Xiaomi Redmi 5 16GB Brief Review, Ratings, Pros Cons, Specs, Cases & Covers

Xiaomi Redmi 5 16GB Brief Review and Pros Cons:

Xiaomi had a fantastic 2017 in India and almost all of their smartphones Redmi 4,  Redmi Note 4, Redmi 4A were bestsellers. Redmi Note 4 even became the best selling smartphone in India. Xiaomi is planning to replicate the success in 2018 with the latest Xiaomi Redmi 5 series smartphones. Redmi Note 5 and Redmi Note 5 Pro were launched in Feburary as Flipkart exclusive smartphones. We reviewed the Redmi Note 5 Pro and found it very impressive. Check out the in-depth review of Redmi Note 5 Pro.

Redmi 5 is the successor of Redmi 4 which was launched earlier in 2017. Redmi 5 is a budget device like Redmi 4 and is priced below Rs.10000. So what's the difference between Redmi 4 and Redmi 5? Let's take a look at that.

The major difference is that Redmi 4 was a 5-inch smartphone and Redmi 5 has a large 5.7-inch display on the front. The display is of 18:9 aspect ratio with HD Plus resolution. Bezel-less displays have been a trend this year and it's great to see Xiaomi bringing it to the budget segment. The display looks beautiful and gives a premium feel to the device. The resolution is only HD+ so it is not that sharp but considering the price point, we think it is fine.The display size has gone up from 5 inches to 5.7 inches but the overall size of the device has just increased by 10mm so users should not worry about the size.

Another major visible change is the lack of backlit buttons on the bottom. Xiaomi has moved to on-screen buttons to reduce the bezel size. Xiaomi has followed the metal unibody design approach in Redmi 5 as well and the build of the device is solid. The back of Redmi 5 is curved a bit which makes it easy to hold. There is a 2.5D glass on the display as well but we don't know whether it gorilla glass or not. Overall, the device looks really nice.

Let's talk about cameras on the Redmi 5. There is a single 12MP sensor on the back of the phone with 1.25-micron pixels, f/2.2 aperture, PDAF, and LED flash. Xiaomi has not gone with a dual camera setup so you can't take portrait mode pictures with it. The back camera performs well in daylight outdoor conditions. The pictures are sharp and vibrant. The camera performance indoors in low light conditions is average. On the front, there is a 5MP camera with a LED flash. The front camera can take decent selfies and the front flash helps under low light conditions. Overall, the camera performance is decent and we don't have any complaints considering that the device is priced below 10k.

For security, there is a fingerprint sensor on the back of Redmi 5. The fingerprint sensor is fast and accurate and you won't face any issues with it. The Redmi 5 is not water or dust proof so there is no IP rating.

Inside the Redmi 5, we have a Snapdragon 450 chipset with 2/3/4GB of RAM and 16/32/64GB of storage. The Snapdragon 450 processor is latest and best in the entry-level chip segment and we are happy to see that Xiaomi is not cutting any corners here. The Snapdragon 450 chipset is built on 14nm process technology and is very power efficient. The Antutu Score of Snapdragon 450 is around 55000 which is a 20-25% improvement over Snapdragon 435 which we saw in Redmi 4. Overall, the Redmi 5 performs tasks smoothly and you won't face any issues with multi-tasking and gaming. We do recommend going for the 3GB/32GB variant as more RAM always helps in multitasking.

Redmi 5 is running on latest MIUI 9 which is based on Android 7.1.2. We are sure that Xiaomi will be updating the Redmi 5 to Android Oreo. The MIUI 9 skin is something we don't like as it is very heavy and consumes a lot of RAM. We hope that Xiaomi will move to stock android one day.

The battery inside the Redmi 5 is 3300mAh. Redmi 4 came with a large 4100mAh battery so 3300mAh is a drop of about 20%. Plus, the screen size has increased as well. What it means for the users is that you won't be able to get excellent battery backup like Redmi 4 but still, it will be decent. You can expect 1-1.5 days of battery backup on a single charge. There is no fast charging on the device so it will take around 2 hours to go from 0 to 100%.

There are 3 variants of Redmi 5. The 2GB-16GB is priced at 7999, 3GB-32GB at 8999 and 4GB-64GB at 10999. We think 3GB-32GB provides the best value for money and you should buy that.

So that was all we had on Redmi 5. Overall, Redmi 5 is an excellent value for money device which looks great and performs well. We are sure that Redmi 5 will be able to replicate the success of Redmi 4 in India. If you need a phone under 10000 then this is the phone for you.