, 9 does better ultra-wide angle.

Images are not sufficiently vibrant and lack details in almost all the instances. The dynamic range most of the time does not function that well too, but in good lighting you can get a few good shots like this one. The fourth lens here is a macro sensor that works well enough. They are not wow but justify the price. Nonetheless, selfies share the same story as that of the daylight shots.

The 8 megapixel selfie camera produces decent details and color in the selfies. If you look at these images, I took from both the Redmi 9 and the note 9. You will find a lot of similarities in color tone, exposure management and even details. Video capabilities on the Redmi 9. Just like the Redmi Note, 9 is limited to 1080p 30fps.

Only both of them lack proper details and stabilization too so vlogging as such is not a possibility with this phone. However, it can record good enough videos for general purposes. So, after all, the testing and such what I've come to realize is that the Redmi 9 and the Redmi Note 9 both have very similar camera capabilities, and this camera is definitely better than that of the galaxy m11 or the room c3. So what we can say is that the Redmi 9 possibly has the best camera for this price range. Apart from the cameras, another best thing about the Redmi 9 is its battery life.

In normal usage, I have got more than a day's backup every type. Even if you are a heavy user, you will get a whole day of juice with one single charge, which is very impressive, but what's not impressive is the fact that this phone comes with a 10 watt charger inside the box that takes about three hours to get fully charged. However, with the 18 watt fast charger, it took me about 2 hours and 30 minutes. Overall, I think right now. The Redmi 9 is the best budget phone.

By quite a margin, it offers the best performance in its price range and also comes with a full HD panel. Likewise, its camera capabilities are very identical to the Redmi Note 9, which is another plus for the device, and if you're confused between getting the Redmi 9 and the Redmi Note 9, I would suggest you go for the Redmi 9 as it is like 3, 000, rupees, cheaper for the 4gb ram and 64gb storage variant, and also there aren't too many noticeable differences between the two except for the designs. Instead, I would invest the extra cash in getting myself a pair of wireless earbuds or a fitness tracker.

Source : GadgetByte