REDMI Note 17 Pro Review: Built to Last, Not to Impress
Jin Soh
The REDMI Note 17 Series launched a couple of weeks back, with two headline features taking center stage: massive battery capacity and enhanced durability. While the highlight of the series is the REDMI Note 17 Pro Max with its massive 10,000mAh battery, the REDMI Note 17 Pro is no slouch either, packing a respectable 8,340mAh cell.
Sitting right in between the standard REDMI Note 17 and the higher-end Note 17 Pro Max, the Note 17 Pro aims to be a jack of all trades. But does being a middle child mean it ends up being a master of none? We find out in this review.
What Is It?
The REDMI Note 17 Pro 5G sports a 6.83-inch 1.5K AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2. Under the hood, it is powered by a Snapdragon 6s Gen 4 processor paired with an 8,340mAh battery. Charging is handled by 67W HyperCharge, alongside support for 22.5W wired reverse charging.
Durability is another major selling point for this phone. The Pro model carries a TÜV SÜD 5-star Titan Quality Certification with IP66, IP68, IP69, and IP69K water resistance ratings.
In Malaysia, the REDMI Note 17 Pro 5G retails for RM1,599 for the 8GB+256GB variant and RM1,899 for the 8GB+512GB model. There’s also an online exclusive 6GB+128GB variant that goes for RM1,399. An early bird discount that knocks RM1,000 off those price tags is still ongoing at the time of writing this review.
The Good Stuff
Battery life is naturally the main talking point here. We do not really need to rehash what Xiaomi has been pushing hard in its marketing, but yes, the 8,340mAh cell does last quite long. We were able to get a screen-on time of about 8 hours, which can span across 2 days of use.
However, that may not be quite as long as you might have expected. When we reviewed the Poco X8 Pro Max previously, that was a phone where it actually took considerable effort to drain the battery. The REDMI Note 17 Pro easily gets you through a full day and then some, but heavy usage will pull numbers down faster than anticipated. The step up to the REDMI Note 17 Pro Max will also give you 10,000mAh, that should last you even longer.
At least the 67W HyperCharge quickly tops up the phone on the rare occasions where the Note 17 Pro is out of juice, we’re able to charge the phone relatively quickly, from 0% – 50% in about 30 minutes, with a full charge taking about an hour and 15 minutes. While not as impressive as the 100W charging on its competitors, the 67W Note 17 Pro is still decent.
The display is also solid. It offers vibrant colours and sharp visuals, making it a great screen for catching up on videos or doing some light media consumption. Scrolling through apps feels fluid as well, thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate.
The Not-So-Good Stuff
Performance is where the compromises start to show. The Snapdragon 6s Gen 4 is simply not the most powerful processor around. It seems that performance was an aspect that had to be sacrificed in order to prolong the phone’s battery life.
Gaming is where this becomes a little more obvious. Demanding titles like Neverness to Everness can only run on ‘Smooth’ and low settings, and even trying to push the frame rate to 60fps in low settings produces noticeable stuttering.
The phone even froze on several occasions when I was switching between Standard and Portrait shooting modes with the camera. Our guess is that the phone takes some time to process the photos taken in Portrait Mode, and switching mode resulted in the freezing. A reboot of the camera app was required in order to continue using it.
Speaking of the camera, photo quality from the dual cameras is…decent. The REDMI Note 17 Pro rocks a 50MP main camera and an 8MP ultra-wide camera. The sensors work well enough when there is plenty of available light, but image quality drops fairly quickly once it gets dark.
The lack of a dedicated telephoto lens also means cropped images from the 50MP wide camera don’t give sharp enough results with natural background blur. Going from the 2x camera to the 5x produces grainy results, even in well-lit environments, zooming in further to 10x just results in unusably soft photos.
Nighttime and low light photos are decent, usable but are lacking overall in sharpness and detail. It also doesn’t help that the phone’s processing attempt to brighten up the entire scene, raising the shadows and introducing more noise to the image.
Is It Worth It?
In the current smartphone landscape where manufacturers are raising prices across the board, many brands like Xiaomi are choosing to prioritize practical additions like longer battery life and better durability over offering more RAM or raw power.
If you just need your phone to last long and to scroll TikTok and watch YouTube videos, the REDMI Note 17 Pro will more than suffice. But if you’re a heavy gamer, or if you value camera quality above all else, this phone likely won’t meet those expectations.
At a starting price of RM1,399 for 6GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, the value proposition is decent. However, the REDMI Note 17 Pro Max with its 10,000mAh battery will likely be the better value with a starting price of RM1,799. Other options like the Poco X8 Pro Max offer noticeably better battery life and significantly better gaming performance with its flagship MediaTek Dimensity 9500s processor and 12GB of RAM. You will have to top up a couple hundred more for it, but for heavy gamers or power users, it might just be worth the upgrade.