Xiaomi Redmi Pro review: Peripheral vision

Display

The Redmi Pro is the company's first smartphone with an OLED screen. Xiaomi has ordered the OLED panels from Chinese suppliers (EverDisplay and BOE Display) instead of going to Samsung for Super AMOLED panels. This fact is worth mentioning mainly because you can really tell there is a difference in the sub-pixel arrangement when looking at the screen under a magnification. It's quite different from what we have with Samsung panels.

The OLED panel has a diagonal of 5.5 inches and a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. This results in a pixel density of 401ppi, which is solid. We didn't expect from Xiaomi to pull off a QHD resolution anyway, as it wouldn't have fitted the bill.

In our tests, the display managed to churn up maximum brightness of 408nits, which is higher than average and matches what we get from Samsung panels. Another positive point is that the minimum brightness that you can achieve with the slider is insanely low at 0.6nits - it's almost like turning the screen of.

In terms of color reproduction accuracy, the average deltaE is 6.1, which is only average. The OLED display is quite vibrant, but whites and grays have a greenish tint. We found that setting the display to Standard/Auto and Warm color modes fixes the tint of the whites and grays and the Avg. DeltaE drops to 5.

Overall, it's nice to see a solid OLED screen come out of China but the tell-tale greenish tint, which is so customary for AMOLED panels, is still here. Interestingly enough, when it comes to color accuracy green colors are the least accurate.

Finally, the screen's sunlight legibility is spot on and the Redmi Pro is in the top tier of smartphones, which won't have any problems in broad daylight. The side viewing angles aren't so impressive, though.

Sunlight contrast ratio

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  4.615
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge
  4.439
• OnePlus 3
  4.424
• Samsung Galaxy S7
  4.376
• HTC One A9
  4.274
• Samsung Galaxy Note7
  4.247
• Samsung Galaxy A3
  4.241
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
  4.124
• Samsung Galaxy Note5
  4.09
• Huawei Nexus 6P
  4.019
• Vivo Xplay5 Elite
  3.983
• OnePlus X
  3.983
• Oppo R7s
  3.964
• Huawei P9 Plus
  3.956
• Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016)
  3.918
• Samsung Galaxy C5
  3.911
• Samsung Galaxy C7
  3.896
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  3.895
• Samsung Galaxy J7 outdoor
  3.879
• Samsung Galaxy J2 outdoor
  3.873
• Samsung Galaxy A8
  3.859
• Samsung Galaxy A9 (2016)
  3.817
• Motorola Moto X (2014)
  3.816
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) outdoor mode
  3.802
• LG V20 Max auto
  3.798
• Xiaomi Redmi Pro
  3.798
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
  3.789
• Apple iPhone 6s
  3.783
• Meizu Pro 5
  3.781
• Microsoft Lumia 650
  3.772
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016)
  3.756
• Oppo F1 Plus
  3.709
• Vivo X5Pro
  3.706
• Sony Xperia X Compact
  3.694
• Apple iPhone SE
  3.681
• Samsung Galaxy A7
  3.679
• Meizu PRO 6
  3.659
• BlackBerry Priv
  3.645
• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  3.53
• Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016)
  3.523
• Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) outdoor mode
  3.523
• Acer Jade Primo
  3.521
• Microsoft Lumia 950
  3.512
• Oppo R7 Plus
  3.499
• LG G Flex2
  3.465
• Samsung Galaxy J7
  3.422
• Meizu MX5
  3.416
• LG V20
  3.402
• Oppo R7
  3.32
• Samsung Galaxy J2
  3.235
• Sony Xperia X Performance
  3.234
• Motorola Moto X Play
  3.222
• Huawei P9
  3.195
• Lenovo Vibe Shot
  3.113
• Motorola Moto X Force
  3.105
• LG Nexus 5X
  3.092
• Huawei Mate S
  3.073
• Microsoft Lumia 640 XL
  3.065
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  3.023
• Sony Xperia X
  2.989
• Samsung Galaxy Note
  2.97
• Huawei Mate 8
  2.949
• Sony Xperia XA Ultra
  2.906
• LG G5
  2.905
• HTC One S
  2.901
• Sony Xperia Z5
  2.876
• Microsoft Lumia 550
  2.851
• Xiaomi Redmi 3 Pro
  2.803
• Sony Xperia Z5 compact
  2.784
• LG V10
  2.744
• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  2.735
• Sony Xperia M5
  2.69
• Huawei P9 Lite
  2.679
• Vivo V3Max
  2.659
• Xiaomi Mi 4i
  2.641
• Sony Xperia XA
  2.609
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  2.574
• LeEco Le Max 2
  2.567
• Microsoft Lumia 640
  2.563
• Lenovo Moto G4
  2.544
• Oppo F1
  2.528
• Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
  2.525
• Huawei Honor 7 Lite / Honor 5c
  2.506
• Sony Xperia M4 Aqua
  2.503
• Oppo F1s
  2.481
• Motorola Moto G
  2.477
• Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus
  2.473
• Huawei G8
  2.471
• Huawei nova
  2.467
• Sony Xperia Z
  2.462
• Lenovo Vibe K5
  2.459
• Huawei Honor 7
  2.406
• Sony Xperia E5
  2.386
• ZUK Z1 by Lenovo
  2.382
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
  2.378
• HTC 10
  2.378
• Huawei nova plus
  2.329
• HTC One E9+
  2.305
• Alcatel One Touch Hero
  2.272
• Apple iPhone 4S
  2.269
• Lenovo Vibe K4 Note
  2.254
• Sony Xperia C5 Ultra
  2.253
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (MediaTek)
  2.249
• Sony Xperia C4 Dual
  2.235
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  2.234
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  2.233
• LG Nexus 5
  2.228
• Huawei P8
  2.196
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 2
  2.166
• OnePlus Two
  2.165
• HTC One X
  2.158
• LG Aka
  2.145
• Archos 50 Diamond
  2.134
• Xiaomi Redmi Note
  2.119
• Acer Liquid X2
  2.084
• Huawei P8lite
  2.078
• Moto G 3rd gen max manual
  2.026
• Xiaomi Mi Max
  1.996
• Sony Xperia E4g
  1.972
• OnePlus One
  1.961
• Meizu m3 note
  1.923
• BlackBerry Leap
  1.892
• Meizu m2 note
  1.892
• HTC Butterfly
  1.873
• ZTE Nubia Z9 mini
  1.759
• Sony Xperia U
  1.758
• Asus Zenfone Selfie
  1.68
• Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)
  1.675
• ZTE Nubia Z9
  1.659
• Jolla Jolla
  1.605
• Motorola Moto E
  1.545
• Sony Xperia M
  1.473
• HTC Desire C
  1.3
• Sony Xperia C
  1.283
• Meizu MX
  1.221
• Sony Xperia E
  1.215

