Launched: Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Pro with Snapdragon 650


Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Pro

Xiaomi’s continuing its Redmi crusade with yet another Redmi-series launch, the second this week after the Redmi 3.

Known as the Redmi Note 3 Pro, the phone comes with a Snapdragon 650 (erstwhile Snapdragon 618) and features the same surrounding hardware as the other Redmi Note 3 phones.

Let’s take a more detailed look at the Redmi Note 3 Pro.

As mentioned, it runs the Snapdragon 650 which is a 1.8GHz hexa-core chipset from Qualcomm, and one that recently got renamed. The only other thing that has changed from the Helio X10 version (or the ‘standard’ Redmi Note 3) is that the camera is now a 16 mega-pixel shooter (the Redmi Note 3 has a 13 mega-pixel one).

Gizchina News of the week


Other specs of the new Redmi Note 3 Pro include a 5 mega-pixel front facing camera, 4050mAh battery, rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, and two spec sets akin to its Helio X10-powered sibling in 2GB RAM/16GB ROM and 3GB RAM/32GB ROM.

The Redmi Note 3 Pro is priced 999 Yuan ($150). Very clearly, the phone is Xiaomi’s way of giving the Redmi Note 3 a ticket into the Indian market, where it’s expected to launch soon… and where Xiaomi isn’t allowed to sell MediaTek powered phones.

Expect the Redmi Note 3 Pro to land in India for around the 11,000 INR mark.

Disclaimer: We may be compensated by some of the companies whose products we talk about, but our articles and reviews are always our honest opinions. For more details, you can check out our editorial guidelines and learn about how we use affiliate links.

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95 Comments

  1. Young
    January 14, 2016

    Awesome.

    I prefer this to MTK version.

    • Toby
      January 14, 2016

      Indeed! I was so happy to see this is fitted with the SD and not that shitty MTK – even their so called “flagships” with oodles and oodles of cores and misleading promotional material fail to provide truly flagship-worthy performance.

      I can also predict that their X30 will provide the same upper mid-tier performance, and will never match Qualcomm’s top chip, or Samsung’s 78xx (which is insanity in the making).

      I’m not talking only synthetics, but actual performance in the real world.

      • balcobomber25
        January 14, 2016

        Ahh Qualcomm fanboyism at it’s finest. Let’s hope Qualcomm doesn’t suffer from overheating and throttling (810/615) or poor performance (410) this time around. Must have killed you a little on the inside that Qualcomm did so horribly last year, while Mediatek gained significant ground.

        • Joel Adames
          January 14, 2016

          Wapaa!! Ouch that must have hurt, haha

          • Muhammad Yasir
            January 14, 2016

            haha … bet you’ll love it if you live to see the day when a PREMIUM MTK SoC , which retails for alot LESS than a QC SoC of the same grade , but offers the same(or even better) flagship performance and is in a phone which costs LESS than the one equipped with the Qualcomm cpu !

            that would really be something

            • balcobomber25
              January 14, 2016

              The biggest thing that holds back MTK chips is the GPU. If they can figure that out they can go toe to toe with Qualcomm. It’s the same problem Kirin (Huawei) has.

            • Muhammad Yasir
              January 14, 2016

              their GPUs are not upto the par ?

            • balcobomber25
              January 14, 2016

              They aren’t as powerful as the Adreno GPU’s Qualcomm uses. For most people it isn’t an issue, but for the tech press who loves benchmarks it is a huge deal.

            • Muhammad Yasir
              January 14, 2016

              ah … the reviewers , who so often sway public opinion one way or the other. im afraid i’ll have to agree on this one and call out MTK core teams to design better GPUs to compliment their impressive and exciting CPUs !

            • balcobomber25
              January 14, 2016

              Mediatek has carved out a nice niche for themselves as a budget/midrange SoC company. I don’t think they really care about taking on Qualcomm, they like where they sit in the market and their chips offer most of the performance for a lower price.

            • Muhammad Yasir
              January 14, 2016

              playing it safe , eh ?

              but times never hold for long , now do they ? sooner or later MTK will have to think about running riot in the HIGHEST END of the smartphone market… its a tendency. i just hope they come well-prepared for that !

            • balcobomber25
              January 14, 2016

              Not necessarily. There will always be a demand for budget and midrange phones. In fact more budget phones are sold each year than Flagships. For instance Xiaomi sells more Redmi phones than Mi phones. Mediatek doesn’t need a flagship SoC to compete. But the X30 could end up being that chip for them, just need to wait and see how it does in actual devices.

