Gadgetory

a little over a year ago Xiaomi released the original redmi note fast-forward to today and the market has changed dramatically with much more competition in the sub $200 price category so does the just released second iteration redmi note 2 live up to the high standards set by its predecessor this is bailey stein with android authority and this is my for review of the xiaomi redmi note 2 the redmi note 2 takes the size of the original redmi note but applies many of the design elements found on the me 4i it might even be fair to call the redmi note 2 a blown-up version of me 4i as the two are strikingly similar in both how they look and how they feel in the hand but make no mistake there are many differences between the two devices while the redmi note 2 does retain the same matte soft touch plastic rear it ditches the unibody aspect and offers access to the battery microsd card slot and dual micro SIM slots something that has been standard on all redmi devices other key differences include a once again Center justified camera red capacitive keys and the subtle move of regulatory information from the back cover to beneath the battery oh and there's also an IR blaster something that was absent on both the me 4i as well as the original redmi note in terms of size the redmi note 2 is lighter thinner and even a bit smaller than its predecessor while the power and volume buttons are both more responsive than they are on the redmi note they do feel a tad mushy compared to the me four-eyes buttons the red capacitive keys recent apps home and back are each illuminated in addition to that there's also a notification LED to the left of the five megapixel front-facing camera as you may have guessed the redmi note 2 keeps the same 5.5 inch screen size as the original redmi note but what changes is the resolution from 720p to 1080p that's a pretty substantial upgrade and while the display does look pretty sharp with excellent viewing angles the contrast and vividness aren't quite up to par with the me 4i nor similarly priced devices like the meizu m2 note that's not to say that it's a bad display by any means it's actually quite good but it's just not the best out there perhaps the most significant upgrade from the original redmi note is in performance this time xiaomi has included an octa-core MediaTek Helio x10 collected either 2 gigahertz in the base model or 2.2 gigahertz in the prime model a quick end to to test on our base model reveals high marks and processor related categories the same areas where the original redmi note fell behind dinner day performance was also very good and this is actually the first redmi device that I've used that runs me UI without lag Xiaomi claims that their upcoming new UI 7 update will improve UI performance by up to 30% well there is 2 gigabytes of RAM do keep in mind that meal is a fairly memory hungry skin so you'll only be left with about one gigabyte on boot gaming performance on the redmi note 2 was about average for the price with the power vrg 6200 i did notice some lag and games like asphalt 8 even on medium settings which is a tad disappointing i also noticed that the phone tended to heat up while playing games but the heat never made the phone uncomfortable to hold the redmi note 2 includes support for 802 11 AC Wi-Fi GPS and Bluetooth 4.0 although the phone does include support for dual SIM 4G LTE carrier support is completely dependent upon the variant I was able to receive HSPA+ over 18 TSU s network with a Chinese model but be sure to check the phone's frequency list before making me purchase the IR blaster on the top right of the device functions just as expected although the stock knee remote app doesn't seem to support Vizio TVs luckily you can download a third-party app to gain support for many more manufacturers overall it's a really nice addition especially considering the phone's price the speaker on the back of the redmi note 2 sounds very good with adequate volume for most environments I would say that it's slightly less distorted than they already good me for AI speaker with the only drawback being that its rear facing but for less than $200 it's one of the best speakers that you'll find unfortunately battery life on the road Mino - was not as good as I'd expected in my testing with Wi-Fi on for about 70% of the day and screen brightness set to auto the phone was never able to exceed 4 hours of screen on time I started each day at 6:30 a.m. and was able to get an average of about three and a half hours when using the phone for 12 hours or less however when I tone down my usage so that I could use the phone for about 15 hours I was only able to get about 2 hours and 15 minutes of screen on time compared to the meizu m2 note which achieved 4 hours and 15 minutes of screen on time with 14 hours of usage redmi note 2 does seem to be lacking in longevity there does appear to be some significant battery drain during phone idle I'm speculating that this combined with the high usage by the display is what's killing the 3060 milliamp hour user replaceable battery it's still too early to tell whether this issue affects the Chinese model exclusively but I'm hoping that Xiao Mei can resolve these battery issues before releasing the global variant the xiaomi redmi note 2 includes a 13 megapixel samsung camera with phase detection autofocus and while the autofocus is very fast actual performance is just about average with a noticeable lack of detail and sharpness the camera is still a step up from the original redmi note but it's really nothing too impressive Shami standard camera app offers quick and easy controls as well as many different camera modes there's also a manual mode for adjusting white balance and ISO but I never felt the need to use it the redmi note 2 is shipping with me y6 over Android 5.0 point 2 lollipop with the promise of a me UI 7 update very soon me why has a lot of positives but here's just a quick list of things that I really like about the experience you can reorganize the quick toggles adjust the brightness with auto brightness on and even customize what shows up in the status bar there's also options to change the display color temperature or contrast a very powerful built-in theme store chummy's me sound enhancer for headphones which even lets you assign headphone buttons and options to change capacitive key functions Shaunie's backup app lets you backup apps with app data as well as launcher layouts settings and accounts automatically without root and if you're feeling adventurous you can flash a slightly less stable developer on to get weekly updates to me why perhaps the best aspect of new UI is Shani's attention to detail throughout the animations are fluid and the system apps I'll follow a beautiful design language of course Mui also has its drawbacks you can't dismiss notifications from the lock screen nor access an app other than the camera the launcher doesn't include an app drawer and memory management is still relatively poor the biggest drawback right now however is that you can't download a global Rum with Google Play services I'm confident that we'll see a release alongside the global phone release but for now you're stuck with a Chinese ROM if you pick up the Chinese variant there's a lot of Chinese bloatware and a noticeable absence of Google Play services unfortunately Xiaomi also removed the easy to use Google installer app from their App Store making it significantly more difficult to install google apps the only current workaround is to flash a custom recovery and then flash a G eps package which works but isn't an ideal solution for obvious reasons the good news is that it's only a matter of time before Xiaomi releases a global ROM for Chinese variant owners to flash it's also important to note that if you purchase the device officially instead of importing it you won't have to worry about this as your device will include Google Play services out of the box you can purchase an FD DLT equipped xiaomi redmi note 2 in China for 900 run menB for the base model or 1,000 renminbi for the prime model or $140 and $156 respectively a global edition of this phone will be launching in various international markets very soon which will include Google Play services and cost less than having to import a Chinese variant you can also purchase this phone in either white black yellow blue or pink the base model will include 16 gigabytes of internal storage while the prime model will include 32 gigabytes you can expand the storage however with a micro SD card up to 32 gigabytes the xiaomi redmi note 2 is an excellent phone for the price with a very nice design a powerful processing package in a great software experience unfortunately it's disappointing battery life average camera performance and lack of US availability may be enough to turn potential buyers towards other options if you can live with those flaws and want the very best performance and a great software experience from a Chinese OEM then the redmi note 2 is likely the best option for you however if you'd rather have a nicer display and better battery life and are willing to sacrifice on performance and speaker quality the meizu m2 note is definitely an option worth checking out thank you for watching this video and please make sure to give it a thumbs up below if you enjoyed it also please make sure to subscribe to the channel if you'd like to see more content and feel free to leave a comment below finally be sure to visit the Android Authority website for additional coverage is we are your source for all things Android