Acer Predator Helios 300 gaming laptop With 11th Gen Intel CPU and Nvidia RTX 3070 GPU launched in India

Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming laptop is now available in India on Flipkart and the Acer Online Store. The gaming laptop segment in India is becoming more competitive with each passing day and just recently, HP launched its affordable Victus series to spice up the competition. Now, Acer is entering the battlefield with an updated Predator Helios 300 gaming laptop. Before the upgrade, the same laptop was available with an Intel 10th Gen Core i7 octa-core processor and an Nvidia RTX 3060 GPU. 

The new model now comes with the upgraded 11th Gen Intel Core-H series CPUs, up to an Nvidia RTX 3070 GPU, along with several other upgrades. 

Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop Specifications, Price, Features

The ACER gaming laptop comes equipped with 11th Gen Intel Core H-series processors with 8 cores and 16 threads, and a boost clock of up to 4.6GHz. The laptop comes with a PCIe Gen 4 SSD with up to 2TB of storage space, a maximum of 32GB DDR4 RAM, and up to an Nvidia RTX 3070 laptop GPU featuring 3rd Gen Tensor cores. 

Buyers can purchase their ACER Predator Helios 300 Helios gaming laptop with either a Full HD IPS 360Hz panel or a Quad HD IPS 165Hz display. The display covers 100& of SRGB colour space and has a claimed ultrafast response time of 3ms.

The new Acer Predator Helios 300 gaming laptop also comes equipped with HDMI 2.1 standard which can power an external display at up to 10k resolution. Additionally, the laptop also features an E2600 Ethernet controller, Wi-Fi 6 AX1650i and proprietary inbuilt software like Control Center 2.0 for maximum performance while gaming. The I/O also include a MiniDP, USB 3.2 ports, and a Thunderbolt 4 slot.

To cool such a powerful gaming laptop Acer is using its proprietary Vortex Flow cooling design which includes a triple fan setup and a custom made patented Aeroblade that keeps the important components like CPU, GPU and RAM cool during heavy workload. 

The Acer Predator Helios 300 gaming laptop comes with DTS: X Ultra, a technology that grants high-end 360 degrees surround sound capabilities to any pair of headphones and speakers that you connect to the laptop. 

Users can also customize RGB lights in four different areas on the keyboard including W, A, S, D. The keyboard also features two integral keys to activate Turbo or PredatorSense, allowing you to monitor your system’s current state, perform overclocking and customize RGB.

The Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming laptop is available for a starting price of Rs 1,29,999 via online outlets like Flipkart and Acer online store and official offline retail outlets as well. 

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BGMI iOS Release: Battlegrounds Mobile India Finally Arrives on App Store After Months of Waiting

Battlegrounds Mobile India is now available for iPhone and iPad users on the App Store. The game has been available to play for Android users since mid-June and even before that for pre-registration.

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iQOO 8 and iQOO 8 Pro gaming phones launched with souped-up specs over iQOO 7 series

iQOO 8 and iQOO 8 Pro have officially launched in China and are the latest gaming phones on the block. The iQOO 8 series follows the iQOO 7 lineup from earlier this year with souped-up hardware and upgraded cameras. Like the previous generation, the iQOO 8 series is also available in a BMW Motorsport colour version. The iQOO 7 and the iQOO 7 Legend were launched in April in India. There is currently no word on the launch of the iQOO 8 series in the country.

iQOO 8 specifications

The iQOO 8 features a 6.56-inch Full HD+ (2376x1080p) resolution AMOLED display that has a punch-hole notch cutout for the selfie camera. It supports up to 120Hz refresh rate and measures 8.72mm in thickness and weighs around 199 grams. 

The iQOO 8 is powered by the Snapdragon 888 processor with an octa-core CPU and Adreno 660 GPU. This is paired with up to 12GB RAM and 256GB storage options to choose from. It runs on Origin OS which is based on Android 11.

