RedmiBook 15 Pro review: hidden under a little pity

Xiaomi’s Redmi brand entered the Indian notebook computer market with the new RedmiBook 15 Pro. Redmi’s consistent style is to obtain the most cost-effective hardware. With RedmiBook 15 Pro, the brand is doing something different. This is Redmi’s first laptop sold outside of China and brings some reliable specifications.

The question is, is your money worth it?Let’s dive into Android AuthorityRedmiBook 15 Pro review.

• RedmiBook 15 e-learning version (Intel Core i3): Rs 41,999 (~$565)
• RedmiBook 15 Pro (Intel Core i5): Rs 49,990 (~US$673)

Redmi has launched two versions of this RedmiBook in India. RedmiBook 15 e-learning edition is equipped with the 11th generation Intel Core i3 CPU and SATA SSD options, and the price is lower. RedmiBook 15 Pro is the top version with only one SKU.

For your money, you can get a polycarbonate material with a brushed metal finish. Notable features include a full SD card reader, a very spacious touchpad, support for Windows Precision drivers, and a foldable Ethernet port. There are also stereo speakers on board. The weight of the laptop is 1.8 kg (3.97 lb). There are some notable omissions, such as a backlit keyboard and USB-C port.

The price of RedmiBook 15 Pro is Rs. 49,990, this laptop is now available for purchase in India through Flipkart and Mi.com.

RedmiBook 15 Pro is a low-key laptop. It has only one color-a fairly soft gray. The hand feels very good, although we are worried that due to the polycarbonate material, the very large palm rest may soon show signs of aging, and it is easy to get dirty. In terms of design, there is nothing gorgeous here. A small Redmi logo is decorated on the top of the laptop, but this is the extent to which the brand identity is enhanced.

Of course, this is not necessarily a bad thing. For some people, soft design may make people feel lack of personality, but design is better than bad. In terms of aesthetics, I never felt that I was using a laptop that would stand out. If you want a nice looking laptop, this is the wrong price range anyway.

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There are some thoughtful touches, such as rubber pads that extend along the display side edges of the lid, and a large touchpad that gives way to a comfortable palm rest. The vent on the bottom may be a pain point for users on the knee, but as myself, I have never felt that this laptop has become warm enough to be uncomfortable.

RedmiBook 15 puts function above form, which is a good thing in this market segment. My problem with the laptop is ultimately a malfunction in the “function” part of the laptop. Speaking of…

This seems to be a severe criticism, but this display is indeed the worst part of this laptop. Not only that, it is also the worst display I have ever used on a Xiaomi device. This is a 15.6-inch display with Full HD resolution. Before you open RedmiBook 15 Pro and see inaccurate colors, terrible viewing angles, and poor contrast, these numbers are very good on paper.

If you want to use this monitor for reading or streaming, it will be an uncomfortable experience. The color is painted white, making the screen look uncomfortable. The viewing angle is very bad, if you tilt the screen slightly in any direction, you will find that visibility is reduced. Ugly bezels also won’t help, but if the screen is better, you can forgive it.

If this laptop is much cheaper, or if it was released five years ago, I will give the monitor a pass. Given the company’s reputation for including some excellent displays in its other products over the years, seeing such a bad display on Xiaomi devices is especially disappointing.

For other full-featured laptops, the display may seem to be a minor issue, but this is not the case. This is an inexcusable one, it negates many of the advantages of this laptop, making it completely inferior to other competitors.

RedmiBook 15 Pro is equipped with a 46WHr battery and a 65W power adapter, which guarantees 10 hours of battery life.

In my tests, it was close to the promised number. My workflow is fairly simple, but it involves a lot of web browsing in Chromium-based Microsoft Edge. I play audio in the background from time to time, and the RedmiBook laptop gives me 9-10 hours of battery life.

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Using streaming movies and music videos to emphasize the laptop and downloading in the background does drain the battery faster than I expected, but I still have seven to eight hours of stabilization time. RedmiBook 15 Pro should be able to provide you with the promised “all-day battery” and let you spend a working day unless you are doing some power-hungry work like video editing.

