Xiaomi Redmi 7

Redmi 7 looks like any Redmi phone – it comes with the Xiaomi promise, and it is fitted with capable hardware, similar to a Xiaomi phone. Priced at Rs 7,999, Xiaomi can hold up to the title of a budget king with this value-for-money budget phone.

Coupled with a mid-tier processor and workable batteries, the Redmi 7 holds its own. If you want to get a mid-range phone with capable hardware, the Redmi 7 is your ideal match.

Generally, Xiaomi comes with a similar Xiaomi-signature design but Redmi 7 breaks from tradition. The company does not continue with the metallic look and now opts for a multi-coloured glass-plastic look that many of the competitors are adopting. The gradient design makes it look premium and the colour of the back panel changes based on how the light with fall on it. Of course, the changes are subtle and not drastic, but that still makes it impressive. The phone is quite heavy at 180g and is chunky too at 8.47mm thickness making the phone difficult to control with one hand. The phones tend to attract a lot of fingerprint smudges – a clear negative. Plus the rear panel does not meet the matte plastic frame completely, making it seem awkward.

There is a white LED in the chin. The fingerprint sensor is ergonomic and is located at the rear panel while the volume rocker button at the side is ergonomic too. The phone also comes with the traditional 3.5mm headphone jack to please traditionalists as well as a Micro-USB port. While a USB Type-C port would have been appreciated, but at this price range, a Micro-USB port could have been managed.

The Redmi 7 comes with a 6.26-inch screen which provides a resolution of 720×1520 with an aspect ratio of 19:9. There is a dot notch and minimal bezels, which helps to get the use enough screen space to work with. The phone, according to Xiaomi, gets you an 84 percent NTSC colour gamut which is impressive for the price range. The sunlight legibility is not very good, and the screen tends to be a little reflective. The text can get a bit fuzzy, but the games still look amazing. The colours that come out are quite punchy, which is a plus.

The Redmi 7 comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 chipset, which is a significant improvement from the MediaTek Helio P22 of Redmi 6 and the Snapdragon 625 of the Redmi 6 Pro. It is an octa-core processor running at 1.8 GHz and is also has integrated Adreno 506 graphics. The performance of apps is quite good, but loading times can take a bit of time. Switching between many apps can get sluggish, so controlled app use is recommended. The problem is that the MIUI is prone to showing ads and is a bit buggy as well.

Regarding gaming, Asphalt 9 is not supported on this handset, and PUBG was able to run on the phone without an issue. However, the phone does get warm. The multi-core scores that the phone had was 4,333 points – this is just ok, but not enough to impress.

The Redmi 7 comes with a 12-megapixel with an f/2.2 aperture supported by a 2MP depth sensor. There is no wide-angle lens or extra zoom, but the app comes with AI to detect scenes. It has several options like Tilt-Shift, Group Selfie, Time-Lapse, Google Lens, etc. In bright sunlight, the photos tend to get overexposed. Otherwise, in daylight, the phone captures the right amount of details with vibrant colours. Even low-light shots turn out to be quite bright, with colours being preserved. But the photos do take up some visible grain, and lose details when zoomed into. Motion blur is also seen in certain areas due to slow shutter speed.

On the front, the phone comes with an 8MP selfie camera with an f/2.0 aperture. It is not the most excellent selfie camera and produces just about decent selfies in daylight.

Low-light captures a lot of noise and selfies turn out unusable at times. The Beautification is very aggressive, resulting in artificial images.

The phone allows video recording up to 1080p with 60 fps. The clips generally do not carry enough punch and tend to capture shaky footage. Night time details are quite weak.

Redmi 7 comes with a 4000mAh battery, getting an upgrade from the 3000 mAh juice pack of Redmi 6. QuickCharge is not supported. The phone was able to last for 17 hours and 9 minutes in an HD video loop test. It is possible to get the phone chugging through an entire day with moderate use like web surfing, photography, video streaming, and a bit of gaming. The phone takes a bit of time to get from 0 to 100%, going near the 2-hour mark.

Redmi 7 is a definite development over the previous Redmi handsets, coming with a fresh design, capable battery, and decent cameras. The only place it falters is the performance, which might be because of the price it comes in. The UI is buggy too. If you are willing to pay a few bucks more, then you can go for Redmi Note 7 or Redmi Y3 for reliable Xiaomi alternatives. Other phones, like the Asus Zenfone Max M2 and Realme 3, are capable phones to go for as well.