The iQOO 8 has triple cameras on the back that consists of a primary 50MP camera that uses a Sony IMX766 sensor, 13MP ultra-wide camera, and 13MP portrait camera. On the front, there is a 16MP selfie camera. The phone also packs a 4,350mAh battery that supports 120W fast charging out-of-the-box. The iQOO 8 is priced starting at CNY 3799 ( approximately Rs 43,556) for the 8GB+128GB option and CNY 4199 (approximately Rs 48,142) for the 12GB+256GB variant.

iQOO 8 Pro specifications

The iQOO 8 Pro features a 6.78-inch 2K (3200x1440p) resolution AMOLED display that offers up to a 120Hz refresh rate. The phone uses a 10-bit screen and is HDR certified. It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888+ processor that is paired with up to 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. At the back, there is a 50MP primary camera, 48MP ultra-wide camera, and 16MP portrait camera. On the front, there is a 16MP selfie camera as well. The iQOO 8 Pro is equipped with a 4,500mAh battery that supports 120W fast charging and 50W fast wireless charging. The phone is priced starting at CNY 4,999 (approximately Rs 57,314) for the 8GB+256GB variant, CNY 5,499 (approximately Rs 63,047) for the 12GB+256GB variant and CNY 5,999 (approximately Rs 68,780) for the 12GB+512GB option.

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Battlegrounds Mobile India Kicks Off Lobby Screenshot Contest, Bans Over 181,000 Accounts for Hacking

Battlegrounds Mobile India players can now participate in a Lobby Screenshot Contest wherein winners will get a free Supply Crate Coupon. The winners will be announced within 30 days after August 24, when the contest ends.

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Netgear Nighthawk XR1000 Pro Gaming Wi-Fi 6 (AX5400) Router With VR Gaming Support Launched in India

Netgear Nighthawk XR1000 Pro Gaming Wi-Fi 6 (AX5400) has been launched in India. The gaming router operates on Wi-Fi 6 speeds of up to 5.4Gbps. It is said to handle heavy loads of VR gaming, 4K streaming, and more aided by its triple-core 1.5GHz processor. It also comes with WPA3 encryption, a Traffic Controller firewall, Netgear Armor antivirus, and more. It has four...

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Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Review: Can a single bar with thirteen drivers give an immersive Dolby Atmos experience

The Sennheiser Ambeo overall is a great soundbar with what it brings to the table. It can produce room-filling immersive sound and packs a theatre-like punch with good channel separation. While the surround sound relies on bouncing sound off the walls, you don't need a symmetric room to have a great experience thanks to the calibration mic. While sound-absorbing elements like a curtain can hamper the surround sound experience, the overall experience from the bar for watching movies and gaming is superior to a lot of soundbars we’ve tested simply because of the quality of sound output. The music output is good too. It also comes with ample connectivity options. While the companion app may have some niggles, and the bar may be too bulky for some entertainment setups, the sound output is definitely impressive. And if you want, you can always add a subwoofer for added bass. While it isn’t fair to compare the Sennheiser Ambeo to cheaper soundbars we’ve tested, the only alternative we can think of is the Sony HT-ST5000. While we haven't reviewed the soundbar, on paper, it looks like one that can give the Sennheiser a run for its money in terms of features. If you are in the market for a premium plug-and-play home theatre solution to compliment your brand new 65-inch OLED TV, then you can definitely consider the Sennheiser Ambeo.

I’ve always said that a budget of Rs 30,000 to Rs 50,000 is a very good budget to get a soundbar that not only packs a punch in terms of sound quality, but also comes with multiple smart features and connectivity options. Thereby adding a level of convenience to users. A great example of this is the Sony HT-G700 (review). A budget of Rs 1,00,000 is also a great budget to get a soundbar for an immersive surround sound experience. In this budget, we also have some modular soundbars like the Bose Soundbar 700 (review) that let you add rear surround speakers at a later date. Another modular soundbar worth checking out is the Sony HT Z-9F (review). 

Soundbars today come with a host of convenient features as well, like the ability to control the soundbar with a smartphone app, HDMI pass-through with support for Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision, virtual surround sound, and room calibration. Today, we have with us the Sennheiser Ambeo soundbar priced at Rs 2,00,000. It not only boasts of a whopping 13 independent drivers, but also claims to create a room-filling surround sound experience without rear speakers. Is it the penultimate soundbar experience or are you better off investing in a home theatre?

Sennheiser Ambeo: What’s in the box?

In the box, you get the soundbar itself along with the remote control. There is no subwoofer with this soundbar, although you have the option to purchase one separately if you like. You also get an HDMI cable, power cable, and calibration mic along with the user manual. Overall, the packaging is minimal. 

