XIAOMI Redmi 9 - Long-Term Review By Tech Travel Geeks

Hello there I'm Matteo the chief mobile opinions here at tech, travel geeks, and today we're going to review one of the most affordable and best smartphones on the market in the latter part of 2020. This is the tech travel geek's, long-term review of the Redmi nine. Earlier this year we reviewed the Redmi Note 9s value for money. That's a very, very good smartphone, but Xiaomi are known for the Redmi brand in bringing really affordable smartphones to the masses through amazing pricing. The Redmi 9 is no different. It's just a price step a bit lower and for around about 150 pounds, you get an amazing smartphone bear in mind.

This is much cheaper than the Redmi Note 9s around about a third cheaper, but it delivers a lot of the same features. The screen, for example, is a 6.53 inch, full high definition plus display. That means that it's great for watching video, whether you're streaming from Netflix or just watching back content that you recorded with the 13 megapixel camera on the Redmi nine. So it's a great media device not only for video but for audio two, because it has a 3.5, millimeter, courage, port and so everything's pretty much covered in my book in terms of what you'd expect from a basic smartphone, it's great for messaging, social media, media consumption, the core smartphone experience is excellent, and it steps up a little too. So you can play full-on mobile games like Call of Duty mobile, provided you make sure you tune your settings to medium or low.

That's because the Redmi 9 is powered by a MediaTek hello, g80 chipset and in the case of the one we purchased on Amazon here in the UK. It has four gigabytes of ram. So, overall it's capable of gaming. It's a great media player and the overall smartphone experience is really, really good. Obviously, to reach that price point Redmi and the parent company Xiaomi had to make a few difficult decisions.

You don't have a shiny glass back, it's just a textured, finish: plastic bag, and it's nice concentric texture that you have, so the center of that texture is the camera module itself, which has been rounded off with some matte finish, and the camera module is a long pill in the center of the back of the smartphone that camera pill houses, a 13, megapixel main sensor, an 8 megapixel ultra-wide sensor, as well as a 5 megapixel macro camera and a 2 megapixel depth sensor. So for normal photography, the main 13 megapixel camera is pretty decent for the price range this smartphone is sold in. It works really well in good lighting conditions, though at night can cause some graininess in your shots and struggle with movement in low light. The 8-megapixel wide camera again is perfect in good lighting conditions, but suffers a bit from blown-out skies when taking pictures in bright lighting conditions. So if you're in Scotland like us, that's not really an issue now the 5 megapixel macro camera is better than some 2 megapixel ones.

We've seen on other smartphones in 2020, but again without autofocus. It's pretty much useless. You might as well use your main 13 megapixel sensor to take a close-up picture of a subject, because that will give you better depth and, more importantly, better detail. The portrait mode on the Redmi 9 is for this price range impressively. Good.

Xiaomi have obviously mastered the softer bit of this, and, what's not perfect for less than 150 pounds, it's very, very capable in terms of its portrait mode and with Xiaomi's mini. You get a lot of extra little features in the camera. The selfie camera on the front is in a teardrop notch in that lcd and that's an 8 megapixel selfie camera. It takes decent pictures, and I'm not ashamed to say. I have posted a few Instagram stories using that camera.

The mini experience is exactly what we'd expect from a mini 11 devices, there's very little different in comparison to what we've seen on UI 11 on other devices, such as the Redmi Note 9s, we reviewed earlier this year. The only issue I have is that in the latter part of 2020, the Redmi 9 has not had the upgrade to mini 12. Yet it's still sitting on mini 11, whereas my other Xiaomi devices have already updated to UI 12. So there is a bit of a lag there, but it's still getting security patches and all the usual updates to Xiaomi apps, as well as all the other apps coming through the Google Play Store. So it's no real reason for concern.

I'm just a bit annoyed, I'm not getting the best and latest features from mini 12. One of the key things in the Redmi 9 is that plastic back, and they've decided to put the fingerprint scanner in that pill just below the cameras. It's a bit confusing, sometimes and a bit more difficult to find the fingerprint scanner, but it's always better to have a fingerprint scanner than not, especially in 2020 when most of us are wearing face, masks and face unlocks, not a real option, especially when you're out and about the overall experience with the smartphone is made even better by perfect battery life. That's because it has a 5 000 William hour battery in 150 pounds smartphone. This is pretty much astounding not only that for our sub 150 pounds smartphone, the Redmi 9 supports fast charging and fast charging at 18 watts.

So it's the same fast charging that we see on our Google Pixel 4a at more than double the price and the Google Pixel 5. It really does charge over half a battery in around about 30 minutes. So if you need to top up quickly fast, charging is an option. Now fast, charging is great, but the key takeaway is that the Redmi 9 is an affordable smartphone that in 2020 uses USB type-c for charging. This is really great because similar smartphones from other brands are still on micro, USB in this price range, even at the end of 2020.

So Xiaomi are really setting the markets going by setting the standard for devices in this price range with USB type c. One key feature that Redmi 9 has and that we appreciate here at tech. Travel geeks is the infrared blaster. Yes, the Redmi 9 has an infrared blaster. So if you are lucky enough to be traveling, you can use that infrared blaster to remote control, TVs or air conditioning units in the hotel rooms you're staying in or even if you're lazy in lockdown stuck on the sofa and can't be bothered finding the remote control.

The Redmi 9 enables you to be lazy anyway. In the second half of 2020, the Redmi 9 is a great value for money device. We hope to see the mini 12 updates come to it very soon, but all around the Redmi 9 for less than 150 pounds is very difficult to beat, and hopefully, Nokia and other brands will be able to step up the game and compete with this winner of a smartphone. Keep an eye on the tech, travel geek's YouTube channel, we'll be doing some side by side. Comparisons of the Redmi 9 with its competitors so be sure to be subscribed and tap.

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Source : Tech Travel Geeks