Over the final couple of years, Xiaomi–the brand behind these phones–has attempted to address this challenge by launching numerous models to diversify and cater to more purchasers. Last year’s Redmi Note 9 ‘series’ had a typical Note 9, and more effective Note 9 Pro and Note 9 Pro Max, with costs ranging from Rs 11,999 to Rs 19,999. Like clockwork, Xiaomi has replaced them with the Note 10, Note 10 Pro and Note 10 Pro Max this year.
A larger process for Xiaomi, in 2021, was to not only make certain the Note 10 series occurred on schedule, but that it created sense as an upgrade. The Redmi Note 10 Pro Max is–unsurprisingly–the highest-finish model in the lineup and right here are my thoughts about it right after virtually a week of testing.
Design and create excellent
To say that the Note 10 Pro Max appears wonderful will be an understatement. But more than something, I like the consistency in design and style right here. There are no loose ends, no gaudy gradient shifts, no crazy more than-the-top rated branding. Everything is effectively believed out, the focus to detail is just spot-on.
In truth, place this phone via a blind test and you’d be tough-pressed to inform that it expenses so low–even some higher-finish phones do not look or really feel this great. Next to the Note 9 Pro Max, the distinction is like evening and day. What a distinction a year can make.
The phone has a glass back–this is Corning Gorilla Glass 5–and a plastic frame of a matching colour. The black version of the phone–which I have for review–is glossy and, unsurprisingly, a fingerprint and smudge magnet. It is also incredibly, incredibly slippery. To be clear, it is slippery on a surface only. In the hands, it is not, since of the grippy frame and virtually flat screen.
It also comes in bronze and blue colourways with a ‘frosted’ matte finish which is slightly improved at hiding fingerprints and is also a lot significantly less slippery.
The camera housing in the Note 10 Pro Max is a raised two-stage setup which implies that there is a ‘prominent’ camera bump in this phone. Mostly, this is to accommodate its huge 108MP sensor (more on this later) so you can say, it is understandable. Xiaomi has cleverly created each inch of this camera bump look intentional, say for instance, even even though the Note 10 Pro Max does not have any fancy focusing tricks (at least none that is advertised), there is what seems to be a laser-autofocus-like assembly on the bottom platform.
Another thoughts-boggling factor about the Note 10 Pro Max–aside from the updated design–is how sleek it is relative to the Note 9 Pro Max. At 8.1mm and 192g, the Note 10 Pro Max is .7mm thinner and 16g lighter than its predecessor in spite of all the further hardware. The distinction is, once more, incredibly noticeable if you have held the Note 9 Pro Max even briefly. The new phone is incredibly effectively created and incredibly ergonomic. It is a pleasure to hold, and even even though the screen size remains unchanged, the complete factor feels more user-friendly, and by extension, more premium than something else in its price tag variety. The similar is correct about the buttons–and their placement–which are good and tactile, and, uncomplicated to attain.
Xiaomi has opted for a side-mounted fingerprint reader (up and above the energy button) which is quickly and precise. You can configure it to unlock the phone by a touch or press. It also doubles as a speedy ‘double tap’ shortcut button, so you can for instance, take a speedy screenshot or open the camera straight.
Rounding off the package are IP53-certfication for dust and splash resistance, 360-degree ambient light sensor, dual stereo speakers with Hi-Res audio assistance, IR blaster, Z-axis vibration motor, and 3.5mm audio jack.
Display
Xiaomi has brought some massive modifications on the front as effectively. The Note 10 Pro Max comes with a segment-very first ‘120Hz Super AMOLED display’ whilst maintaining screen size–6.67-inch–and resolution–FHD+–same as final year. This was almost certainly one of the largest surprises that caught practically everyone off-guard on launch day. For the very first time in history, a Redmi phone, let alone a Redmi Note, had entered Mi category–clearly, this was a mic-drop moment for Xiaomi.
Coming back to that screen, it brings other ‘real-world improvements’ also. On paper, the Note 10 Pro Max’s show can theoretically peak 1200nits which (also) tends to make it HDR10-prepared. More importantly, it is considerably brighter more than any other Xiaomi phone South of Rs 20,000 to date, in day-to-day use (try to remember, the panel can peak 1200nits only with supported HDR10 content). It also supports one hundred % DCI-P3 colour gamut. Those colours can get good and punchy with out going overboard, once more, a massive upgrade from something we’ve observed from Xiaomi in this price tag variety. And the distinction is noticeable quickly. The Note 10 Pro Max effortlessly has the greatest show on any smartphone below 20K.