Sennheiser Ambeo: Connectivity options

When it comes to connectivity options, the soundbar is pretty packed. You have one HDMI eARC (Enhanced Audio Return Channel) port that connects to the TV. There are also three HDMI 2.0a passthrough ports to connect devices such as your Apple TV or Fire TV Stick (review). The passthrough port supports 4K HDR including Dolby Vision. There is also an optical port, an AUX port, one USB port (for service and updates), one ethernet port, subwoofer out, one mic input, Bluetooth 4.2, and Chromecast connectivity. It also supports Wi-Fi (2.4GHz and 5GHz bands). 

While the connectivity options are plentiful, there is no smart assistant that comes built into the soundbar, which, today, can feel like a bummer, especially when budget bars like the Yamaha YAS-209 have implemented it so well. The lack of Bluetooth v5.0 is also missed, but nothing worth complaining about.

Setting up the Sennheiser Ambeo

Setting up the Ambeo soundbar can be done in less than 10 minutes. Since there is no subwoofer, or wireless surrounds to be added, all you need to do is connect the soundbar to your TV via the eARC port. We have an LG B9 OLED TV to test the soundbar with. This TV has an eARC port. However, the soundbar will work well even if you have an older TV with an ARC port. Once connected, you can connect your other devices like a Fire TV Stick or Fire TV Cube, or Blu-ray player directly to the soundbar if you like since it has three HDMI passthrough ports. However, for a device like a gaming console, we recommend connecting it directly to the TV, especially if you have a new TV with HDMI 2.1 to exploit features like ALLM, 4K at 120Hz, and VRR. 

Once the soundbar is connected to the TV, you should download the Sennheiser Smart Control App. Follow the on-screen instructions to connect the app to the soundbar. You can also use the Google Home app to connect the soundbar to the Wi-Fi, although we wonder why you cannot connect the soundbar to the Wi-Fi via Sennheiser’s own app. A slight inconvenience, but nothing that detracts from the overall setup process. 

Once connected to the Wi-Fi, you should check for any firmware updates for the soundbar. At the time of review, there were no updates available for the bar. 

You should then connect the bundled mic to the soundbar via the mic port in front, place the mic in your listening position and press the Ambeo button on the soundbar. Follow the instructions on the display of the soundbar (you can use the app as well) to calibrate the sound output to the structure of the room. This process takes no more than five minutes, and it is recommended you step aside while the calibration sounds are playing. 

Once calibrated, all you need to do is power on your favourite movie and you are good to go. 

Sennheiser Ambeo: Build and design

Huge is the first thing that will come to mind when you see the Sennheiser Ambeo for the first time. It has quite a massive and commanding presence in your living room/entertainment room. In my case, I had to remove everything from the table that housed my gaming consoles and my soundbar. The Ambeo took up the entire space. If your TV is on a tabletop, you can rest assured that the soundbar will block a significant portion of the TV from view so it is recommended to wall mount your TV and place the soundbar below the TV. 

The Sennheiser Ambeo has 13 drivers - six 4-inch long-throw woofer (cellulose sandwich cone), five 1-inch tweeters (aluminium dome tweeter), and two 3.5-inch full-range drivers (top-firing). The front and side-firing speakers are covered in a hard fabric mesh with a slight convex design where the drivers are placed. The top firing speakers are hidden beneath a honeycomb grill which cannot be removed. The top of the soundbar has a premium metal finish with a brushed metal-like design making the complete soundbar feel very premium. The front also has a crisp display giving you information like sound mode and source, while the right front has the Ambeo logo which lights up when the soundbar’s surround sound mode is enabled. There is no way to make the display go completely black nor the Ambeo logo when in use and for some this may be a bit distracting for those pitch-dark movie nights. But honestly, I grew used to them pretty quickly. 

The back is where all the ports are hidden and you may want to consider cable management before setting up the soundbar as getting to the back of the soundbar isn't very easy once it is placed. 

Overall, the Sennheiser soundbar oozes a premium build. It also has a commanding presence in your room to ensure those that are there notice it. However, its design blends into a home theatre setup especially when the lights go down for an entertaining movie-watching experience. The physical buttons on the soundbar are tactile enough to give you a satisfying subtle click when used. 

Performance

Before we get into the performance, I want to get one gripe out of the way. Unlike the Sony HT-Z9F that has a menu that pops up on the TV, you have to rely on the soundbars display or the app for some of the settings of the soundbar. While the use of the display on the TV is only important during the initial setup, I wish it were there to be able to conveniently tinker with the settings. But this is a small personal gripe, one that others may not face. 

