Xiaomi Redmi 5

The slim and decent looks of the Xiaomi Redmi 5 will impress many, especially those who don’t like the bezel-less design much. This phone has pretty wide bezels at the chin and top that give it the look of a traditional smartphone handset. However, it is quite thin and lightweight and feels nice to hold due to the metal plate incorporated at the back.

Most of the body is made from plastic, but Xiaomi has taken special efforts to avoid making their smartphones look cheap by using premium quality materials and subtle colours. The Xiaomi Redmi 5 design is not that impressive, but you might like the colour options of gold, rose gold, lake blue, and black. Except for the black model, all the other variants will have a white front panel to support the display, which is 5.7 inches long diagonally.

The volume rockers and the power button and placed comfortably on the right of the phone. The rounded corners at the back give a comfortable and ergonomic feel to the users.

Xiaomi places a skin over the supporting Android software, and on Redmi 5 Xiaomi, it places the MIUI 9.2.7 skin over the outdated Android software 7.1.2. The MIUI 9 looks smooth and up-to-date. There are some inbuilt apps and widgets that might impress you.

The Xiaomi Redmi 5 supports 720 * 1440 resolution that gives sharp and detailed picture quality. This phone supports a microSD card and comes with VoLTE 4G support, GPS, Bluetooth 4.2 and other regular specifications.

The phone comes in combinations of 2GB RAM +16 GB storage, 3GB RAM + 32 GB storage, and 4GB RAM + 64 GB storage. There is no huge price difference between these three options, and therefore, it is better to go for the highest available option.

The front camera setup includes a 5MP sensor and a flashlight to light up your face, especially in low lighting conditions. The rear camera is a 12MP sensor with an f/2.2 lens and an LED light. For selfies, the phone uses Xiaomi’s Beautify 3.0 that improves selfies by pepping up your skin tones and facial features.

The back camera does a decent job in the daylight but struggles to take good photos in the dark. You can capture videos in 1080p and 720p, but they aren’t all that great when we speak about the video and sound quality.

However, we have to see these drawbacks in the context of its price as we cannot expect much from a budget smartphone. Therefore, if not more, the Xiaomi Redmi 5 camera performance has to be labelled as satisfactory.

The Xiaomi Redmi 5 battery life is more than decent with its 3300mAh battery. You can sustain a performance for up to a day or even more if you are a frugal user. However, heavy users might need to charge it twice a day, especially if their usage includes a lot of gaming. Also, don’t expect this phone to support fast charging.

It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 processor that does its job fairly well. You will not face any lags while opening the apps and playing games. Moreover, multitasking is possible, but up to a certain extent only.

Therefore, you cannot expect the phone to run smoothly if you have opened up numerous apps as every app will gain some attention from your RAM and processor, which will confuse your phone that is already running on outdated software.

The gaming experience is satisfactory but don’t expect it to provide a smooth experience when you play games that are overloaded with graphics.

The Mi Drop app comes inbuilt in this phone, and this app can help you transfer files not only to MI but also to all the other brand phones with it. The built-in infrared helps you control your appliances smoothly, whereas you can control Xiaomi’s appliances directly with Mi Home.