Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Review

What is the Redmi Note 7?

The Redmi Note 7 is an affordable mid-range handset that serves up some flagship features, despite costing only £189. Its large, 6.3-inch screen sports a Full HD+ resolution, and with its water-droplet notch, it delivers an immersive experience that’s light on bezels. Also worth noting is the fact that the display is both bigger and sharper than the far pricier iPhone XR.

The huge 4,000mAh battery under the hood is also encouraging, putting it on a par with last-gen flagships, such as the Huawei P20 Pro. Unlike triple-camera smartphones, however, the Redmi features just two rear snappers.

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In the hand, the Redmi Note 7 feels much like the Honor 8X, the budget king from 2018. With double the base storage capacity, USB-C, more pixels and a higher-capacity battery, could the Redmi Note 7 dethrone it?

Redmi Note 7 – Design

The Redmi Note 7 doesn’t look as sleek as some of the curvaceous competition – the Honor 10 Lite, for example. Instead, its flat front and back interplay with a glossy plastic frame to deliver a solid slice of smartphone. It’s pretty big, too, with its 6.3-inch screen, but provided you’re okay with the size, there’s plenty to love here.

With its 19.5:9 screen and water-droplet notch, the Redmi Note 7 looks very “2019” from the front. All of its buttons sit along the right edge of the device and on the left is a dual-SIM tray that takes a microSD card, too – if you’re prepared to sacrifice one of the two SIM slots.

The phone’s high-gloss frame may be plastic but it feels super-solid, plus it houses a couple of nice surprises on its top edge: a headphone jack and an IR blaster. Down at its base, there’s a USB-C port as well as the mono speaker, while around the back of the phone is the dual camera module and a fingerprint scanner.

The Redmi Note 7 features a 6.3-inch, 1080 x 2340 IPS display. With its 19.5:9 aspect ratio, this puts it on a par with the likes of the Huawei P30 Pro and the OnePlus 7 for resolution and size.

What it lacks, however, is AMOLED screen technology – which means the display here doesn’t quite have the punch or pop of the aforementioned handsets. It also isn’t as bright as the P30 Pro or Galaxy S10 Plus at maximum brightness. Nevertheless, it’s still perfectly viewable outdoors in all but direct sunlight.

The screen’s viewing angles are excellent, retaining both clarity and colour integrity off-angle, and while the Note 7’s display has a slightly cool hue to it, white balance is customisable in the settings, so you can make it look just right for your eyes.

The device’s 19.5:9 aspect ratio is among the longest out there, only bettered by Sony’s Xperia 10 series, the Xperia 1 and the forthcoming Motorola One Vision, with its screen to bezel ratio coming in at over 80%, which is hugely competitive. These factors make it a great choice for immersive movie-watching and playing games.

My only complaint is that the bottom corners are rounded. In addition, when a game goes full-screen, the UI hides the notch and creates right-angles at the top corners, causing a visual imbalance.

All things considered, however, the Redmi Note 7 is a joy to look at, swipe through and use day-to-day, with my main gripe actually referring to software optimisation, rather than screen quality itself.

Redmi Note 7 – Software

The Redmi Note 7 ditches a stock Android 9.0 UI in favour of MIUI 10, as found on the Xiaomi Mi 9.

Running on top of Android Pie, it’s great to see the latest, widely available version of Google’s OS here; future-proofing and app support are both looking good for this mid-range contender.

The interface doesn’t offer an apps drawer. Instead, it opts for an iOS-esque setup. Shortcuts and widgets can be organised across your home screens; to the left of these is a utility display for quick access to features that Xiaomi believes users need to hand, such as a QR code reader, and there’s a pull-down notifications tray/quick toggle menu at the top of the screen.

The phone features plenty of customisation options throughout its interface. Navigation is controlled by gestures but you can reinstate the navigation bar, for example. In addition, a customisable power on/off schedule is available, as too is a password-protected virtual “Second Space” for sensitive information.

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It feels as if Xiaomi’s UI is where Huawei’s was about a year ago in terms of polish. It’s totally usable, stable, and some of the unique touches are handy. That said, on occasion, experiences can be a bit rough around the edges.

Redmi Note 7 – Performance

With a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor combined with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, the Redmi Note 7 sports mid-range power paired with flagship-comparable room for your apps and media.

In my time with the device, it never felt underpowered. Day to day interactions were a joy, whether swiping through Xiaomi’s skin or a custom launcher. Even tasks such as picture-in-picture video and split-screen multitasking didn’t grind the phone to a halt, making the sizeable display a delight.

In addition, jumping in and out of the camera doesn’t leave you hanging, and neither does taking a picture, despite the 48 megapixels of information processed each time you take a snap. This means that, for all basic tasks, the Redmi Note 7 has you covered from a performance point of view.

More surprisingly, gaming is also a treat. A key consideration for gamers is storage capacity and the phone’s 128GB of internal space is ample.

Power is also up to the task. While the Redmi Note 7 might not benchmark like a flagship, for well-optimised 3D titles such as Injustice 2 it’s as smooth as butter. What’s more, we were able to power through an hour of gaming without draining the battery dry – more on that later.

The onboard storage can also be bumped up by 256GB with a microSD card and the dual-SIM functionality will be perfect for any jet-setters.

With a multi-core Geekbench score of 5510, it’s significantly less powerful than its flagship sibling, the Snapdragon 855-toting Mi 9, which scored 10,971. Having said that, it isn’t too far behind the Google Pixel 3, which for the price, isn’t bad going at all.

The phone also features biometric security in the form of a fingerprint scanner and RGB face unlock, with both working well in our experience.

Call quality didn’t leave us with any complaints, and as for the mono loudspeaker, it’s perfectly audible – but very easy to cover up. The lack of NFC, however, is an omission you really feel in today’s contactless world. Meanwhile, the rest of the connection set – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, 4G and the IR blaster – are stonking for the price.

Redmi Note 7 – Camera

The Redmi Note 7’s dual rear snapper has a 48-megapixel (f/1.8) primary camera and a 5-megapixel (f/2.4) depth-sensor module. Matched with phase-detection autofocus, the only features it’s missing when compared to flagship dual cameras appears to be OIS (optical image stabilisation) and laser autofocus.

espite this, the quality of pictures taken on the Redmi Note 7 is seriously impressive, making it easily one of the best sub-£200 options around.

The primary sensor may be 48 megapixels in resolution but pictures are rendered at 12 megapixels unless you hit the override switch in Pro mode. This lower-resolution image benefits from pixel binning, a technique that combines information from multiple pixels to create a better, albeit lower-res image