Coming back to the core performance, sublime, room-filling with clear channel separation is the first thing that will come to mind when you start listening to the Sennheiser Ambeo soundbar. If you have content mastered in Dolby Atmos, be it via the Apple TV, a physical Blu-ray or simply streaming services, you are in for a treat. I was surprised as to how well the channel separation felt when consuming content from the soundbar. 

Let’s get our expectations clear - since the soundbar relies on bouncing sound from the wall and ceiling to simulate Dolby Atmos, I did not expect the sound to come from behind me or above me very prominently. But considering the number of drivers and their position, I was expecting a very good 180-degree coverage around me from the front. In some cases, my expectations were met, in others they were surpassed, and seldom was I disappointed. 

As expected, the sound did not come from behind me. There were only a few instances in Ready Player One where it felt like some of the action was coming from a little behind my right ear. When the cars were flying all over the screen during the race at the 11-minute mark, the channel and height separation was fantastic. I could not only feel the cars whizzing from the left and right but the dynamic range made it feel as though some of the sound was coming from above. Not directly above me, but at an angle. It isn't the best nor the perfect representation of Dolby Atmos, but it does give the best Dolby Atmos “feel” from a single bar. We played Ready Player One using an Apple TV 4K box where we purchased the movie. 

Even in a movie like Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, when Tom Cruise is whizzing left and right on his motorcycle, there is clear channel separation. Even in Spider-Man Homecoming, when Spider-Man is scaling the Washington Monument, there is clear surround sound and channel shift when he is whizzing across the screen. Both movies are in 5.1 surround sound on Netflix and we left the Ambeo sound mode switched on for the best experience.

We have a Dolby Atmos demo disc with the same content you’d experience in an Atmos theatre before a movie begins. From the leaf falling demo to the forest rain demo, all of them bring an immersive level of detail and range to the sound, with the only downside being that the rain wasn’t coming from above, but in the vicinity thereof. But once again, considering the projection of sound in different parts of the room, the experience was extremely immersive. 

There is one audio demo that truly shows the power of the soundbar on the demo disc and that is of an aeroplane taking off. It is one of the most immersive demos to experience on the Ambeo. Even watching TV shows like Young Sheldon, or Friends had depth and detail we haven’t heard before. The soundbar is truly impressive. 

When consuming content at low volume or using the soundbars “night mode” we thought there would be loss of clarity or details in the vocals, but once again this wasn't the case. Dialogues were immensely clear even at low volumes and mixed audio with dialogues was easily distinguishable at low volumes.  

Music

When it comes to music, the Sennheiser Ambeo is a good soundbar, but not for die-hard music lovers. To begin with, the lack of bass is immediately felt in a song like Over and Over by Hot Chip. While the lack of bass isn't immediately felt when watching movies, as the built-in drivers are enough to get the job done, bass-heavy music genre lovers will miss it here. The average joe who wants to “cast” music from his/her smartphone to the soundbar will enjoy it. You get room-filling sound at higher volume and the details and definitions in instruments and vocals are very clear. 

Gaming

For gaming, we played Marvel Spider-Man Miles Morales (review), Dirt 5 (review), and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (review) using this soundbar and a PS5 (review). From the swishes in Spider-Man's webs to the 'zings and zhangs' of swinging a lightsaber, the gaming audio is immersive. Even the grumble of the cars' engines in Dirt 5 was fun to listen to and immersive when gaming. While the surround sound effects weren’t as effective as Sony 3D audio headphones technology, it was more than enough to immerse me with adequate channel separation in a game like Spider-man Miles Morales. This soundbar definitely provides a cinematic gaming experience. 

Remote control

The remote control that comes with the Sennheiser Ambeo soundbar is made of plastic, but it does not feel cheap at all. It also has a tapering design, being thick at the top and thin at the bottom. It does not have a textured back, but manages to give a very comfortable grip and feel. The remote control provides the basic controls like source selection, volume, sound mode, switch on/off Ambeo surround and power. To delve deep into the settings of the bar, you will have to resort to the smartphone app. 

App

To delve deep into the settings of the Ambeo, you will need the Sennheiser Smart Connect app. For its part, it works quite well, giving you a simple UI to navigate and no setting is hidden too deep for comfort. It's functional and easy to use and I have only two problems with it. One is that you cannot connect to the Wi-Fi directly and need to resort to a third-party app like Google Home and secondly, every time you navigate away from the app, and reopen it, it takes a couple of seconds to find the soundbar. There are times when I had to tap the reconnect button on the app a couple of times before the bar was found, which at this price, is a small dent in the otherwise convenient experience the app offers. 

