Performance & Battery Life Report: Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 with MediaTek Helio X20
by Matt Humrick on February 23, 2017 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- Xiaomi
- MediaTek
- Helio X20
- Redmi Note 4
Final Words
Xiaomi really raised the performance bar last year when it released the Redmi Note 3 Pro with the Snapdragon 650 inside. The inclusion of two big A72 CPU cores made it stand out in a sea of octa-core A53 configurations in the sub-$200 USD price bracket. The Redmi Note 4 with Helio X20 continues this value proposition (at least the model we tested that’s intended for sale within China).
Just like its predecessor, the Redmi Note 4 performs better and just feels faster than it should for this price. With 3GB of RAM in the top model we tested, I could easily keep 20 apps of various sizes open and quickly juggle between them. The user interface is responsive and fluid except during some of MIUI’s animations such as opening the recent apps menu. Rendering and scrolling complex pages in Chrome is fast too.
It appears Xiaomi decided to save some money on the NAND in order to make room in the budget for a faster SoC, because storage performance is lower than expected, at least for smaller I/O transactions. Realistically, hitting a low price target requires some compromises, and in this case the benefits of the faster SoC outweigh the slower NAND, which was not really noticeable in everyday use.
While general system performance is competitive with mid-range phones—and even some flagships in certain workloads—GPU compute and gaming performance is less impressive. The Redmi Note 4 is still one of the faster phones in its class, but it definitely falls short of more-expensive products. It’s capable of playing many of the games currently available, but more intense 3D titles can present a challenge. And while not necessarily related to the GPU, I did notice that the camera takes a long time to process low-light and HDR photos.
Excellent battery life was one of the Redmi Note 3 Pro’s strengths; unfortunately, the Redmi Note 4 regresses in this crucial area. The roughly 20%-30% reduction in battery life, depending on usage scenario, will certainly be noticeable at the end of the day. The Note 4 will likely still get you through the day, but it lacks the extra energy reserve to handle more power-intensive tasks, such as gaming or GPS navigation, for extended periods of time and still be able to make it through a full 8 hour day.
In terms of performance and battery life, the Redmi Note 4 is still a great value. Hopefully it will continue to put pressure on other OEMs to include faster SoCs in some of their lower-cost phones for performance-oriented customers.
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leo_sk - Friday, February 24, 2017 - link
Maybe 625 was a good upgrade, 650 and 652 left only battery life as positive point. Had they been built at same process instead of 28nm, they would have dulled the battery advantage quite a bit too. But then, that would have left 820 with gpu advantage alone. I wonder why samsung or huawei dont come with a chipset with a73 and bit descent gpu (880 mp4 or g71 mp4) at 20 or 28 nm process for upper midrange products.dexterkarthik - Friday, February 24, 2017 - link
The simple reason Xiaomi could not release the Chinese Helio equipped RN4 was because of the patent and other legal restrictions with MediaTek chips. They wanted to keep the costs down and hence went for the 62x instead of 65x.There will still be hoards of people buying RN4 considering it is "OCTA" core compared to JUST hexa-core of RN3. Most still do the same.
The ignorance of the majority is benefit to the minority :D and I am not complaining either. ;)
mpokwsths - Friday, February 24, 2017 - link
It's been a long time since I read such a ridiculous comment.SD625 is the most power efficient SoC of our time.
Also in terms of CPU performance gives the SD650 a run for its money. (see Geekbench 3/4 scores). Not only that but it sustains the performance for long long time before throttling.
SD650 / SD652 are 28nm inefficient dinosaurs and have absolutely no place in the mobile world of 2017.
ados_cz - Friday, February 24, 2017 - link
SD625 is the most power efficient SoC of our time. And that is why I bought Redmi Note 4 for my wife for £145 brand new for the international version. She is coming from Galaxy Note 2 and was complaining about battery life. I think the performance is just fine and it is a best value phone I could find.leo_sk - Saturday, February 25, 2017 - link
Single core score of note 3 (SD650) is almost twice that of note 4(SD625). Multicore is 14% higher in geekbench 4https://browser.primatelabs.com/v4/cpu/search?q=re...
serendip - Saturday, February 25, 2017 - link
Not really. Check out the XDA review of the Note 4 Snapdragon variant, the 625 beats the 650 on battery life because of process efficiency but it still loses on performance. You get +10% better battery life on the Note 4 625 but the Note 3 650 has powerful A72 cores which help speed up browsing and app loading. A 650/652 on 14nm would make the 8xx series chips superfluous, maybe that's why Qualcomm went with an older and cheaper process.dexterkarthik - Saturday, February 25, 2017 - link
So Core i7 2600k is inferior compared to the latst core i3 7350K ? ( ROFLoLMAO)leo_sk - Saturday, February 25, 2017 - link
Redmi note 3 was cheaper at release than note 4. Though screen was lower qualitywatzupken - Friday, February 24, 2017 - link
Personally, I feel the Qualcomm mid range SOCs are very confusing. There are too many SD 6xx series out in the wild. And honestly, I am disappointed with the performance of the SD 625 which they are marketing as mid range SOCs when I feel they are more like low end SOCs. The lack of the A72 cores and a weaker graphic left it behind the SD 65x series and significantly behind their top end SD 82x. The only saving grace is that it is produced on 14nm, which made it more power efficient and allows for higher clockspeed. The true mid range SOC will likely be SD 660 that will succeed SD 65x.dexterkarthik - Saturday, February 25, 2017 - link
Bulls eye! (Y)