Redmi 9-series officially entered into the African smartphone market in the close of July last month. The series includes the entry-level Redmi 9A, Redmi 9C and the vanilla Redmi 9, which have the upper spec sheet in the trio. We were able to get a unit of the standard Redmi 9, and this is our review of the device.
There are four camera modules at the back of the Redmi 9. The main 13-megapixel snapper, with 8-megapixel wide lens, 5-megapixel macro snapper and a 2-megapixel depth shooter, while a single 8-megapixel selfie seats upfront.
We tried out all the sensors above, and they all worked as intended. The 13-megapixel main snapper can capture crisp images in outdoor shots. As for indoor snaps, well, good images are assured with good lightening condition and stable hands. But on the contrary, images get grainy with high noise level.
Sadly, the single LED flash at the back did not really help much as well. I’m not even sure whether there is a software glitch here or something else. For example, when the LED light is set to auto, it won’t fire during some low-light shoots especially when the object is bright, but not adequately bright.
One other issue I have with the LED flash is, it use same focusing light as capture light. This is what I mean, usually, a smartphone LED light is fine-tuned to produced low light during image focusing, then fire a more stronger and bright light to capture the image. But the Redmi 9 is not so, same focusing light captures the image without even a blink, leading to sharp-less indoor images. But again, images taken under good lightening conditions are great.
Sincerely, I enjoy playing around with the camera on Redmi 9. You could also capture a larger filed of field on the device, that is where the bundled 8-megapixel ultra-wide lens comes in, but it can’t go above 118 degrees.
Then, there is the isolated 5-megapixel macro lens, which performed incredible well in my test. Thanks to the lens, I was able to count the legs of this House Fly, or is this Bush Fly?
Finally, the frontal selfie snapper, which can shoot in normal mode or AI portrait mode, and surpsingly, even though there is no LED flash upfront, the frontal 8-megapixel lens is still able to capture decent images.
thanks for a very detailed review, already excited about this phone! In your opinion, is the price N66,000 the right investment for the phone? I have heard a lot about the gaming performance of the Mediatek helio G80 and really want to go for it!
Thanks for the feedback bro. Trust me, even at N70K, the Redmi 9 is still worth it.
that is amazing! thanks for the honest opinion. Even I had this intuition that this is the right phone for this price
that is amazing! thanks for the honest opinion. Even I had this intuition that this is the right phone for this price
Thanks for the feedback bro. Trust me, even at N70K, the Redmi 9 is still worth it.
thanks for a very detailed review, already excited about this phone! In your opinion, is the price N66,000 the right investment for the phone? I have heard a lot about the gaming performance of the Mediatek helio G80 and really want to go for it!
Just love the specs of the smartphone. Not just its Mediatek processor, even its battery, display and camera are so awesome at the cost.
Just love the specs of the smartphone. Not just its Mediatek processor, even its battery, display and camera are so awesome at the cost.