Xiaomi introduced the Redmi Note 17 series in China with much larger batteries than their predecessors (the Note 15 series) along with new chipsets. The Pro model is the small one with a 6.83” display – you read that right, this is the small display this time around.
This is because the Redmi Note 17 has a massive 7” display. It is a 120Hz OLED panel with 1,080 x 2,396px resolution and it can put out 1,800 nits of peak brightness. The touchscreen can work with wet or gloved hands.
You would think that such a large display would be paired with a large battery – and you’d be right! The phone comes with an 8,000mAh battery that can last up to 22 hours of playing short videos or up to 10 hours of outdoor navigation. This battery has an energy density of 821Wh/L and is rated for 1,600 charge cycles. The battery supports 45W charging and 22.5W reverse charging so that it can share its capacity with other gadgets.
Speaking of wet hands, the Redmi Note 17 is rated IP65, so it only has basic water protection – it can’t survive submersion (for that, look at the Pro). The outside is protected by Gorilla Glass 7i.
The phone is powered by the Snapdragon 4 Gen 4, a 4nm (Samsung 4LPX) chip with 2x Cortex-A78 and 6x Cortex-A55 CPU cores, plus an Adreno 613 GPU. It is paired with 6/8GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128/256GB of UFS 2.2 storage. The SIM card slot has a place for a microSD card if you need more storage.
Redmi Note 17 color options
Other notable features include an optical fingerprint reader, an IR blaster, Wi-Fi 5 (ac, dual-band) and Bluetooth 5.1 support, plus NFC. The proximity sensor is virtual.
The Redmi Note 17 Pro has a 6.83” display, but it is a higher quality OLED panel – it renders 12-bit colors (vs. 8-bit for the 7” display on the vanilla phone) and is sharper with a 1,280 x 2,772px resolution. It can reach 3,500 nits peak brightness. There is DC dimming down to 80 nits and 3,840Hz PWM dimming can get it down to just 1 nit.
Despite being the smaller phone, the Pro has the bigger battery – a 9,000mAh Silicon-Carbon battery that is rated for 1,600 charge cycles. Speaking of, it supports faster 67W charging (and the same 22.5W reverse charging).
This model has a Snapdragon 6s Gen 4. It’s a similar 4nm chip (Samsung 4LPX) with Cortex-A78 and A55 CPU cores (in a 4+4 configuration this time) and a newer Adreno 710 GPU. The phone has more RAM with 8GB and 12GB configurations, plus 128GB, 256GB or 512GB of storage (UFS 2.2 for the 128GB variant, UFS 3.1 for the other two). There’s no microSD card slot here, however.
This has similar features to the vanilla model, meaning an optical fingerprint reader, an IR blaster, Wi-Fi 5 (ac), Bluetooth 5.1 (AAC, LDAC) and NFC. Notably, there is an ultrasonic proximity sensor. While the vanilla phone has a single speaker, this one has stereo.
The Redmi Note 17 Pro has significantly better water resistance than its sibling – it is rated IP68 for submersion and IP66/IP69/IP69K for water jet protection. The exterior is guarded by the premium Gorilla Glass Victus 2 and has been drop tested from 3m heights.
We haven’t talked about the cameras because they are barely worth talking about. The Pro model has a 50MP module on the back with a tiny 1/2.76” sensor (0.64µm pixels) and an f/1.8 lens. There is a second module on the back, but it’s only a 2MP depth sensor. The front-facing camera has an 8MP sensor. Both can only record 1080p video at 30fps.
Redmi Note 17 Pro color options
The vanilla phone has a similar setup with a 50MP rear camera (no depth sensor this time) and an 8MP selfie cam. We should point out that this is the Chinese model and last year, the Redmi Note 15 for China had very different cameras from the global model (which got a 108MP main). The same is true for the Redmi Note 15 Pro for China and for the global market.
You can find the Redmi Note 17 on Xiaomi’s site in China. Here’s a link for the Pro model as well. The two models are already on sale, check out the prices below. Note that the table contains the MSRPs, but there are discounts available – the Note 17 is CNY 100 off, while the Pro model is CNY 200 off.
| Redmi Note 17 | Redmi Note 17 Pro | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Converted | Price | Converted | |
| 6/128GB | CNY 1,300 | USD 190 | – | – |
| 8/128GB | CNY 1,500 | USD 220 | CNY 1,600 | USD 240 |
| 8/256GB | CNY 1,700 | USD 250 | CNY 1,900 | USD 280 |
| 12/256GB | – | – | CNY 2,200 | USD 320 |
| 8/512GB | – | – | CNY 2,300 | USD 340 |
As for when the Redmi Note 17 series will be available globally – we’ll let you know as soon as we do. But as noted above, there may be some significant differences in hardware, especially when it comes to the cameras and the batteries too.