Redmi 9 Prime – Specifications, Review – Should You Buy it or Not?

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Box Contents

• Redmi 9 Prime (4GB+128GB) in Space Blue
• Transparent Case
• USB Type-C cable
• 10W adapter (5V 2A)
• User Guide
• Safety Manual
• Design

Redmi 9 Prime Specifications

The Redmi 9 Prime sports a unibody plastic build with the ‘Aura design’ that was seen on previous Redmi smartphones. The back has a soft texture to it which offers a better grip and this time around, the quad-camera array and the fingerprint scanner are surrounded by a ring, reminiscent of the POCO X2 smartphone.

Similarly, the gradient color (Space Blue) reminded me of the Redmi Note 7 Pro’s color. Although the design is familiar, I particularly liked the soft texture on the back as it primarily offered a solid grip and also did a fairly good job at hiding fingerprints and smudges. This is one of the smartphones that you can use for longer periods of time without a case.

On the front is a 6.53-inch FULL HD+ display with a water drop-style notch that houses the 8MP selfie camera. The earpiece is fairly large and is located above the water drop-style notch. The bezels are thin on the sides, but there is a noticeable chin.

Coming to the ports and button placements, the volume rockers and power buttons are located to the right edge, the Dual SIM + microSD card tray at the left edge, 3.5mm jack, primary microphone, USB Type-C port, speaker grille at the bottom, and the top part houses the secondary microphone and the IR Blaster. It is good to see Redmi still including IR Blaster on all of its smartphones.

Display

The Redmi 9 Prime has an advantage over its competitors in the segment as it sports a higher-resolution FULL HD display compared to the HD display on most of the smartphones launched recently under Rs. 10,000 price segments. There is a huge 6.53-inch FULL HD+ LCD screen that is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3
it can go up to 400 nits which is not bad either, considering the price point.

There is support for Widevine L1 certification out-of-the-box which means you can watch 1080p FULL HD videos on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, but there is no support for HDR video playback. Content looks sharp on this display and by default, the display isn’t too saturated either.

Performance

Powering the Redmi 9 Prime is the new MediaTek Helio G80 Octa-Core SoC that is built on the 12nm architecture. There are Dual 2GHz Cortex-A75 + Hexa 1.8GHz 6x Cortex-A55 CPUs paired with 4GB RAM and 128GB internal storage.

The Helio G80 is quite a powerful SoC and is positioned above the Helio G70 and below the Helio G85 SoC. Coming to the performance, the Helio G80 on the Redmi 9 Prime handles day-to-day/casual tasks
Thanks to 4 gigs of RAM and MIUI 11 optimizations, multitasking was quite smooth as well. But on the other hand, the loading time of the applications isn’t the fastest, owing to the slower eMMC 5.1 storage.
Coming to gaming, the Helio G80 on the Redmi 9 Prime with the HyperEngine Game technology handles it brilliantly as well.

Cameras

As for the optics, the Redmi 9 Prime sports quad rear cameras, and a single front-facing camera.

Rear
13MP primary with f/2.2 aperture
8MP (118.2° ultra-wide-angle lens) with f/2.2 aperture
2MP depth
5MP (4cm macro camera) with f/2.4 aperture

Front
8MP front-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture

Software

As for the software, the Redmi 9 Prime runs MIUI 11.0.2 based on Android 10 out of the box
MIUI 12 update is rolling out for several Redmi smartphones and is expected to be rolled out for the Redmi 9 Prime as well.

Connectivity

When it comes to connectivity, the Redmi 9 Prime supports dual nano-SIM cards with support for Dual 4G VoLTE and VoWiFi/Wi-Fi calling out-of-the-box. Furthermore, it supports Dual-Band Wi-Fi 802.11ac (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.0, and GPS + GLONASS.
The Wi-Fi performance wasn’t that great either. The 5GHz Wi-Fi range isn’t the strongest and sometimes it gets disconnected from Wi-Fi and switches over to mobile data.
The Redmi 9 Prime’s body SAR is 0.417 W/Kg (Distance:15mm) and head SAR is at 0.854W/Kg which is below 1W/kg, even though the limit in India is 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g).

Battery

Redmi phones have come with massive batteries and the same trend is followed here as well. The Redmi 9 Prime packs a large 5020mAh battery with support for 18W fast charging, but comes with a bundled 10W (5V 2A) charger. With moderate usage that involved scrolling through social media feed, browsing on Chrome, editing documents, music playback on YouTube music, photo editing, voice calls, the battery lasted over a day
Speaking about the charging time, the Redmi 9 Prime took 2 hours 15 minutes to charge from 0 to 100% with an 18W charger

Availability

The Redmi 9 Prime comes in Space Blue, Min Green, Sunrise Flare, and Matte Black colors. It is priced at Rs. 9999 for the 4GB RAM with 64GB storage version and the 4GB RAM with 128GB storage version costs Rs. 11,999.
Available in Amazon and Mi Authorised stores.

Pros

Large FULL HD+ display
Good performance
Great battery life
Day-light friendly optics

Cons

Lack of Night Mode
Low-light performance is strictly average
Random UI lags
Not the strongest modem for Wi-Fi

Conclusion

The Redmi 9 Prime gets most of the things right like a great FULL HD+ display, good overall performance, and excellent battery life, and there are shortcomings as well, like the sub-par optics, and slow charging out-of-the-box. At Rs. 9999, the base variant (4GB+64GB) of the Redmi 9 Prime is a very good deal and is a value-for-money device. Moving up the ladder (Rs. 11,999), the competition becomes stiff as the 9 Prime competes with the likes of Redmi Note 9, Realme Narzo 20, Galaxy M21, etc. In my opinion, if you are looking to purchase a smartphone under Rs. 10,000 now, the Redmi 9 Prime is a great option and you are getting a great deal overall.

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