Redmi 9 review: Best budget smartphone of the year?

all right so this is the redmi nine and this 
is not my typical smartphone to use i’m more  
of an iphone type of person like full disclosure 
for me it’s very important to have a smartphone  
with a really good camera or cameras to 
be completely honest but there was this  
opportunity that i had to try out the redmi 9 and 
this is what’s considered a budget smartphone and  
i’ve been using it for a couple of days and i just 
wanted to talk a little bit about my impressions  
and how i feel about it so hope you like it 
alright i’m gonna start off with the design  
now when i first opened up this bad boy i noticed 
that this felt very hard and my first impression  
was that this is metal but it’s actually 
not it’s like a really hard type of plastic  
no complaints it feels durable there’s 
no plastic like it feels like you can  
drop this you don’t have to worry about scratches 
i really like it and speaking of the cameras the  
bump isn’t very intrusive and i really like that i 
actually missed the time when smartphones like the  
iphone 4 and 5 had no protruing lenses i really 
like that these bumps are becoming ridiculously  
huge and so it’s kind of nice for a change to see 
something that doesn’t have such a big bump and  
on the back you also have a fingerprint scanner 
that’s very nice it has three

buttons you know you
can lower the volume increase the volume turn it
on turn it off you got an ir blaster i don’t know
if anybody actually uses this but it’s kind of
cool and it charges with usbc that’s pretty cool
it’s got a headphone jack wow i know a lot
of people miss those now it’s got a pretty
big screen it’s uh 6.7 inches i think uh not bad
it’s not oled it’s got a little teardrop on the
front-facing camera which is nice like apple are
you listening like it doesn’t have to be that huge
and it’s got a little bit of a chin down here i
don’t mind it so much i’m kind of spoiled with the
iphone but this is this is no big deal i i would
not complain about this at all the screen is big
it’s very detailed it’s sharp again it’s not oled
my biggest complaint about the screen is that it’s
not very bright i think that this is not so much
of a complaint but more of a personal preference
type of thing because some people actually don’t
want it to be too bright my wife for example she
turns her brightness on her smartphone way down so
not everybody appreciates very bright screens so
you can unlock this thing in several ways you’ve
got the fingerprint scanner in the back and it’s
very very fast and reliable i really like it and
there is i guess a face recognition thing on this
thing i wouldn’t exactly say that it’s good it’s
uh i mean i think you can fold this thing with a
picture i haven’t tested it but i don’t think it’s
very accurate it’s not like a 3d scanning thing
that i had to do it was basically snap a picture
of your face and boom but i mean if you lost
this thing if you just dropped it nobody could you
know figure out who the person is who’s using this
and so i think it’s pretty cool unless you’re
one of those people who have your own pictures on
like a wallpaper that would be a mistake on this
phone now in the box i just want to mention that
you don’t get headphones but you do get a
charger and there is also a screen protector put
on top here and you get a case this is
a soft case a tpu case and i really i’m
a huge fan of these i use a soft tpu case
for my iphone 12 pro i like these things
and so this one is kind of thin and it’s good it
gives you a better grip but considering the price
like i wouldn’t worry about dropping this thing
like it’s not it doesn’t cost you that much but
it’s kind of nice you know i wish that samsung
and apple did these things they put in a case
they put in a screen protector it’s weird that
a budget phone considers the customer needs more
than apple and samsung i just think that’s kind
of weird so that’s a really huge plus to redmi
for including those things again i’m not that much
of an android person so the os is android and it’s
got the miui on top of it so you get a lot of apps
a lot of google apps and then you get a lot of
me apps but they put them in folders i don’t
mind so much but there’s a lot of apps that
they put in here for example like they put
in facebook netflix and alibaba like really
it’s kind of funny to me i think it’s a popular
demand most people don’t mind it and you can
always just remove it most of the apps performance
is not bad like i think it’s very fluid when you
use it you can even play lighter games on it but
not very intense games so for gamers out there
this is not the phone for you for me personally
like i i don’t like to play games on my smartphone
and i’m actually very happy about that because it
would just be another distraction i have enough
distractions in my life so i’m actually kind
of happy that i don’t enjoy playing games on
a smartphone but for some people that could be
a problem it’s got a 5000 milliamp battery so
this thing actually lasts pretty good i’ve been
using this for a couple of days now and i could
definitely tell that i could definitely use this
for two days without charging and i’m a heavy user
okay so that’s pretty good now i’m gonna talk
about the most important feature if i was in
the market to get an android device and that’s the
camera so it has a couple of cameras it’s actually
got four cameras on the back it’s got a regular
camera it’s got an ultra wide camera a tele camera
ish i’m gonna get back to that and it has a macro
camera so you can you know you know take pictures
of coins in full detail that’s kind of cool okay
so for this price range you’re not gonna get great
cameras it’s decent you know in broad daylight
it’s fine there’s no 4k on this thing so for me
it’s like a no-go but most people don’t even know
what 4k is so i think it’s fine my only problem
with the camera i mean again like the pictures are
decent but in low light there is no night mode so
in low light i would say that the pictures
produced on the smartphone are not very good
but there is just this one little complaint that
i have and that’s the telephoto lens so i do this
test when i put my finger on top of the camera and
i test which camera is which and when i’m using
the tele camera lens it’s always using the regular
camera so i believe that it’s just cropping
in on the regular camera and that’s that’s not
nice it feels like you don’t really get a tele
lens camera but then the question arises what is
the fourth camera below and i think this is used
like a depth sensor so you can take portrait
photos and when it comes to portrait photos
i haven’t tested the back to be completely honest
but i have tested the front whereas there is just
one camera it does an okay job like with software
it’s enough you know okay so this smartphone is
obviously not for everyone but i think that for
most for casual users and i’m gonna use the word
old people but don’t get me wrong i think it’s
good for old people because it’s got a nice big
screen with no bezels you know like high refresh
rate and stuff like that older people like me we
don’t even notice that okay but i’m gonna make a
video about how it refresh rates in the future but
this phone has got a very nice large screen and i
think for older people it’s very nice when you get
a bit older when you reach 40 our eyesight it’s
not as good as it used to be so we kind of like
it when smartphone screens are kind of bigger
and so i think it’s very good for that purpose
and i think that most people they don’t need
bells and whistles like wireless charging
4k 60 high refresh rates most people just want a
smartphone they can use now i recently saw this
picture of someone saying that it took the iphone
10 years to replace so many different things
and you often forget that android smart devices
they pretty much replace all those things too
this is a good smartphone for people that don’t
require a lot this is not exactly a pro model
even though that term is used kind of weirdly
sometimes for example i have the iphone 12 pro
and i could argue that there’s some certain
things about it that are not very pro like but
this is for regular people who just want a phone
where they can call they can check social media
they can take pictures of their pets stuff like
that in broad daylight though and play light games
for that purpose this is a good smartphone so
yeah nice smartphone redmi or is it xiaomi okay
that’s all i had for today hope you enjoyed this
video and if you did you know what to do take care
you