But just to be clear, the panel is not ‘adaptive’ so to say like the Poco X3, an additional phone with a 120Hz show (even though it utilizes IPS LCD) in this segment. So far, I haven’t had any ‘ghosting’ concerns (like I did in that phone), aside from a couple of hiccups right here and there, absolutely nothing that a computer software update cannot repair. Scrolling via pages or navigating via the UI in basic is largely a pleasant knowledge. There is also Corning Gorilla Glass 5 for protection.
There is a tiny, unobtrusive, 2.96mm punch hole in the Note 10 Pro Max–like the Note 9 Pro Max–though the ‘silver lining’ about it could have been avoided. And whilst we’re nitpicking, the pre-installed screen guard also leaves a lot to be preferred.
Cameras
The Note 10 Pro Max is Xiaomi’s fourth phone in India to come with a 108MP major camera right after the Mi 10, Mi 10T Pro and Mi 10i–of course, it is the most economical in that list. It utilizes a Samsung ISOCELL HM2 1/1.52-inch sensor with .7µm pixels sitting behind an f/1.9 lens and shoots 12MP (9-in-1) pixel-binned images by default. You can select to shoot at complete resolution but ideally you must not (since excellent is not that great) unless you are searching for a particular crop.
There are 3 other cameras, which are basically similar as the ones on the Note 9 Pro Max with some tweaks. There is an 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera with 118-degree field-of-view and fixed-concentrate f/2.2 lens, 5MP super-macro with autofocus f/2.4 telemacro lens and an additional 2MP depth camera for portrait photography. Those granular facts are important to point out since they influence the all-round output, creating it a sizable upgrade more than the Note 9 Pro Max–despite there becoming a lot of similarities.
Let’s start off with the major camera, which is unsurprisingly the phone’s massive highlight. Even even though on a pure technical level, it is tad inferior to the 108MP camera in the Mi 10i (which has a slightly wider f/1.75 aperture lens plus a more effective chipset), I have come out more impressed with its all round excellent and detail. It is not excellent. Xiaomi nonetheless wants to fine tune its colour science–it is a small also contrasty for my liking–for instance. There is also a fair bit of more than-sharpening right here and there. But the level of detail is just great, specifically at its price tag. Dynamic variety is pretty great also. [All this is with respect to default 12MP photos.] Good overall performance is also carried on to low light scenarios exactly where Xiaomi’s new Night Mode 2. aids capture brighter, regularly more usable photos–possibly the greatest in this segment. Sadly, this is not readily available for the phone’s other cameras.
The super macro camera is an additional massive highlight of the Note 10 Pro Max. Simply with the addition of autofocus–still a rarity in this segment–the phone’s 5MP super macro camera can shoot crisp and fairly effectively detailed close-up shots, but try to remember, this is only when lots of light is readily available.
The 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera is barely serviceable even though and effortlessly the phone’s weakest hyperlink. It’s missing out on colour parity (with the major camera, and even the super macro) for one, and the outcomes are absolutely nothing to create residence about. The only silver lining is that the phone’s algorithm does a pretty great job maintaining fish-eye impact in verify.
The 2MP depth camera, even even though it may well look paltry, does a fine job at topic isolation largely, but at the similar time, outcomes can be a hit or miss based on the topic (even its background).
As for video recording, the phone especially excels at 1080p@30fps (all the cameras assistance this). At this setting, you get EIS for more steady, effectively detailed footage with largely great audio as effectively. The major camera can peak 4K@30fps as effectively as 1080p@60fps even though there is no stabilization and the outcomes are just about usable.
Xiaomi has brought some higher-finish ‘Mi features’ like Vlog Mode, Dual Video and Magic Clone Videos to the Note 10 Pro Max–a very first for any Redmi phone. These are good worth additions adding to the complete premium appeal of what is basically a spending budget mid-ranger.
The phone’s 16MP (f/2.45) front camera requires great selfies in great light, with warm punchy colours (if a small more than-sharpened) and great quantity of detail. Night mode is supported on this camera, creating low light selfies somewhat usable with out ending up becoming a blurry mess.
Performance and battery life
Under the hood, the Note 10 Pro Max has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 732G processor–that created its international debut with the Poco X3 final year. This appears to be a contentious problem on social media. Many have pointed out the lack of 5G in this phone. Xiaomi India head Manu Kumar Jain has countered this by saying the brand does not want purchasers to invest more–5G chipset could have created the Note 10 Pro Max pricier–for technologies that they are almost certainly not most likely to use for an additional two-3 years.
Those who do want to board the hype-train now, have phones like the Mi 10i, but I do not feel lack of 5G is a deal-breaker for a phone below Rs 20,000 today. There are phones like the Realme X7 and Realme Narzo 30 Pro with MediaTek Dimensity 800U that you can look into, just in case, but that is just a private selection and completely subjective.
