Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 AI Dual Camera in for review

Ro, 20 May 2018

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 AI Dual Camera - quite the mouthful right? Xiaomi was obviously out of ideas after launching the regular Redmi Note 5 and the Redmi Note 5 Pro in one month.

Extremely awkward name aside, the phone is a slightly updated version of the Note 5 Pro that launched in India. It also looks and feels like the Pro version while housing pretty much the same hardware - 5.99-inch IPS display with 1080 x 2160 resolution and 18:9 aspect ratio, Snapdragon 636 chipset, up to 6GB of RAM and 32GB ROM (with microSD card support) depending on the configuration you choose, a generous 4,000 mAh battery and dual-camera setup on the back.

This dual camera is actually one of the things that changed in the Redmi Note 5 AI Dual Camera and we don't just mean the obvious machine-learning software tricks. The new main camera consists of a 12MP sensor with f/1.9 aperture and 1.4µm pixel size as opposed to the 12MP unit with f/2.2 aperture and 1.25µm pixels on the Note 5 Pro. This should markedly improve low-light performance.

The secondary unit used for depth information remains the same, though - 5MP (f/2.0, 1.25µm).

The front-facing shooter is another change - the resolution has decreased from 20MP down to 13MP but comes with wider aperture (f/2.0 vs f/2.2) and bigger pixels. The standard portrait mode, beauty mode and face unlock features are present here although they were also there on the Redmi Note 5 Pro.

Third and final change is on the software side - the Xiaomi Note 5 AI Dual Camera runs its MIUI 9 over Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box. The Redmi Note 5 Pro, on the other hand, had Android 7.1.1 Nougat as a base.

The enclosure of the device remains the same - a bit slippery but fairly comfortable to hold anodized aluminum back panel, fingerprint sensor, pretty huge camera bulge and a bit thick upper and lower bezels in comparison to the thin side ones. There's still no word on the Gorilla Glass version used for the protection of the display, though.

It's certainly an incredible package given its price point and unless our complete review unearths some major performance gaps it might be one of the easiest recommendations we've made. Stay tuned to find out!