The Redmi Note 9 is an affordable smartphone with a great design, impressive battery life, and the promise of flagship-level performance. Despite some minor UI gremlins, it’s a solid choice for anyone on a budget.
The camera is also perfect, delivering well-exposed shots and showing the right detail. However, the AI tends to sharpen photos a bit too much.
Display
The Redmi Note 9’s 6.53-inch display features a full-HD+ resolution of 1080×2340 pixels, a good pixel density, and a reasonably bright IPS panel. It also has a quick refresh rate of 120Hz.
The colors are accurate and bright even under low-light conditions, but they become somewhat less vibrant from very steep viewing angles. The screen’s contrast is also high, which makes it easy to read text and images on display.
Xiaomi’s MIUI software runs smoothly on the Redmi Note 9 with minimal UI gremlins. It’s stable, with excellent app support and Google Play Store access.
Camera
The Redmi Note 9 has a similar camera set-up to its predecessor, the Redmi Note 8T, combining a 48-MP wide-angle camera with an f/1.8 lens, an 8MP ultra-wide sensor, a 2MP macro camera, and a depth sensor. It also has a 13-MP selfie camera for self-portraits.
The photos take a little time to capture but are generally sharp, bright, and well-exposed. The camera can also perform some pretty cool effects, including studio lights.
The 48-MP primary camera does a good job but isn’t as well equipped as the competition. The ‘Night Mode’ does a better job of reducing grainy artifacts but doesn’t always produce the best results.
Battery
The Redmi Note 9 boasts a substantial 5,020mAh battery. That might not seem like a lot for an expensive phone, but the software smarts behind it help it last two days between charges.
It also has an 18W charger, which isn’t the fastest in its class but still gets you from 0 to 100% in less than an hour. That’s a significant improvement over the Note 9S’s 2:33 hours of charge, but it doesn’t come close to the realme 6 Pro or POCO X2, which offers 30W and 33W fast charging, respectively.
Performance
The Redmi Note 9 has a 2GHz octa-core MediaTek Helio G85 processor with 3GB or 4GB of RAM. It also has a 64GB or 128GB storage option.
The hardware inside the Redmi Note 9 is capable enough to run everything you could want it to, including gaming. We had a few judders while playing games and some lag on 3D titles, but otherwise, we were more than happy with the overall performance of this phone.
It has a 6.53-inch 1080p display, which is sharp and bright, beating the 720p Moto G8 in terms of overall screen quality. It’s protected by Gorilla Glass 5 and comes with a case shipped in the box.
Design
The Redmi Note 9 is a budget phone, but its design doesn’t sacrifice quality. It combines 2.5D curved Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on the front with a plastic frame and P2i splash-proof nano-coating.
The 6.53-inch IPS display has good viewing angles, with plenty of brightness to cope with sunny conditions. Colors are well-balanced in bright light and don’t oversaturate, which is excellent if you prefer to use the device outdoors.
Note 9 is a big, heavy device with an incredibly curved back that makes it feel surprisingly comfortable to hand, although the fingerprint scanner can be awkward. However, the side-mounted fingerprint scanner is excellent and unified, with the power button joining it smoothly indented.