Bottom line

The Sennheiser Ambeo overall is a great soundbar with what it brings to the table. It can produce room-filling immersive sound and packs a theatre-like punch with good channel separation. While the surround sound relies on bouncing sound off the walls, you don't need a symmetric room to have a great experience thanks to the calibration mic. While sound-absorbing elements like a curtain can hamper the surround sound experience, the overall experience from the bar for watching movies and gaming is superior to a lot of soundbars we’ve tested simply because of the quality of sound output. The music output is good too. It also comes with ample connectivity options. While the companion app may have some niggles, and the bar may be too bulky for some entertainment setups, the sound output is definitely impressive. And if you want, you can always add a subwoofer for added bass. While it isn’t fair to compare the Sennheiser Ambeo to cheaper soundbars we’ve tested, the only alternative we can think of is the Sony HT-ST5000. While we haven't reviewed the soundbar, on paper, it looks like one that can give the Sennheiser a run for its money in terms of features. If you are in the market for a premium plug-and-play home theatre solution to compliment your brand new 65-inch OLED TV, then you can definitely consider the Sennheiser Ambeo.

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RedmiBook 15 Pro Laptop Review: Fast But Flawed

The RedmiBook 15 Pro laptop is priced at Rs 49,999 in India, a price tag with which it's cutting it really close to last year's Mi Notebook 14 Horizon. Deciding whether to buy the RedmiBook 15 Pro comes down to understanding what the big drawbacks are. In this case, the two major caveats we are looking at are the screen quality and the lack of backlighting on the keyboard, both of which, in my opinion, are huge corners to cut.

Redmi has marked its entry into the laptop segment in India with the launch of new laptops - the RedmiBook 15 Pro and the RedmiBook 15 e-Learning edition. The company is looking to replicate the success it had in the audio, wearable, and TV space by trying to offer more value for money in the laptop space as well.

The RedmiBook 15 Pro laptop brings an Intel Core i5-11300H CPU with 8GB RAM and Intel's Iris Xe graphics. On paper, the laptop looks like it can go head-to-head with more expensive laptops on the market. I was super excited to test the RedmiBook 15 Pro laptop to see if I finally had a laptop that I could call the best machine under Rs 50,000, a price tag that usually doesn't get too much love in the laptop space in my opinion. Well, I have been using the RedmiBook 15 Pro as my daily machine for day-to-day workloads and I think I am ready to answer that question.

RedmiBook 15 Pro Specifications

Processor: 11th Gen Intel Core i5-11300H, 4.4GHz max clock  Graphics: Intel Iris Xe Graphics - 80EU RAM: 8GB DDR4 onboard Storage:  512GB PCIe NVMe SSD Display: (39.62cm) 15.6-inch,FHD (1920x1080) 16:9, TN panel

RedmiBook 15 Pro Performance

Xiaomi has decided to go with an H-series processor for the RedmiBook Pro which is kind of interesting. I want to point out that even though this is an H-series processor, it's essentially a U-series chip moving up to 35W. The performance is going to be slightly better but I thought I'd add this info to clear the confusion around using a performance-based processor that's usually seen in gaming laptops. This, however, means the RedmiBook 15 Pro is also more powerful than the Mi Notebook Horizon Edition that was fitted with an Intel Core i7-10710U.

The result is quite evidently reflected in the suite of benchmarks that I ran on this laptop to compare the raw performance of this machine. In PCMark 10's Modern office test which tests the laptop's performance for day-to-day workloads, the RedmiBook Pro managed to score 4,851. The Mi NoteBook 14 Horizon Edition was able to score 4205. The RedmiBook Pro managed to come close to the ASUS ExpertBook B9400 Ultrabook that's powered by the Core i7-1165G7.

Moving on to Cinebench R23, the RedmiBook Pro scored 4647 in the multi-core test and 1424 in the single-core test. These scores are higher than the Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition. Both are quad-core CPUs here but the higher TDP is helping the RedmiBook's i5-11300H hit faster frequency. These numbers reflect very well in real-world usage as well. The RedmiBook 15 Pro would handle a ton of Google Chrome tabs and even have some applications running in the background. None of it was an issue for this laptop as I was using it as my daily driver.

