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Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus review: Widening the lead

By Luke Tan - 16 Jun 2018
Launch SRP: S$299

Performance benchmarks & Battery life

Performance benchmarks

The Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus’s budget roots are exposed in yet another area with the choice of processor, albeit a venerated one: the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625. Eight fast 2.0-GHz Cortex-A53 cores, coupled with a power-thrifty 14nm architecture, have proven a recipe for success employed by everyone from BlackBerry to Motorola to Samsung.

  Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus ASUS ZenFone 4 Max Xiaomi Mi A1 Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus ASUS ZenFone 4 Max Xiaomi Mi A1 Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
Launch SRP
  • From S$299
  • From S$258
  • From S$349
  • From S$259
Operating system
  • MIUI 9.5 based on Android 7.1.2
  • Android 7.1.1 with ASUS ZenUI
  • Android 7.1.2 Nougat
  • MIUI 8.2 based on Android 6.0.1
Processor
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core 2.0GHz Cortex-A53
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 425
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 Octa-core 2.0GHz Cortex-A53
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core 2.0GHz
Built-in Memory
  • 4GB RAM (Singapore variant)
  • 3GB RAM
  • 4GB
  • 3GB RAM
Display
  • 5.99-inch, 18:9 aspect ratio / IPS / 2,160 x 1,080 pixels
  • 5.2-inch / 1,280 x 720 pixels (~282ppi) / IPS LCD
  • 5.5-inch / 1,920 x 1,080 pixels (~401 ppi) / IPS LCD
  • 5.5-inch / IPS / 1,920 x 1,080 pixels
Camera
  • - Rear: 12-megapixel (f/2.2, 1.25 μm), phase detection autofocus, dual-LED dual-tone flash
  • - Front: 5-megapixel
  • Rear: Dual 16-megapixel, f/2.0 and 5-megapixel wide-angle
  • Front: 8-megapixel
  • Rear: Dual 12-megapixel (26mm, f/2.2 & 50mm, f/2.6) 2x optical zoom, phase-detection AF, dual-LED (dual tone) flash
  • Front: 5-megapixel
  • Rear: 13-megapixel BSI CMOS camera with ultra-fast 0.1s PDAF technology
  • Front: 5-megapixel camera with f/2.0 aperture
Connectivity
  • Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2 LE, GPS, AGPS, GLONASS and Beidou positioning, FM radio, IR blaster, micro-USB 2.0
  • Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, Wi-Fi Direct, LTE 4G Cat4 (up to 150mbps)
  • Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (dual band), Bluetooth 4.2, USB Type-C 2.0, Infrared port
  • Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, AGPS, GLONASS, BeiDou positioning, micro-USB 2.0
Storage Type
  • 64GB internal storage (Singapore variant)
  • microSD support up to 128GB
  • 32GB storage (expandable via microSD)
  • 64GB internal storage
  • microSD support up to 128GB
  • 32GB internal storage space
  • microSD support up to 128GB
Battery
  • 4,000mAh
  • 4,100 mAh
  • 3,080mAh
  • 4,100mAh
Dimensions
  • 159 x 76 x 8.1mm
  • 150.5 x 73.3 x 8.73mm
  • 155.4 x 75.8 x 7.3 mm
  • 151 x 76 x 8.4mm
Weight
  • 180g
  • 156g
  • 165g
  • 165g

Accordingly, the Redmi 5 Plus served up performance that has become par for the course, even for devices in this price range. While playing graphically demanding games would of course result in a thrashing against faster Snapdragon 8-series devices, and you can expect web page loading and scrolling to be slightly slower and more jerky as well, you realize this is really nitpicking when you remember its price tag.

That said, we’d seem to be doing the benchmarks for curiosity’s sake, rather than expecting to crow about any improvement, incremental or otherwise. Let’s start with SunSpider, our favourite test that measures the browsing performance of a device when processing JavaScript. It not only takes into consideration the underlying hardware performance, but also assesses how optimized a particular platform is at delivering a high-speed web browsing experience:

The Redmi 5 Plus didn’t surprise us here, even though its SunSpider score showed a pleasing improvement of some 24% - the changes are probably attributable to improvements in its Android 7.1 Nougat OS base over the 6.0 Marshmallow found on the other phones at the time of their tests.

Nothing new with 3DMark Sling Shot Unlimited 3.0 either. In this test, which uses a mix of graphics and physics tests to measure hardware performance, the Redmi 5 Plus keeps pace with its Mi A1 and Redmi Note 4 stablemates:

What did raise our eyebrows was the inferior BaseMark score. BaseMark OS measures overall system performance over a number of different metrics. In fact, we ran it a number of times to be sure there was no mistake, and could only get as high as 1249. We’re not sure quite why - perhaps the Redmi 5 Plus uses different RAM, or this particular build of MIUI 9 had some bugs.

Finally, we did our standard battery test, which involves:

  • Looping a 720-pixel video with screen brightness and volume at 100%
  • Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on
  • Constant data streaming through email and Twitter.

Another surprise. The Redmi 5 Plus lags the pack by quite a bit - we repeated this test as well, and obtained an even shorter time! Again, this has to be put down to poorly optimized software, or perhaps just that 18:9 display consuming more power:

In real-world use, the battery performance was very good, but not the best considering the large battery capacity and efficient Snapdragon 625 chip; we could certainly eke out an entire long day (8am-10pm) of usage if web browsing, social media, and messaging were kept to reasonable levels.

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8.0
  • Design 8
  • Features 8
  • User-Friendliness 8
  • Performance 7.5
  • Value 8.5
The Good
Good build quality
Smooth performance
Good imaging quality in favorable lighting
Very affordable
The Bad
Display is a little too dim and reflective
Camera is not optimal for night scenes
Competition is closing the gap in features and performance
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