Connectivity

The Xiaomi Redmi Pro is a dual-SIM phone with LTE connectivity. One card is nanoSIM, while the other is microSIM and the slot is a hybrid solution, which allows you to replace one of the SIM cards with a microSD card.

Since we're reviewing the Chinese model, we also have to mention that there is support for China Unicom LTE and CDMA.

As for Wi-Fi connectivity, the Redmi Pro supports only the 802.11 b/g/n standard, which means you won't benefit if your router has a 5GHz band and you would have to rely on only using the more congested 2.4GHz band.

Bluetooth 4.2 is also available. For positioning, you get GPS, GLONASS and, quite naturally, Beidou.

The IR blaster is located at the top of the phone and, coupled with the right software, you can use it to remotely control pretty much any IR controlled home appliance. Xiaomi provides its own MiRemote app, which supports a long list of devices right out of the box.

At the bottom, there's the now customary for Xiaomi USB Type-C port. The port supports USB On-The-Go if you need to access some external storage or use a USB accessory.

Xiaomi Redmi Pro battery life

The Redmi Pro touts a 4,050mAh battery, which should produce an excellent battery life. It's one of the first phones we review with the Helio X20 (or MT6797, for the more technically inclined), which has 10 cores in total organized into three power tiers to handle different loads.

While this 3-tier processor architecture sounds quite clever and power efficient our experience with it on the Zopo Speed 8 as well as our experience with the slightly higher clocked Helio X25 suggested otherwise. Granted, we've only had these single meetings to base our expectations on so we're still keeping an open mind about it.

Following our battery test procedure, the Xiaomi Redmi Pro managed an endurance rating of 80 hours, which is commendable. The phone latest 11:38h in our web browsing test, which is especially impressive for a phone with an AMOLED screen since we have mostly lightly colored/white pages that are featured in our script.

On the software side, Xiaomi has baked a far-reaching battery saving functionality into the Redmi Pro, albeit a bit confusing. You can go to settings and choose between Balance and Performance modes, which affect the phone's performance and battery life.

Then, you can check out the Battery section in Xiaomi's Security app. There, you can fine tune which apps can run background tasks. The dedicated Power Saver option is supposed to provide you with even longer battery life but that comes at the expense of limiting some features and performance. Upon turning it, the battery icon in the notification bar turns orange.

Our endurance rating denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Redmi Pro for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established such usage pattern so our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritties. You can also check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.