Succeeding the Redmi Note 7 Pro that has made a solid standing in the mid-range segment with a 48MP camera using Sony IMX586 sensor and a powerful Snapdragon 675 processor at the time. With the Redmi Note 8 Pro, Xiaomi continues to create a higher challenge for rivals when equipping this product with a powerful Helio G90T gaming processor, 64MP main camera, and a beefy 4,500 mAh battery, which is higher than standard.

Whether such upgrades are enough to make Redmi Note 8 Pro a prominent choice in the price range of sub Rs. 20,000 with the presence of formidable products such as Realme 5 Pro, Galaxy A50s, or Oppo A9?

Display

Redmi Note 8 Pro uses an IPS LCD screen with a waterdrop notch at the top. The screen is sized at 6.53 inches, has Full-HD + resolution, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, Gorilla Glass 5 protection, and HDR support, which is a rare feature at this price range.

The screen of this phone has high brightness, enough for using the phone outdoors. Similar to Samsung devices, you can utilize the automatic brightness adjustment mode to push to a higher level than the maximum brightness in manual mode. So when using in the sun, you should turn on the automatic mode to adjust the brightness.

The display quality is also very good, offering natural color, high contrast, and wide viewing angle. In particular, this screen supports HDR content, so watching HDR-enabled videos on YouTube is more vivid. In addition, the Redmi Note 8 Pro also has a dark mode, which can reduce eye strain when used at night.

Performance

In recent years, the Redmi Note series has been powered by Qualcomm processors. However, on the Redmi Note 8 Pro, Xiaomi switched to Mediatek chipset. The company confidently promotes the Helio G90T chip on the Redmi Note 8 Pro and sees it as a selling point. The Helio G90T has eight processing cores, including 2 high-performance Cortex-A76 cores clocked at 2.05Ghz and 6 power-efficient Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 2Ghz. The graphics chip inside Helio G90T is Mali-G76 3EEMC4 clocked at 800MHz with HyperEngine technology to improve the gaming experience. 

On performance measurement apps, Helio G90T proves the overall power superior to the same-priced smartphones using the Snapdragon 712 (Realme 5 Pro) or Exynos 9610 (Galaxy A50s). In terms of graphics processing, which has not been a strength on Mediatek chips for a long time, G90T also scores significantly better than Qualcomm's mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 chip and outperforms the mid-range Exynos 9610 chip is used by Samsung on many A and M series smartphones of 2019. In practical experience, Helio G90T along with 6GB RAM proves that Xiaomi is not wrong when promoting this chip as a selling point. 

As for gaming performance, the Redmi Note 8 Pro can handle heavy-graphics games available. Specifically with PUBG Mobile, the phone reached 39 fps with 92% frame stability when playing at the highest graphics settings. With this result, Helio G90T has slightly better gaming performance than Snapdragon 712 on Realme 5 Pro but still slightly inferior to Snapdragon 730 on Xiaomi Mi 9T.

Battery

The Redmi Note 8 Pro gets a 4,500 mAh battery and the Helio G90T chip on the 12nm process is quite energy efficient. In the familiar battery tests, this phone gives a decent usage time, enough to feel comfortable using the day with normal usage but still inferior to some 4,000 mAh smartphone using Qualcomm chip. That shows that the Helio G90T chip offers impressive performance but is not really optimal in terms of power saving.

In terms of charging time, this phone supports MediaTek's 18W Pump Express fast charging standard. Using the included charger, the total charge time for Redmi Note 8 Pro is 2 hours, of which the first 30 minutes charge 35% and 1 hour charge 70%. This charging result is similar to the charging time on phones using Qualcomm's Quick Charge 3 / 4.0 charging standard.

Camera

Redmi Note 8 Pro has up to 5 cameras including 4 rear cameras and one front camera. We should not be too overwhelmed by the number of cameras because the 2MP macro camera is not that useful. However, compared to the Redmi Note 7 Pro with only two rear cameras, it is clear that the camera on the Redmi Note 8 Pro is also an upgrade, the most notable of which is the addition of ultra-wide angle camera capable of autofocusing. Ultra wide-angle cameras on many smartphones of the same price range currently only support fixed focus, not capable of adjusting focus like Redmi Note 8 Pro

• Main camera: 64MP, f / 1.9, 0.8 micron pixel size, 1 / 1.7 inch, phase focus, Samsung ISOCELL GW1 sensor
• Wide-angle camera: 8MP, f / 2.2, 120 degrees, 1.12 microns pixel size, ¼ inch sensor
• Macro camera: 2MP, f / 2.4, 1.75 microns pixel size, 1/5 inch sensor.
• Depth camera: 2MP, f / 2.4, 1.75 microns pixel size, 1/5 inch sensor.
• Front camera: 20MP, f / 2.0, 0.9 micron pixel size

In terms of image quality, the 64MP main camera gives images with lots of detail, high contrast and colors that look quite natural. In low-light conditions, the HDR mode works effectively to balance between bright and dark areas in the image. 

By default, the 64MP camera will take photos at 16MP resolution through a 4-pixel algorithm that combines them into one, but you can choose to shoot at 64MP resolution. However, the difference between the two image sizes is negligible, similar to the 48MP camera on the previous Redmi Note 7 Pro. Meanwhile, the image size in 64MP mode sometimes reach up to 15-16 MB in comparison to photos taken by 16MP mode with a size of only 4-7 MB.