Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro hands-on review

Camera

The Redmi Note 5 Pro has a dual camera system on the back, with a 12MP primary sensor and a 5MP secondary depth sensor. This is the first Redmi Note device to have a dual camera system on the back. On the front is a single 20MP camera with an LED flash.

The camera application is similar to other MIUI 9 devices but has been updated to include the option for portrait mode. All the options are laid out at the bottom similar to the iOS camera app. At the top you can enable the HDR mode, which has no Auto mode for the rear camera (but has for the front camera somehow) and a filter mode with a bunch of new filters.

Camera app

The camera app on the Redmi phones continue to be behind the Mi series devices. The lack of HDR Auto mode is one thing but the pro mode also only has white balance and ISO adjustment instead of the full range of options. Still, for casual shooting the app works reasonably well.

Now, coming to the image quality, we were genuinely impressed with the images in well-lit situations. Xiaomi's image processing is really good and even when the images are looked up close there is very little in terms of compression artefacts, oversharpening artefacts and color noise.

The images look beautifully smooth even when viewed at 100% zoom and this is without sacrificing a lot of image detail. The camera consistently nailed the color and white balance and every image came out looking just as we had expected.

Sample camera photos

Xiaomi is also one of the few companies to get HDR processing right. Enabling HDR pulls details out of both, shadows as well as highlights unlike most other devices that only prioritize the shadows. We were impressed at the level of detail the HDR mode was able to pull out of some images.

HDR Off • HDR On

Low light image quality was also respectable. Noise levels were still perfectly in control and it is only in really low light do the images turn soft. Color and white balance were once again right every time. This is no Pixel 2 or iPhone X in low-light but it can hold its own, especially against the immediate competition.

The portrait mode also worked better than expected. Edge detection was generally quite good and whether it was with people or objects, the camera did a good job separating the background from the foreground. The blur effect isn't as heavy-handed as some of the other phones, which is fine as it makes the blur look more natural but, in some cases, may not be especially noticeable.

Portrait mode samples

Video recording experience was less impressive. The phone has no support for 4K recording, even though the chipset is capable of doing it and other phones in this price range are doing it with much slower processors.

The viewfinder output is also extremely low resolution, which makes it hard to tell if the camera has even focused while you are recording and you have to play the video back afterwards to see if it was in focus.

The actual image quality is okay but nothing especially good, with soft details and weak dynamic range. The electronic image stabilization is good but has the characteristic jerkiness when you pan the camera around.

Overall, the camera experience is quite satisfactory and users can expect to get some good-looking images out of it.