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  • serendip - Thursday, February 23, 2017 - link

    Isn't there a new Redmi Note 4 variant with a Snapdragon 625? XDA reviewed that, comparing it with the older 652-based Note 3 and found that the newer phone was slightly slower but had even better battery life.

    As for Mediatek... They're serial violators of the GPL, enough said.
  • BMNify - Thursday, February 23, 2017 - link

    Snapdragon version is being sold in India and Mediatek version is being sold in China.
  • h0007h - Friday, February 24, 2017 - link

    625 version is also sold in China, which is named Redmi Note4X
  • jospoortvliet - Monday, February 27, 2017 - link

    It seems the Mediatek is at least a big part of the reason for the lower battery life, GPL violations and resulting lack of support longevity aside. That the 625 is slower with longer battery life makes sense given its octa core a53. Dropping the higher performing a72's for more but slower a53's is not a step forward unless all you care about is battery life...
  • djayjp - Thursday, February 23, 2017 - link

    Wish the OnePlus 3T was in all the benchmark results, not just the storage ones....
  • Lodix - Thursday, February 23, 2017 - link

    Matt the X20 is a lower binmed SOC so it has worse thermals and power consumption compared to the higher binned X25.
  • Matt Humrick - Thursday, February 23, 2017 - link

    Even if the X25's A72 cores could reach 2.5GHz at the same voltage as the X20's at 2.1GHz, the X25's A72 dynamic power would still be higher based on the increase in frequency. While I would need a measurement to confirm this, I suspect that with a mature 20nm planar process that the X25 would need additional voltage to hit 2.5GHz. The Meizu Pro 6's operating table (which usually are not 100% accurate) at least suggests the X25's voltage is higher.

    In order for the X20 to consume more power and produce more heat than the X25 as you suggest (at least for the big CPU cores), the X25's A72 cores would need both a 19% increase in frequency and an 8% reduction in voltage, which seems unlikely.
  • zodiacfml - Thursday, February 23, 2017 - link

    Nice. I can't wait for the X30.
  • dexterkarthik - Thursday, February 23, 2017 - link

    Redmi Note 4 international variant is a joke.
    I doesn't have the dual WiFi band as the RN3, downgraded camera pixel count, downgraded CPU and GPU (redmi3s is >90% a RN4 for almost half the price in India).
    I love this strategy to an extent since it makes me feel happy to own the RM3 for getting 3/4th OnePlus 3 performance for 1/3rd price and since most run behind core count and "LATEST" version, RN3 will start getting discounts and sale, etc :D .
  • WPX00 - Friday, February 24, 2017 - link

    The SD625 is a more significant bump to the 617 or 430 than you might expect. GPU is 2-2.5x more powerful, its 14nm process is 35% more efficient, and the CPU is 1.5-2x more powerful thanks to the greater thermal headroom 14nm brings. It is a massive leap forward, in my opinion, a more significant leap than the jump from quad to octa (410 to 61x series).
  • 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 4
    https://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 quality
  • watzupken - 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)
  • tipoo - Thursday, February 23, 2017 - link


    Huh, not as much of a step back as I expected from losing the two A72 cores. But that NAND performance ends up being the big blooper here.
  • Klug4Pres - Friday, February 24, 2017 - link

    It doesn't lose the two A72 cores - the review is of the X20 version of the Redmi Note 4.
  • watzupken - Friday, February 24, 2017 - link

    The NAND is not fast, but should not be felt in our day to day usage. It only becomes obvious when you are trying to install a big application or when transferring a big file. In most instances, the fast response time of NAND should still result in a split second response when launching an application.
  • watzupken - Friday, February 24, 2017 - link

    Good to see a detailed review of Helios X20 SOC.
  • swatkats - Friday, February 24, 2017 - link

    OnePlus 3T is still the fastest charging phone in the market right now. Just 70mins to hit 100% from 0%.

    Re-Review the phone.
  • bibo987334 - Saturday, February 25, 2017 - link

    I've just received one from Aliexpress, Fast delivery and good price. Here is a link to the seller: http://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/2VfQNRz
  • aryonoco - Saturday, February 25, 2017 - link

    The 20nm fab process might be considered "mature", but it seems that has done nothing to curtail its inefficiencies. It's when you compare the battery life with the Snapdragon 650 Redmi Note 3 that it becomes so obvious.

    Speaking of which, that SD 650 was a very good chipset for its time, wasn't it. Too good for QC's midrange in fact.

    Bring on the Mi 6. I'm warming up to Xiaomi more and more with every new product.
  • Vishalaestro - Sunday, February 26, 2017 - link

    you guys should really review the lenovo z2 plus which is now the cheapest snapdragon 820 phone one can get .
  • dexterkarthik - Tuesday, February 28, 2017 - link

    Indeed - but the almost zero software support from Lenovo is a bummer :( - which is another reason I did not go for Z2 and instead went for RN3.
  • Vishalaestro - Sunday, February 26, 2017 - link

    guys , i really don't know how to interpret the CPU frequency distribution graph ,can someone help me ?
  • jospoortvliet - Monday, February 27, 2017 - link

    The color shows the frequency. As written in the text, for the first 10seconds in the test the a72 runs at its max frequency (yellow) then falls back to a low speed of around 1500mhz (grey) with somewhere a little speed change, the thin line with some blue and light grey.
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  • radekf - Wednesday, June 27, 2018 - link

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcwjuaykVZ4 - you can see reallistic work with phone compared to syntetic tests. for me is phone with qualcomm for more reasons better then with mediatek.
  • SinglaRohan1 - Monday, August 19, 2019 - link

    Redmi note 4 is Best Phone i have used till now but it is hard to find its Back Cover so, try Printland for Redmi Note 4 Back Cover

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