The Redmi series has fallen victim to the new screen trends, and how much trouble it is for us.

Introductory

Once upon a time there was once a Redmi 4. In the fourth set, Redmi 4 was at the bottom of the middle class. Clean hardware at a low price, with a small size. These virtues were important, and because of the well-crafted price tag, it became one of the most sought after models of the Xiaomi.

When the first data from RedMix 5 arrived, I heard that it was not worth replacing RedMix 4 and that the biggest mistake in using Xiaomi was to increase size. It was fearful that XMUMX: 18 and Redni 9, according to new trends, will be too big for single-handed use. In this test, we will try to follow this as well as what the hardware built into the phone is going to do enough nowadays.

Packaging and exterior

The phone comes in an orange box from Xiaomit. Open the lid on the top of the floor with a silicone case waiting for us, making it easy to use on the phone. It is not thick and does not slip, so it will not protect you from bigger plugs, it can withstand smaller jacks in my personal experience.

With this raised we find the phone, and below it there is the line of accessories. First, a brief English installation manual, followed by a filling head, a cable, and a needle to remove the SIM tray.

The phone is externally quite average, with little plastic, plenty of metal and glass. The quality of the assembly, as every Xiaomi phone here is exemplary, does not crawl, does not squeeze and can not roll.

External measurements have changed dramatically compared to the RedMix 4, which is mostly due to its traditional 16: 9 aspect ratio, which is 18: 9, that is, the phone is stretched. This is due to the bigger picture frame.

The buttons and the SIM tray are in their usual position, the latter being the better, the latter on the face, obviously from the front. The button's pressure point is definite, it can be felt when it snaps. In men's hands, their location is perfect, but in smaller palms, with shorter fingers, the upper part of the volume control should be stretched.

Although the phone is 18: 9, the house is not the usual or rather fashionable, fully frameless design. This is so bad that it will increase the width of the mobile, but it is good that it will be less vulnerable to fracture due to dropping. The lateral frames are still relatively thin, but the bottom and top of the thick black stripe accepts us. However, there are no buttons at the bottom, the familiar three-key virtual appears at the bottom of the screen. The advantage is that it can be hidden at least so it does not occupy the space.

The hardware

Xiaomi's fortune is a favorite among Qualcomm's chips, so this phone has a Snapdragon unit, the 450. This is a relatively modern tile made in 14 nanometer strip width and the latter is not important for performance, but for consumption, because it does not increase but the battery capacity is lower than the predecessor model.

Snapdragon 450 received eight cores, all of which are ARM Cortex-A53s, the maximum clock signal 1800 MHz. The memory controller installed on the chip is one-channel, which drives the 3 GB capacity of the LPDDR3 memory installed on the phone, running on 933 MHz. Integrated into the unit, an Adreno 506 draws the image to the display. We can not say that bull is a strong piece, but it's enough to break the phone's HD +, 720 x 1440, so we can even run some serious games.

If we have already mentioned the display, continue with it. As you read above, this phone has already received a 18: 9 side panel. This category is based on accepted IPS technology, bringing its typical numbers. That is, the NTSC color space coverage is 72 percent, the brightness is 450 cd / m2, and the contrast is 1000: 1. The diagonal of this phone is 5,7 col, which is enough for 282 ppi pixel density at this resolution. I'm not saying we can not find a better value, but it's another category. Otherwise, this pixel density in this display is quite good, you will not find any errors during use.

We do not get any surprises in the cameras either, with a 12 megapixel Omnivision OV12A10 on the back, and an Omnivision OV5675 on the front, using the 5 megapixel of pixels on the front. The lens aperture at the back is f / 2.2, front f / 2.0, which predicts that in the dusk, the camera will not be perfect in the evening.

Software is all right, since we get everything from HDR through the panorama photo and the shooter to face detection, which is what we expect from today's phone.

We will not complain about radios as the wifi supporting the n standard and the 4.2 Bluetooth, if not the latest, are completely in the phone. Among the navigation satellites GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou systems were supported.

It is also important to mention the battery, which I wrote was as small as it was in my predecessor, and of course I do not mean its physical extension. It has a capacity of 3300 mAh, and although there is no Type-C but Micro USB connector on the phone, there is no Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 support either, so we can take it with battery electrons in about two hours.