            • Anderson Casotti
              January 19, 2016

              Yeah! pardon my poor english but do you see the irony?
              The guy who was defending Qualcomm with all his strenght.
              He probably choose the expensiver piece of tech, based on benchmarks and never care about price/performance ratio.
              So he is so happy with Adreno, adreno … (radeon) , the gpu technology qualcomm bought from ATI.
              I bet this guy is a Nvidia and bash AMD/ATI the same way.

            • balcobomber25
              January 19, 2016

              A lot of people get caught up in brand names and think “best known” means “best”. The benchmark crowd is my favorite to argue with, especially the ones who think Antutu is the holy grail of performance metrics.

            • MaxPower
              January 14, 2016

              I really don’t get the argument about the price of the SoC.
              We buy phones, we don’t buy SoC, they don’t retail them.

              Xiaomi for example have sold the same phone with different SoC for the same price ( Redmi1 and Redmi1s or now with Note3 and Note3 pro)

              Or some phone company sells a heliox10 phone at about the same price of another phone with SD810 (meizu mx5 and OP2)

            • balcobomber25
              January 14, 2016

              I never understand that either at least on the consumer end. The SoC isn’t even the most expensive part of a phone, that’s usually the display. People often assume SoC price determines phone price.

            • Muhammad Yasir
              January 15, 2016

              thats Xiaomi for you , honest chinese brothers working and striving to create a fairer and widely reachable market ! im not a economist , so i don’t get how they do it , but i bet their marketing dept is fire 😀

              its not the case with every other phone maker (elephone and co.) plus reduction in CPU cost will allow two opening to phone makers :
              i – chance to sell well-equipped phones at crazily LOW rates
              ii – focus on MOAR innovation in an already versatile and diverse feature set found in phones.

              if i the SD 810 hadnt been an egg boiler and performed as good as the x10 , it would be rated as much better than the x10 (thats the stupid tech press for u) , so to say … you can’t really compare the SD 810 to x10 when one of them suffered from alot of bashing and issues, if they were BOTH without problems , then we would see an actual winner.

              it all comes down to my ultimate desire … to see OUTRAGEOUSLY cheap phones. that and the fact that lower prices tend to create terrific battles in the market and no doubt cheap (but thor like) SoCs would only add to the flair !

            • MaxPower
              January 15, 2016

              Put aside Xiaomi then and let’s go back to a couple of years ago while we had the SD801 and MT6595.

              All the flagships used to cost the same (~$300).
              Zopo zp999 and Meizu MX4 for Mediatek and probably 20 different phones for the SD801.

              According to you the Mediatek variant had to cost less, but truth is that it didn’t happen.

              Speaking of outrageously cheap phones… In my opinion we reached the lowest level.
              I honestly don’t think prices will go down anymore, the market is saturated.

              (Unless you buy older technology)

            • Muhammad Yasir
              January 15, 2016

              ok 🙁

            • MaxPower
              January 15, 2016

              That was just my feeling about the price.
              What can happen is what is happening right now.

              Last year I had to go for a flagship to satisfy my needs (I know, big word) this year I can go with a midranger because they reached the level of last year flagship and even more.

              So I can save few bucks in that way

          • balcobomber25
            January 14, 2016

            Lol, just can’t stand the ignorant fanboy comments. My favorite chipset maker is actually Samsung, but they all have good and bad chips. I have used some excellent MTK’s (6752, X10) and some horrible ones (6582). I have used some excellent SD’s (801, 800, S4) and some horrible ones (410, 615). Every company has good and bad chips.

        • Muhammad Yasir
          January 14, 2016

          lol @balcobomber25:disqus , it exists everywhere. a few days ago , a phD who’s teaching us Integrated Circuits (my fav subject) in Computer Engineering also said that smartphones are so cheap due to MTK chips in them. i only avoided arguing on the basis of utmost respect i have for him (he’s a good teacher and v.knowledgeable) and class atmosphere.

          • balcobomber25
            January 14, 2016

            Yea I usually don’t get involved in the fanboy flame wars, I like all chipset makers. But when I see the overtly fanboyish comments I have to respond.

            • Muhammad Yasir
              January 14, 2016

              don’t know why people would bash MTK .. they’re the reason Samsung and SD cpu equipped phones somehow try to stay in sane price ranges. IF MTK dint gave them a run for their cash (and that too with a strong performance) … we’d all be priced out of DECENT phones !