Graphics Performance

Moving on to the graphics performance of the laptop, the RedmiBook Pro as I mentioned earlier comes with Intel Iris Xe graphics. There's no discrete GPU here in this machine and that's fine because the chassis doesn't feel like it can handle the thermals. The Iris Xe graphics that are paired with the Intel Core i5-11300H has a max dynamic frequency of 1.3Ghz. It has 80 execution units which is a good number. It's usually higher on performance-oriented notebooks. Basically, the higher this number is, the better your performance is going to be.

In terms of graphics performance, the Iris Xe GPU was able to deliver the results that I was expecting from the machine. In 3DMark's FireStrike test, the RedmiBook Pro managed to score 1824 which is lower in comparison to Mi NoteBook 14 Horizon Edition's score. That's understandable considering the fact that it's fitted with a discrete GPU MX350 GPU. That being said, the RedmiBook Pro Iris Xe graphics did manage to score higher than what ThinkPad 14's AMD Radeon 625 graphics scored as you can see here. Here are the rest of the 3DMark scores in case you are wondering - 

I also tried playing games on the RedmiBook Pro. In Valorant, I was able to hit the 60FPS mark rather comfortably. I want to point out that this is not a gaming laptop and it's not fitted with a high refresh rate panel so keep your expectations in check. Even the Iris Xe graphics isn't going to help you with that. But I was also able to play GTA V and it worked fine for the most part as long as I set the graphics settings to favour the performance. Games like Apex Legends, FIFA 21, DOTA 2, etc. will also work just fine. You may struggle to play the modern AAA titles but as I said, this isn't a dedicated gaming laptop, to begin with.

Creative Workloads Performance

The RedmiBook 15 Pro isn't exactly a creative-friendly laptop since it doesn't have the necessary tools. But at the same time, it's also not a "bringing a knife to a gunfight" type of situation. The Intel Core i5-11300H is very much capable of pushing through some creative workload apps. To test the performance, I fired up the Blender test and the test results for those tests are shown below -

The RedmiBook 15 Pro was also able to handle Adobe Lightroom renders very well. I loaded up a few hundred RAW files from a Nikon D850 onto the RedmiBook 15 Pro's internal SSD to see how it would handle the rendering process. Rendering these 45-megapixel RAW files is no joke and I'd say the RedmiBook 15 Pro did a decent job by not keeping me waiting for a very long time.

The RedmiBook 15 Pro was able to render a batch of 50 RAW files in 216 seconds, 100 RAW files in 404 seconds, and 200 RAW files in 795 seconds. These numbers are obviously not that exceptional but they're also fairly decent for a notebook that's not essentially meant for heavy workloads such as this. The H35 processor is definitely putting in the work to deliver a good performance. All cores were fired up during the render process as expected and the single-core boost clock hit 4.3Ghz.

Moving on to Davinci Resolve, I was able to export a ~20 mins 1080p H.264 MP4 video in 14 minutes and 5 seconds. This duration could've been reduced if there was a discrete GPU at play here. Even then, then the RedmiBook 15 Pro was able to export it faster than the Mi Notebook 14 Horizon edition even though it has a discrete GPU. Davinci Resolve is known to put both the GPU as well as your CPU to work while churning out exports, so I am not surprised to see the RedmiBook 15 Pro perform better here in this case.

Overall, I'd say the RedmiBook can essentially be used for photo and video editing applications as well. Of course, it's not going to blow you away with its performance, but I am glad to the processor being able to perform well even though it did throttle down quite a bit during the process. You might want to use a proxy while editing videos to save some time before hitting the render button.

Lastly, Xiaomi has used a Lexar 512GB SSD and CrystalDiskMark tells me that it has a max sequential read-write speed of 1610 MB/s and 1440 MB/s respectively. This, in case you are wondering, is slightly on the slower side when compared with some other mainstream notebooks like the HP Pavilion Laptop 13 due to the betterquality SSDs.

Looking at everything, I think the RedmiBook 15 Pro delivers a pretty solid performance on board with some respective figures. The RedmiBook 15 Pro's performance managed to impress me even outside of the synthetic benchmark. In fact, it performs much better than a lot of other laptops in this price range.

Thermals

Before we talk about the other aspects of this laptop, I want to discuss thermals to shed some light on how the Intel Core i5-11300H lives inside this chassis. Fitting a 35W CPU inside this chassis, as I mentioned, seemed like a rather interesting decision to me and that was mostly due to the thermals. Just to put things into perspective, even the 28W Intel Core i5-1165G7 tends to run hot on chassis like this.

