By Md Waquar Haider

New Delhi, June 1 (IANS): Xiaomi's Redmi Note series phones have always offered great value for money. Taking a step forward, the company has added a new phone Redmi Note 9 Pro Max in this highly popular mid-price segment series.

The smartphone features a near all-glass body, a large 6.67-inch display with a punch hole cutout, 64MP quad rear cameras, a 32MP front camera, Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 720G processor with ISRO's indigenously developed navigation system (NavIC) support and a massive 5,020mAh battery with 33W fast charging.

The Redmi Note 9 Pro Max is available in three variants – 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage priced at Rs 16,499; 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage priced at Rs 17,999 and the 8GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage variant which would cost you Rs 19,999.

In terms of design, the smartphone scored good owing to its punch-hole camera and near all-glass body.

The standards-volume controls are on the right panel, SIM tray on the left, 3.5mm jack along with speaker grill and Type C charging port at the bottom and IF blaster is on the top.

Both front and rear sides have Gorilla Glass 5 protection and P2i coating claims to prevent the device from accidental water damage.

Speaker, headphone jack and the USB Type-C charging port are located at the bottom portion of the device.

The quad-camera setup neatly sits in a square module on the rear that protrudes slightly.

The screen is really big and great for streaming movies, YouTube videos as well as playing games.

The company also claims to have used an anti-oil and anti-fingerprint coating on the top.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G SoC is one of the most effective chipsets at this price point and effectively handled popular games including PUBG Mobile with ease along with multi-tasking.

The device ships with Android 10 OS out-of-the-box with custom MIUI 11 skin on top. However, the OS is filled with third-party apps and most of them cannot be uninstalled.

The device has a massive 5,020 mAh battery which easily lasted for a whole day on moderate usage.

The Redmi Note 9 Pro Max comes with four rear cameras. There's a 64MP main camera, an 8MP ultrawide-angle camera with 119-degree field-of-view, a 5MP macro camera for close ups (up to 2cm), and another 2MP depth sensor.

The camera performed adequately in everyday use and managed to produce decent snaps in the low-light conditions.

Unlike other mid-segment smartphones, the photo is not oversaturated and colours look natural. The portrait mode was highly effective with perfect edge detection.

The 32MP front shooter did a decent job at capturing selfies.

In terms of video capability, the smartphone can shoot videos up to 4K resolution at 30fps or 1080p video at either 60/30fps.

Conclusion: Redmi Note 9 Pro Max is one of the best mid-price segment smartphones out there, which faces stiff competition from Realme 6 Pro, Honor 9X Pro and Poco X2.

Note 9 Pro Max offers refreshing design, powerful processor and good camera.