              Exynos and certain Qualcomm phones are soo over priced and out of a student’s/common man’s reach …

            • balcobomber25
              January 14, 2016

              People are stuck in the old days when MTK chips were crap. They refuse to accept that they are now viable competitors to Qualcomm. Even Samsung SoC’s don’t get as much love from the Media as Qualcomm does.

            • Muhammad Yasir
              January 14, 2016

              guess Qualcomm knows how to share its wealth :p

            • King
              January 14, 2016

              Maybe it happens a lot with anything Asian … people or chips. 😉

            • King
              January 14, 2016

              I understand that “urge” 😀

        • Toby
          January 15, 2016

          Not really. Just happy that the X10 hasn’t gained widespread market share, that the X20 is really really late, and the X30 is a figment of imagination for 2016.

          Also, extremely happy that Xiaomi didn’t choose MTK for this device. Last year I stuck with an SD-801 chip, which once again blasted everything MTK out of the water, so I was extremely happy as well! 😀

          • balcobomber25
            January 15, 2016

            The X10 has gained significant market share, especially compared to the previous generation Mediatek flagship, the 6595. This year we saw phones from Xiaomi, Meizu, HTC, LeTV, Elephone and several other brands using this chip. This was made possible by the 64 bit SD chips being an absolute disaster. Many of these phones would have used the SD615 if it wasn’t so terrible.

            How is the X20 late? It is meant as a SoC for 2016….

      • Mr.Flying Zoom3rz
        January 14, 2016

        Sure X30 won’t meet the Qualcomm speed man, also won’t cost as high as you must pay for your new shiny Snapdragon phone.

  2. Chandler Bing
    January 14, 2016

    No Microsd yet? Damn Xiaomi…

  3. realjjj
    January 14, 2016

    Great, by far the best perf/$ available (for now).

    But no microSD so they can go get hit by a bus, repeatedly.

    • Joel Adames
      January 14, 2016

      You made my day with that one 😀

    • Muhammad Yasir
      January 14, 2016

      i like your style …

      now how about those tuitions 😀 !

    • Mr.Flying Zoom3rz
      January 14, 2016

      lol 😀

    • highwind
      January 21, 2016

      there is a microSD “hybrid” slot… so it is either dual-sim or microSD+single SIM

  4. Tajwar
    January 14, 2016

    That 16mpx thou

    • Joel Adames
      January 14, 2016

      Hopefully not extrapolateddg bla bla bla.

      • Muhammad Yasir
        January 14, 2016

        that’d be major stab in rep and PR for Xiaomi .. lets hope they dint do a half-assed job on the cam setup !

        • King
          January 14, 2016

          Yup… we love seeing the full ass ) )

          • Muhammad Yasir
            January 14, 2016

            *uneasy laughter*

      • Tajwar
        January 14, 2016

        I’m very optimistic xiaomi would never “megapolate” their cameras although performance has yet to be seen…

      • balcobomber25
        January 14, 2016

        Xiaomi doesn’t interpolate camera’s. If they say its 16, it’s a native 16.

  5. January 14, 2016

    It has a micro SD slot. But a hybrid one though. Check out the specs on Chinese Mi website.

    • Mr.Flying Zoom3rz
      January 14, 2016

      So we can use the sim slot for sdcard or?

      • January 16, 2016

        You can use the 2nd slot for either a 4G micro sim or a micro SD card.

        • Mr.Flying Zoom3rz
          January 17, 2016

          Nice! That’s what I was hoping for. I can’t wait to get my hands on the phone. They said the shipping will start in the end of February.

  6. Levi Smith
    January 14, 2016

    Well, color me surprised! Never believed that this would happen. Hoped though. Guess it’s time to stop hating Xiaomi for not bringing their newer stuff to India.

    One question though, SD650 vs HelioX10 – how do they compare? I don’t really understand the numbers and stuff, but would prefer a real world example. Thanks.

    • balcobomber25
      January 14, 2016

      Depends on what you use your phone for. If you play a lot of games you’re better off with the 650, it has a better GPU. If you don’t play a lot of games, or only play light games (think Candy Crush), they are about equal in terms of performance.

      • Levi Smith
        January 14, 2016

        Ah, I see. How about media consumption, though? I would like to watch movies and TV series while traveling, that I just don’t have time to watch normally. Would that be better too? Since the “LeEco” Le1s is releasing soon, I was going to go for that one, but this one looks like a serious contender.

        • balcobomber25
          January 14, 2016

          Any processor today can handle that with ease. If your prime usage is media consumption, ignore the processor all together and instead focus on which phone has the best display, audio, storage options and LTE coverage for your country.

          • Levi Smith
            January 14, 2016

            Cool, thanks!