Usage, tests

I've run the usual tests, and you can find the results as screenshots below. What matters is that the phone is perfectly usable. The power of the processor and the GPU is fully enough to operate, to move the image. The MIUI interface, however, is always problem-free, and this phone is running smoothly.

You can read from the outside, the big question in this case is how much phone can be used in one-handed mode. Well, the answer is yes, yes.

Although the diagonal increase, the width of the phone was not changed due to switching from 16: 9 to 18: 9, and even slightly thinner, perhaps due to the fact that a smaller capacity battery was included. In this way, the opposite edge of the screen is also available with the thumb, which is good!

It's not life to the bottom, because although I have relatively long fingers I can not reach the top of the screen. If I slid the phone in my palm to handle the virtual buttons at the bottom, then the top part was unavailable when I placed the phone in the palm of my palm and then did not reach the top or top bar. So one-handed use is troublesome. It's not impossible, but while driving, do not experiment, and anyway, then you should concentrate on the road!

The voice-forming organs of the phone are good, but not prominent. At bottom there is a mono sound, which has a very good sound, quality is satisfactory, for example, a Sokol radio is miles better, so at noon time I listened to this favorite show of Who Wins Today, Game and Music in 10 Minutes.

Speech speaker is clear and strong, the partner is understandable as he knows us well, so suspecting the microphone will not be a problem either.

We've been talking about the screen, and the IPS panel is perfect for the technology. Not an AMOLED, but in return it will not burn our favorite game into the display. The brightness is enough, so you can use the mobile in sunny places. True, in such a situation, we will not cook our eyes, but it will remain usable.

I've mentioned the connectors, more specifically the USB connector, a traditional Micro USB connector. For this reason, because of the lack of Type-C, Xiaomi was forced to apply a conventional jack connector to the phone, which is a benefit rather than a disadvantage.

There is too much to write about the software. The familiar MIUI interface with a not too fresh Androide that wanted to be updated immediately after turning on the phone. Well done it! I like MIUI, it gives you a lot of tiny extras for the basic Android system. I'm not even worried about using the Xiaomi cloud service to save my stuff stored on my phone, so I think it's basically a kid to move from one phone running from MIUI to another, so I'll create this account next to the Google Account.

Let's see screenshots of the tests now, and in the final summaries I even write a few sentences about the phone.

Cameras, photo and video

You've read the hardware capabilities of the cameras, so now we focus on quality. The camera software has everything you can expect from a phone of this type. We can take a panorama, get a watermark so that our pictures are not sloping, there is HDR function that gives contrasting images, and in addition, the offensive extremes, such as too much light, are filtered.

Software management is simple, with a touch of the touch key, you can handle the flash, switch HDR on and off, switch between front and rear cameras, and use different filters and effects.

Below you will find some test photos, but here's what I've filtered out on these. As the images could be perceived in daylight, they could be heavily covered by sunshine, and I would rather say good. The center of the image is sharp, and although some blur to the edges it is not disturbing. We're also pretty much happy about the videos, just about everywhere, for the holidays and the daytime recording.

Although I did not try the camera at the beginning of the test, because of the aperture value of the lens I wrote there so it could be wrong with the evening recording. Well, there it is. Because of the little light on the sensor, the colors are completely disintegrating and we have to choose whether to select a grainy, high ISO or nothing. Of course it would have been enough to wait for a better camera for so much money, so it would be unfair to pull the phone off. Let's stay in that, if not completely, but I was happy with it.

Conclusion

Let's start with the essence! The Xiaomi Redmi 5 was a good phone. We get the usual outstanding Xiaomi quality, we get the very usable MIUI system, so we can not complain.

In the introduction to the question of how much feasible the one-handed use is, the answer has already been given. Unfortunately, we can only use the phone with a bit of a bit of exercise, so I would rather say that we have to forget the old one-handed use!

The strength of the hardware had no problem during the test, just as navigation and phone functions worked brilliantly. Although wifi does not support the ac standard, it only supports the n, I think it will not hurt anyone, nor is it that "only" 4.2 is Bluetooth. The sensors, of course, worked well. One problematic thing could be a fingerprint reader, but luckily there was no complaint. Detection is accurate and fast, so clearing the screen is free from problems with the reader.

Overall, I would recommend this phone as a major part of the Xiaomi phones for purchase if the price category is right!

To test the phone a GearBest you have them here: Xiaomi Redmire 5