The included charger is also very sturdy, boosting the RedmiBook’s battery power from less than 7% to 50% in 30 minutes, and it takes about 90 minutes to fully charge. Therefore, even if this laptop cannot be used for a whole day, you can quickly recharge it to push it across the finish line.

However, charging options are limited to regular old barrel plugs, as there is no USB-C port on this laptop.

The 11th generation Intel Core i5-11300H performed well. Turbo Boost can reach up to 4.4GHz. Redmi paired it with 8GB DDR4 RAM running at 3,200 MHz and a 512GB NVMe SSD. All in all, the performance is quite stable.

During my entire use, RedmiBook 15 Pro didn’t even get stuck once. It is always responsive, and the Core i5 processor definitely shows its power. This laptop can handle my regular web browsing through multiple tabs in Microsoft Edge. Some photo editing in Adobe Lightroom is also very good.

8GB of RAM is the only major limiting factor on this laptop, as there is also no SKU with a higher RAM option. This became obvious to me when I tried to activate many tabs in Microsoft Edge, which allowed the laptop to reach its maximum RAM usage. 16GB RAM would be better, but 8GB should be sufficient for most use cases.

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Coming to the port, RedmiBook 15 Pro lags behind the competition. At least one USB-C port is the standard configuration of most laptops, which is an obvious omission by Redmi. Redmi has added a full-size SD card reader, but this is a more niche feature than the USB-C port, so it does not seem to be an acceptable trade-off.

However, it is nice to see a foldable Ethernet port, especially since this is rare on laptops in this market segment.

• keyboard: The keyboard has a travel of 1.5 mm, but the layout could have been better. Adding extra lines with PgUp, PgDn, and other keys will cause the left Shift key to become longer and the right Shift key to become smaller, which is usually annoying. There is also no backlight.
• Speaker: The audio quality is average, sometimes very small, but it is average in this price range.
• Camera: The built-in 720p camera is definitely better than the USB webcam bundled in the box—just like the original Mi Notebook 14—but the image quality is still poor.
• Graphics processor: The integrated Intel Iris Xe GPU is better than the Intel HD graphics cards we got in the past. However, don’t expect it to be enough to play old games at lower settings.
• Windows 10: RedmiBook 15 Pro runs Windows 10 Home and promises to upgrade Windows 11.

Unlike Mi Notebook 14, RedmiBook 15 is not a unique product at this price point. If anything, it’s swimming in the ocean of laptops. These laptops are easier to recommend because they don’t have the damn flaws of this laptop. They also come from brands that have more experience in manufacturing computers.

Competitors include HP 15s (Rs 51,890) And Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 (Rs 57,990). HP 15s is the best alternative to RedmiBook 15 Pro, you can choose Ryzen 5000 processor And the 11th generation Intel i5 chip.

If you really want to buy RedmiBook 15, then it makes more sense to use e-Learning Edition instead of Pro. Even so, Xiaomi’s own Mi Notebook 14 (Rs 41,999) Provide better value with this price tag.

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RedmiBook 15 Pro also restricts your purchase options by providing only one SKU. No more meaningful specification bumps are provided at different prices.

Is this the worst price/performance ratio you can get from a laptop at this price? Maybe not, but it must be closer to the low end than the high end.

All things considered, RedmiBook 15 Pro is disappointing. It is hidden under a little pity, and hope that the shiny specification sheets on the paper can make up for the poor display or the omission of key functions. The number of processors and boot time numbers cannot match the discomfort you feel when you actually turn on your laptop and see a bad screen.

Given that Xiaomi is making fun of it now, this method is more like an insincere attempt These exact flaws As the highlight of its upcoming high-end laptop. RedmiBook 15 Pro does not have such a bad business, unless the brand wants to up-sell you through different products, which seems to be what it might try to do. Xiaomi may be vying for the title of the world’s top smartphone brand, but it is not so powerful in terms of laptops. It can’t get rid of such weakness in price and performance, at least not in the early days of its laptop career.

Can RedmiBook 15 Pro do your job? Yes. Can the battery make you through the day? Yes. Should you buy it? Not when better options are available. You can definitely buy a better laptop at this price, and Redmi is also likely to make a better laptop at this price. Until then, please consider spending your money elsewhere.