            • balcobomber25
              January 14, 2016

              No problem it can get really confusing with all the names and numbers thrown out. In the end go for the phone you like best based on the whole package. If you need any other advice any one of us are happy to help, most of us here have experience with just about every brand discussed here. 🙂

      • Joel Adames
        January 14, 2016

        I might differ a bit on that. But could you explain a bit about that MTK gaming performance, as I’ve had the 6752 and the 6795 actually and gaming is great here.
        Asphalt8
        Asphalt nitro
        Gp 3
        NOVA
        Ganstar Vegas and other high heavy games

        • balcobomber25
          January 14, 2016

          You can play those games on the MTK chips without issues, they just run a lot better on the SD chips (depending on the chip). You can run them on max settings and achieve a higher FPS.

      • Muhammad Yasir
        January 14, 2016

        GAMES IT IS !

  7. Muhammad Yasir
    January 14, 2016

    wth is India’s problem with MTK ?! or is this a dirty move by Qualcomm to deprive Indian brothers from MTK equipped handsets ?!

    As for the phone , i TOTALLY dig this babe ! its even alleged to possess a HYBRID sim card slot , which means room for a … SD CARD for MY GAMES ! (credit to : kingpopz for the hint). IT EVEN HAS SLOWMO vid and a 16 mp cam is all to die for (i kno i kno , pixels aint everything) , coming from a reputed maker like Xiaomi !

    Please resellers , dont hike this kajigger’s rate too much … im really into this one !

    • Levi Smith
      January 14, 2016

      It’s actually not India’s problem with MTK, but rather Ericsson’s problem with Xiaomi specifically regarding infringement of patents. As far as I understand it, there are a number of other companies who release their phones with Mediatek chips after paying Ericsson for using their patents. Xiaomi is the only company who refuses to do so, which is why Ericsson moved to court and got them banned. It’s been YEARS, and Xiaomi still doesn’t want to pay. Dunno why!

      On a side note, I totally agree with you about this phone. 🙂

      • Muhammad Yasir
        January 14, 2016

        so basically .. Ericsson wants cash to authorize sale of MTK phones in India.
        excuse my lack of knowledge … but who the deuce are Ericsson ?

        • Levi Smith
          January 14, 2016

          They want the money because they own the patents and Xiaomi refuses to pay – the only ones who don’t. Even Micromax had a case lodged against them by Ericsson, but they payed their dues and can now sell MTK based devices without any issues.

          • Muhammad Yasir
            January 14, 2016

            i see…

            any idea who owns such patents in other countries ?

            • Levi Smith
              January 14, 2016

              Not specifically, but as Balco said above, Ericsson, Qualcomm, LG and Huawei are among the top in the world.

            • Mr.Flying Zoom3rz
              January 14, 2016

              Nice conversion here guys. 🙂 I learned new interesting things.

            • balcobomber25
              January 14, 2016

              Numerous companies own them and in some countries the Government themselves controls the patents but it varies from country to country. Patents are huge in this industry, the entire reason Google bought Motorola was for it’s patents. They never actually cared about the phone brand. When they sold to Lenovo they kept over 17000 patents and only gave up those directly associated with Moto phones.

            • Muhammad Yasir
              January 15, 2016

              lol thanks … i can noe infer who owns the GODDAMN smartphone sale patents in Pakistan.
              google PTA … i only have HONEST hatred for them.

          • King
            January 14, 2016

            And they (Micromax) went ahead and did some sort of patch up for their YU brand as well.

      • balcobomber25
        January 14, 2016

        You are correct! It has little to do with India itself, Ericsson developed most of the Indian mobile infrastructure and as such they hold the majority of the patents required to operate on Indian networks. It is like this in every country, Qualcomm, LG, Huawei and Ericsson are among the biggest 3G/4G patent holders.

        The reason Xiaomi can sell Qulacomm phones is because Qualcomm acquires the patents directly from Ericsson and adds those costs into the price of the chips. Mediatek does not and it’s up to each individual company to buy the rights from Ericsson. It’s one of the ways MTK can offer their chips for a lower cost.

        The only one to really blame here is Xiaomi. They are being stubborn and refuse to pay Ericsson what is owed to them. Interesting enough Xiaomi has no issues paying Qualcomm for those same patents in China. They just recently signed a new deal with Qualcomm to obtain the 3G/4G licenses for all their devices (including MTK devices).

