Once paragons of value-for-money, the Redmi Note phones have taken a turn – are they still a smart buy? The series launched globally on September 17 (Thursday), including in Europe and in India. There are four models: Note 17 4G, Note 17 5G, Note 17 Pro and Note 17 Pro Max (taking the place of the Pro+ model). Here we only want to focus on the top two models.
The Redmi Note 17 Pro loses the 200MP main camera of its predecessor and doesn’t get a dedicated telephoto lens in return – that high resolution sensor was Note 15 Pro’s plan for zooming in.
Redmi Note 17 Pro
This model does bring a big upgrade to battery capacity – 8,340mAh in Europe and 9,000mAh in India, up from 6,580mAh for the 15 Pro. And it boosts charging from 45W to 67W to compensate for the extra capacity. We have already shared the results from our battery life and charging speed tests – the Active Use Score increased by 2 hours on the new model, while charge times remained basically the same.
The Redmi Note 17 Pro Max increases the battery capacity even further – to 9,210mAh or 10,000mAh, depending on your region – and ups the charging speed to 100W. Battery life is great (22:31h Active Use Score vs. 17:32h for the regular 17 Pro) and while it takes an hour to fully charge the battery (yes, even with a 100W adapter), the reverse charging speed is quite impressive.
Redmi Note 17 Pro Max
The Pro Max also changes the chipset from a Snapdragon 6s Gen 4 on the Pro to a Snapdragon 6 Gen 5. Benchmark results are not impressive even when compared against something like the Poco X8 Pro. Also, while Xiaomi used UFS 4.0 storage (on 256GB and bigger tiers, UFS 2.2 on the 128GB tier), the chipset only supports UFS 3.x speeds and we confirmed it in our tests. Read more in our review of the Redmi Note 17 Pro Max.
Specs (India variant): Redmi Note 17 Pro • Redmi Note 17 Pro Max
The Redmi Note 17 Pro global pricing has it starting at $400 (6/128GB), while the Redmi Note 17 Pro Max starts at $500 (8/128GB). In India, the base prices are ₹37,000 (8/128GB) and ₹50,000 (8/256GB), respectively. Last year, the Redmi Note 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max with the same memory configurations cost only ₹30,000 and ₹38,000, respectively. It’s fair to say that the new models are quite a bit more expensive.
Okay, what do you think about the Redmi Note 17 Pro – is this a phone that you can see yourself buying or are you focusing on other models for when it comes time to upgrade?
What about the Redmi Note 17 Pro Max – is the premium over the regular Pro worth it? Are the upgrades enough to push you into buying the Pro Max or do you prefer other models?