What is not subjective even though is how effective and function-packed a phone is. While it is function packed to the T, the Note 10 Pro Max is not the most effective phone in its segment, at least, as far as synthetic benchmarks are concerned. The Dimensity 800U tops these scores. There is also the Samsung Galaxy F62 with Exynos 9825 processor, which even though dated, is even more rapidly (the phone begins at Rs 23,999 but appears relevant for context).
The Note 10 Pro Max could just be one of these uncommon case research exactly where benchmark scores do not inform the complete story. Even more so since, it feels snappier than the Poco X3.
Let’s very first speak about the internals. The Note 10 Pro Max comes with up to 8GB quickly LPDDR4X RAM and up to 128GB UFS2.2 storage. This is expandable by way of a devoted micro-SD card slot. Software inside the phone is Android 11-based MIUI 12. All of this when paired with the Snapdragon 732G–which is a incredibly capable and effective 8nm chipset–leads to great day-to-day overall performance and more than satisfactory graphics intensive gaming. Aside from a couple of UI stutters (that I pointed out in the show section of this evaluation) I have had no visible complaints with the Note 10 Pro Max. It is typically a incredibly quickly phone and it does this with out obtaining hot or toasty when place to stress–which is to say, it does not throttle,
All this also reflects in the phone’s outstanding battery life. The Note 10 Pro Max has a 5,020mAh with 33W quickly charging–same as the Note 9 Pro Max. Even with the phone’s show cranked up to 120Hz (often-on also enabled), it would effortlessly final a complete day with out breaking a sweat regularly throughout my evaluation period. Our battery loop test gave us virtually 12 hours–which is impressive.
The phone’s 33W quickly charging credentials do not do total justice to it even though as the phone requires virtually an hour and twenty minutes to go from -one hundred %. There is also no reverse wireless charging function.
A couple of speedy pointers:
- Redmi phones are notorious for pushing out pesky advertisements, usually with out important curation. I am content to report that is not the case with the Note 10 Pro Max. The ad-scenario is below manage (but try to remember, there are some advertisements) and I am however to encounter any sort of cringe. The knowledge is incredibly related to the Redmi K20/K20 Pro exactly where Xiaomi chose not to bombard customers with advertisements, even though the brand has not explicitly confirmed or denied this aspect for the new Note. There are also fewer duplicate apps in the Note 10 Pro Max and there is granular manage for turning off notifications, opting out of tracking. The phone is also eligible for MIUI 12.5, the next version of MIUI (arriving in the coming months) which will let you uninstall quite a few more method apps.
- As a standalone, the Note 10 Pro Max provides great excellent calls. It is a 4G dual-SIM phone and there is assistance for carrier aggregation.
- Its dual speakers get good and loud and audio jack delivers clean sound for an all round immersive multimedia knowledge. The Note 10 Pro also has a robust haptic motor.
- Xiaomi bundles a 33W quickly charger and a clear case in the box.
Verdict
Phones like the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max are uncommon, exactly where reviewers like your really have to go looking for a catch. And whilst I have managed to nitpick some, let me inform you that it wasn’t uncomplicated. That’s saying a lot about what Xiaomi has pulled off right here.
The Note 10 Pro Max is the greatest phone that you can get below Rs 20,000 today. Period. It is also the greatest worth, regardless of the truth that there is also a Redmi Note 10 Pro which is basically the similar phone with a watered-down 64MP major camera beginning at an even more aggressive Rs 15,999. If you feel it serves your objective and you are low on money, you must get it and the knowledge must be largely related.
But if you can spare some more money, go get oneself the Note 10 Pro Max. Why? Well, just since that 108MP camera is not all hogwash. It is genuinely great. Xiaomi has somehow managed to tame it and bring it–and a lot of other things–at a price tag that is, as they say, also great to be correct (so more persons can knowledge it). Something like this wasn’t attainable prior to.
Also Read: Redmi Note 10 begins at Rs 11,999 but you will have to commit more dollars to purchase one at launch
The Redmi Note 10 Pro Max sets a new benchmark for worth for cash but even as the Redmi Note inches closer to ‘flagship killer’ territory, it also raises expectations. Where will Xiaomi go from right here, that is the query.
Pros:
- Premium look and really feel
- Class-top 120Hz Super AMOLED show
- Fast overall performance, great thermals
- Excellent 108MP and ‘super macro’ cameras
- Fantastic battery life
- Loud stereo speakers
Cons:
- Ultra-wide-angle camera is barely serviceable