As expected, the Intel Core i5-11300H was being choked due to the thermals. As soon as the Cinebench R23 multi-core test starts to pull those cores, the CPU temperature soars past 95°C getting closer to the TJMax limit of 100°C. Subsequently, the CPU starts to throttle below the base clock of 3.10Ghz to keep the temperatures in check. The graph below shows the spike that happened initially, after which the temperatures drop down to keep the CPU and the system from overheating.

The Intel Core i5-11300H CPU has a 'Configurable TDP-down Frequency' of 2.6Ghz at 28W and that seems to be the sweet spot for this processor. I noticed a similar behaviour while running GPU-related workloads on the RedmiBook 15 Pro. The combined package temperature ended up hitting a peak temperature after which the system started throttling.

Is this a bad sign? Well, it's not unusual for laptops, especially the ones without a sophisticated cooling solution to throttle. But it makes me wonder if using a lower TDP processor would've alleviated some of the heating issues. Short bursts of CPU usage or day-to-day workloads may not be affected but constantly putting a load on the CPU might actually bring it down to its knees, so just keep that in mind.

RedmiBook 15 Pro Display

If there's one thing about this laptop that I am utterly disappointed by, then it has to be the display. So the RedmiBook 15 Pro comes with a 15.6-inch 1080p panel. It's a TN panel which means it's got pretty bad viewing angles and some gaudy colors. I was able to find the exact panel which Xiaomi is using here for this laptop, and it clearly seems like a cost-cutting measure to keep the price low.

Before I even talk about the display performance, I want to point out that I wasn't expecting a highly colour accurate or fully calibrated panel out of the box. This isn't an expensive creative-centric laptop to show that kind of performance, but I was kind of disappointed as I started looking at some specific numbers which I am going to talk about. 

First of all, I was able to record a peak brightness of 212 nits and a contrast ratio of 264:1. The Calman Studio software tells me that the RGB balance is way off. The display shows a heavy blue bias as you can see in this screenshot below. And because of that heavy blue, the colour actually spills over to basically every other colour in the gamut making the overall panel look pretty bad.

RedmiBook 15 Pro display tested on Calman Ultimate

I was able to record an avg DeltaE value of 14.7 with the max DeltaE value being as high as 23.5 out of the box. What does this mean? Well, pretty much any content you watch on this display will have pretty bad colours overall. I am not talking about colour sensitive work in particular. Even watching a movie or a TV show will look very weird with the colours being so off.

RedmiBook 15 Pro display tested on Calman Ultimate

If you end up comparing it side-by-side with any other display, you will notice that the colours on the RedmiBook look very pale. That applies to skin tones, blue, green, etc. And this was the case across all the colour gamuts that I tested. Not to mention, the display only covers 59% of sRGB and about 47% of DCI-P3 colour space.

You can try and colour calibrate the panel up to a certain level but the experience is still going to be pretty bad given how tight the viewing angles really are. It was honestly really hard for me to keep the display on a proper angle for work. I had to constantly adjust the angle of the lid to go with my posture which was kind of getting annoying after a point. I really wish Xiaomi wouldn't have cut the corner here because the display is literally the only thing you'd starring at constantly and this one makes it look like a laptop you'd have bought in, say 2014. I wish there was some other way to put it but sadly the display has got to be the weakest aspect of this laptop.

Keyboard, Trackpad, & IO

Moving on, let's talk about the keyboard, trackpad, and IO situation. The keyboard deck, as you can see, looks very similar to the one on the MacBook Pro minus the top-facing speakers. There's a ton of room here for the trackpad and palm rest. Xiaomi is using a scissor mechanism for the keys and actually feels good. 

The keys have a slightly rough texture that really grew on me. It's a really good keyboard with a good amount of key travel and satisfying feedback. I got used to it very easily as well, which is great. The drawback here is the lack of backlighting, a feature that makes it a deal-breaker for many users. A lot of people who asked me about this laptop weren't particularly happy about not having a backlight for the keyboard.