        • Levi Smith
          January 14, 2016

          That’s very well explained. I might just copy-paste this in case I need to clarify to someone else. 😀

          • Muhammad Yasir
            January 14, 2016

            lol

        • Muhammad Yasir
          January 14, 2016

          so… basically , Xiaomi is the perpetrator here 😛 !

          its a dumbass move from them … only hurting their own sales and market variety !

          EDIT : yeah , this sounds strange. but any idea who holds similar patents in Pakistan , like the ones Ericsson holds in India ?

          • balcobomber25
            January 14, 2016

            Yup they could very easily negotiate a deal with Ericsson and sell MTK phones, they refuse too though. Every other phone maker that sells MTK phones in India has done this.

          • King
            January 14, 2016

            Zardari and Shariff maybe 😉

            • Muhammad Yasir
              January 14, 2016

              lol , for an indian u sure have a good scope of across the border politics :p

            • King
              January 14, 2016

              No bro, not politics. It has divided us. 🙁 and Phones are uniting. 😀

            • Muhammad Yasir
              January 14, 2016

              yeah … not a big fan of them politics either.. only serve the elite and make all others go at each other !

              phones , tech and all the exciting stuff FTW !

        • MaxPower
          January 14, 2016

          the other day xiaomi bought 15 different us patents from broadcom.
          we might see them expanding abroad soon

          • balcobomber25
            January 14, 2016

            Hopefully that means the Mi5 has US LTE, at least one band.

            • MaxPower
              January 14, 2016

              I doubt that will happen soon.
              In India they’ve got banned, in the US they will be sued, not fun at all.

              What happened with ericsson messed their whole expansion plan
              (That’s what I think).

              Apple and Ericsson have been in court for a decade and it ended up only the other day.
              You don’t want to deal with that shit.

            • balcobomber25
              January 14, 2016

              As long as they apply for and obtain the correct patents they could sell here. It’s not illegal to copy features as long as you obtain those patents from the company that owns them. Since Hugo was hired Xiaomi has been hard at work acquiring all the correct patents.

            • MaxPower
              January 14, 2016

              They are clearly moving in that direction and I understand why they are not rushing it:a company that sells at 1/3 of the price might upset lot of people.

              At this last CES the FBI came and confiscated all the belongings of a Chinese company that manufactures hoverboards but sells them at 1/3 the price of the lead competitor.

            • balcobomber25
              January 14, 2016

              Yea i heard thats because they were using inferior components that could cause harm to consumers. If I was Xiaomi I would lock down the lower American markets firsr like Mexico, Brazil and Argentina before focusing on the US.

            • MaxPower
              January 14, 2016

              Agree with that.

        • realjjj
          January 15, 2016

          That’s not quite true. The patents and the chips are a different matter and mediatek doesn’t have a price advantage because of patents.
          Qualcomm charges phone makers for their own patents, no matter if the device uses a Qualcomm chip or not.
          Most of Qualcomm’s profit is from patent trolling and to make it worse they charge a % of the value of the entire device.
          The terms agreed with the China regulator are public.

          Based on 65% of the value of the device they get payed 3.5% of that or 5% if it has CDMA.
          So for a 700$ phone with CDMA they get payed 22.75$ for patents no matter if they also sell some chips in the device or not.

          For a 100$ with no CDMA they get just 2.275$.
          Sure some phone makers are able to reach better deals, these being the max China lets them charge. ,maybe with strings attached.
          And Qualcomm gets payed like that for pretty much every 3G/4G device in the world.

          • balcobomber25
            January 15, 2016

            Do you have a source for your numbers? Not saying they are wrong just interested in seeing them.

  8. Roberto Tomás
    January 14, 2016

    why is this cheaper than a typical Note 3 ? you’d think they would bring the Note 3 prices down to ~$100 to compensate for the cheaper Pro version

    • Muhammad Yasir
      January 14, 2016

      agreed … but im a sucker for this version , despite being strongly PRO-MTK !

    • balcobomber25
      January 14, 2016

      The Note 3 sells for 899 yuan in China, this one is selling for 999 yuan.

      http://www.mi.com/note3/

  9. yalok
    January 14, 2016

    Looks cool on paper, let’s see if SD650 will not throttle as bad as SD810 does.

  10. alan4195
    January 16, 2016

    Hey Andi,

    Any idea if/when Gizchina Shop might have these on presale? I’d rather give my money to Gizchina, even it means waiting a little longer.

  11. Mister MyGIP
    January 21, 2016

    Пошли в продажу уже по 220$ на aliexpress
    http://mygip.ru/xiaomi-redmi-note-3-pro/

  12. highwind
    January 21, 2016

    Locked Bootloader bullshit again…