REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G Malaysia review: Good, if not great
The REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G debuted back in January this year, and is pretty much everything you’d want in a slightly more premium midrange smartphone. It’s got a decent display, a good enough camera, an outstanding battery and rock solid performance in everyday use.
And ‘rock solid’ is kinda what sums up the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G, after having used it for a couple of weeks. That’s not a slight against Xiaomi by any means; if anything, it says more about the high standards that the Chinese brand has set for itself. It does just about everything I expected it to, and for most people who have a sub-RM2,000 budget, the Note 15 Pro+ 5G will probably do everything you expect too.
Dependable daily driver
First up, some quick specs. The REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 system-on-chip with 12GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage. It comes with Android 15 out of the box, skinned with HyperOS 2 over it. While it’s a little weird to not get Android 16 already by now, you do at least get 4 years of major OS upgrades and up to 6 years of security patches.
Day-to-day use of the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G was mostly okay. Everyday apps from social media to messaging apps as well as plenty of Chrome tabs ran just fine, and the odd round of Teamfight Tactics and League of Legends: Wild Rift didn’t trouble the device too much either; it almost always ran at 60fps on Wild Rift, only dropping to the mid-50s in big team fights.
There’s little to no glitches, and while HyperOS (and even MIUI before that) isn’t everyone’s favourite cup of tea when it comes to Android skins, I’ve always been a fan of Xiaomi’s UI and this time around it’s no different. What I wasn’t a fan of though was the insane amount of bloatware and ads that came pre-installed on the device. I can take having random games or Facebook pre-installed, but why are there ads for BIGO LIVE when all I did was pull down to open the search bar?
One of the best parts of the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G however is its battery life. The already pretty efficient Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 has been paired with a pretty big 6,500mAh battery. This means that I’m able to stretch its use up to two days at times! Of course, that’s if I stay away from mobile games and limit how much YouTube or TikTok I scroll, but with the average use case of around five and so hours of screen time, you could easily get up to two days of use if you’re not on full brightness all the time.
Bigger screen, bigger speakers
Enough about what’s in the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G then. What about what’s on the outside of it? Well for starters, design-wise it’s not a particularly stunning or sleek look. It’s a pretty bog standard design, similar to the previous REDMI Note 14 Pro+ 5G, and also the Poco M8 series from their sister brand. The flat sides at least make it feel like newer designs, but overall it seems that Xiaomi are playing it safe here.
As for the display, the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G comes with a 6.83-inch, CrystalRes AMOLED display, bigger than its predecessor’s 6.67-inch panel. The screen pushes a 2772 by 1280p resolution, is also capable of a 120Hz refresh rate, a peak brightness of 3200nits, along with support for HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. There’s also a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 over it for scratch resistance. It’s stereo speakers meanwhile are capable of a 400% volume boost.
Together, that makes the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G a particularly standout choice for content consumption. With an uber large display matched by its really loud speakers, I found myself laying down in bed just watching YouTube for hours on end.
Other nice to haves here include an IP68 dust and water resistance rating along with an in-display fingerprint sensor—though I do want to add that the sensor seems…. oddly low compared to the screen, leading to some awkward thumb action at times.
200MP isn’t that exciting anymore
The REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G features a 200MP, f/1.7 main camera with a 1/1.4″ image sensor, complete with optical image stabilisation and multi-directional PDAF. Next to that is an 8MP, f/2.2 ultrawide shooter while for selfies you get a 32MP, f/2.2 front camera.
If those specs look familiar to you, that’s because the rear cameras are near identical to the Redmi Note 14 Pro+, and even the REDMI Note 13 Pro+ 5G before that, with the only notable upgrade being the newer refreshed ISOCELL HPE sensor. Other than that, it’s not a particularly exciting pair of cameras, and notice that I said pairs because despite having four ‘holes’ on the rear camera bump, only two of them have lenses in them; Xiaomi have removed the 2MP macro altogether this time, while the other one houses the flash.
Overall, it’s still a pretty decent set of cameras. Colours are mostly accurate to the eye but still pretty vibranat, and unless you pinch into your photos you won’t notice any lack of detail there. We also highly suggest you stick to the default point-and-shoot mode as the 200MP photo mode will take up a lot of storage space for little improvement, and in some cases result in softer shots too. Again, it’s not bad in a vacuum, but still not as good as something like say the Xiaomi 15T.
What I was a little disappointed on though was the 2x and 4x crop zoom modes. I am unsure if it’s my own memory faulting, but having used a REDMI Note 13 Pro+ 5G in the past, I could’ve sworn the ‘lossless’ crop zoom on these 200MP shooters used to be better. Perhaps it’s still software bugs, or maybe the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G has been tuned a little differently, but alas the zoom shots really need good lighting, or it’ll be a little rough on the edges. And also, the ultrawide shooter is still pretty mid, lacking the same colour reproduction quality as the main shooter while also not being particularly sharp.
Challenged by its own bang-for-buck cousin
Priced at RM1,699 for the base model with 256GB of storage and RM1,899 for double the storage, the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G is by and large a good option for most people. However, the biggest problem going for it is that, at that price, you might be better served by Xiaomi’s other offering: the Xiaomi 15T.
The Xiaomi 15T starts at RM1,899, meaning for just RM200 more you get a significantly better smartphone. For starters, it has a more powerful MediaTek Dimensity 8400-Ultra chipset, comes with HyperOS 3 out of the box, looks much better and sleeker in my opinion and perhaps its strongest point are those Leica-tuned cameras on the rear of the 15T.
All of that is to say that, while the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G is a good premium midranger, it’s a little let down by its price tag being so close to the Xiaomi 15T that’s hands down the better device. That being said, if you do have the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G already, you probably won’t be too disappointed with it, especially if you get it on sale.
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