The trackpad, as you can see, is super big. I am glad that Xiaomi used all the leftover space to put a huge trackpad with Windows Precision drivers. It's a soft touch trackpad with no separate buttons. But just like the one of the Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition, the trackpad on the RedmiBook 15 Pro felt a little flimsy. There's a little of a play before the clicks are actually registered. It's not a deal-breaker and you will definitely get used to it, but it's worth making a note of. Even though it looks as nice and big as the one seen on Apple's MacBooks, it's nowhere close to the experience. That's fine because it's not meant to replicate the experience, but I just wish it was a bit sturdier to make me feel more confident about my clicks. 

Speaking of things I like, the RedmiBook 15 Pro also has a healthy number of ports to take care of your IO needs. What's missing here is a USB Type-C port but you do get a USB 2.0 port, 2 USB 3.2 Gen 1 port, an HDMI port, an RJ45 port for ethernet, a 3.5mm audio jack, a Kensington lock, and an SD card reader.

Design & Build Quality

Unlike the Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition that we reviewed earlier, the RedmiBook 15 Pro isn't designed to impress. In fact, it actually looks very plain with a fairly muted design. It's only available in one colour which is this Charcoal Grey and there are no textures to be seen anywhere. It looks Xiaomi was trying to go for a minimal look, but I personally think they could have given it a bit more personality.

This, by the way, is a polycarbonate chassis and it weighs 1.8Kgs and measures 19.9mm in thickness. It's heftier than the Mi NoteBook Horizon and a lot of other mainstream machines these days, so you might want to get a feel for it before buying and putting it in your backpack. The display also has a noticeable amount of bezels around it but there's a webcam on the top this time, so that's nice. It's a 720p webcam and the quality is, well, just about what you'd expect from a budget laptop with a 720p camera. The hinge connecting the chassis and the lid is actually solid and I love how you can lift the lid with just one finger. The weight distribution is something I like here.

The speakers are located at the bottom panel here, where there's pretty much nothing else apart from the vents here. You can open the screws but as I said, you cannot upgrade the RAM and only storage can be upgraded for which Xiaomi suggests you go to the nearest Xiaomi service centre. The 2W stereo speakers sound pretty good. They get decently loud and deliver balanced audio that's better than some other laptops that sound tiny and thin. There's very little bass and percussion is weak and I even heard a bit of distortion at max volume but it's not the worst sounding speaker I've heard from a laptop.

RedmiBook 15 Pro Battery Life

The RedmiBook 15 Pro packs a 46Whr battery inside which charges via a 65W charger that comes inside the box. In PCMark 10's battery life test, the RedmiBook 15 Pro managed to last for 5 hours and 9 minutes at max brightness. Just to put things into perspective, the Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition's battery lasted for 7 hours and 10 minutes in the same test.

With my day-to-day workloads, the RedmiBook 15 Pro managed to last for about 6 hours. It's not super impressive, but I also consider myself a heavy user, so you'll definitely be able to get at least 8 hours of usage out of the laptop with the brightness set to 75% and the performance mode set in favour of the battery. Overall, I'd say the battery life is not the high-scoring aspect of the laptop but it's certainly not an issue either.

Verdict

The RedmiBook 15 Pro laptop is priced at Rs 49,999 in India, a price tag with which it's cutting it really close to last year's Mi Notebook 14 Horizon. Deciding whether to buy the RedmiBook 15 Pro comes down to understanding what the big drawbacks are. In this case, the two major caveats we are looking at are the screen quality and the lack of backlighting on the keyboard, both of which, in my opinion, are huge corners to cut.

But the question is: Given those caveats, can you rely on the RedmiBook 15 Pro for your day-to-day usage? Well, if you are just going to use this machine to do basic web browsing, churn out documents on word, email people, and run some YouTube videos, then I would say you can. It might not be the best experience mainly due to the below-average display, but you can. And if you are willing to live with that, then the RedmiBook 15 Pro does deliver some good benefits in other areas, from reliable performance, a good keyboard, a decent port selection, and battery life.

Considering the fact that you have a limited number of reliable laptops under Rs 50,000, the RedmiBook 15 Pro isn't a terrible option. It surpasses many of the laptops I'd recommend in this price range. So if you are okay with its flaws, you'll find that the RedmiBook 15 Pro offers quite a bit for its budget price. If not, the HP 14 with a Ryzen 5 5500U is a worthy alternative to consider and so is Xiaomi's own Mi Notebook 14 Horizon that offers a more refined experience in a relatively compact chassis. At the time of filing this review, a few more laptops are on the horizon, so feel free to wait a bit longer to see what's coming soon in the market.

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