Xiaomi Redmi 5 review: Good value for money

With Redmi 5 finally making it to Indian shores, Xiaomi has made the budget smartphone war intense. The new iteration carries forward some of its predecessor’s strong points and includes some premium features from its more capable siblings. It even carries an equally tempting price tag — 7,999 for the 2GB/ 16GB variant, 8,999 for the 3GB/ 32GB and 10,999 for 4GB/ 64GB. The Redmi 5 is simply one of the smartphones with the best build quality seen this year. Gone are the fat bezels from the Redmi 4 and in its place, there still exist bezels, albeit narrower. The 18: 9 display makes the Redmi 5 taller to accommodate more viewing area than its predecessors.

The tall 18: 9 display houses a rather big 5.7inch IPS LCD panel. Compared to the Redmi 4, the display has made a huge leap in terms of the picture quality — bright and vibrant colours along with a dynamic contrast ratio. However, the 720p resolution is a bit of a letdown.

The Redmi 5 is built around a 14nm 1.8GHz octa- core Snapdragon 450 SoC. Xiaomi’s heavily customised MIUI 9 makes a comeback, which is disappointingly still based on 2016’ s Android 7.1 Nougat. Nonetheless, MIUI is a heaven for those who swear by customisation. Apps open instantly and Xiaomi’s optimisation keeps lags as well as stutters at bay. Throw in some heavy games and the Redmi 5 handles them pretty well.

The 12MP rear camera with f/ 2.2 aperture and 1.25- micron pixels takes some exceptional quality photos in broad daylight — oodles of details, natural colours and high contrasts. In absolute low light conditions though, the camera almost gives up, throwing up noise, which is acceptable from something that carries a four- digit price tag. The selfie camera now gets an LED flash.

However, the slimmer Redmi 5 is fuelled by a slimmer 3300mAh battery. The Redmi 5 can stretch as much as a day with regular usage — texting, playing games, browsing the web, bingewatching YouTube and occasional selfie sessions.

To sum it up, the Redmi 5 has all the signs of being great budget smartphone just like its predecessor, but unlike the Redmi 4, this one tries to lean towards being a performance focused smartphone rather than being a long runner. It surely earns our recommendation as a good- looking daily driver on a really tight budget.