Xiaomi Redmi Note 17 Pro Max Review

Design

• Looks like an iPhone 12
• Very durable build and glass
• IP66, IP68, IP69 and IP69K rated

2025’s Redmi Note 15 Pro series disguised the fact they had only two rear cameras with a four-circle rear design with a dummy black circle and flash. For the 17 Pro Max (the ‘16’ has been skipped to catch up with the iPhone’s numbering, just like the Xiaomi 17), the firm has relented and reverted to what is easily identifiable as two cameras on the back.

This means the phone looks a lot like an iPhone 12 at first glance, with a flash next to the lenses on a slightly raised camera island. My review sample is the Cloud Blush colour, which in some lights looks plain white, but in sunlight reveals a bold pinkish cloud pattern. It’s the just-about-right side of gaudy, but there are plain black green and purple options too.

It’s also a big phone with roughly the same dimensions as the Pixel 11 Pro XL I’ve just reviewed, and quite thick at 8.6mm with a reassuring heft of 225g. This meant I didn’t forget it was in my pocket, and despite the flourish of colour the device ended up feeling rather plain when all is said and done.

Xiaomi says it’s the most durable phone the firm has ever made with a three metre drop resistance. There is also IP66, IP68, IP69 and IP69K dust and water resistance, which is as protected as a phone can be in 2026. It should survive accidental dunks in water and even high-pressure jets, though I’m not suggesting you hose your phone clean. Safe in heavy rain, at least!

One small win is this phone’s haptics, the taps and buzzes from calls, notifications and keyboard taps. The latter in particular is very pleasing, with a tight ‘pip’, rather than the rattly buzz I often expect from cheaper phones. Nice work, Xiaomi.

Screen

• Flat 120Hz 6.83-inch AMOLED panel
• Gorilla Glass Victus 2
• 3,500 nits peak brightness

The Note 17 Pro Max does indeed max out when it comes to screen size, with an impressive 6.83-inch AMOLED display. With a 1.5K 2772 x 1280 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate, it hits a lot of high points for a phone of its price. 

Corners are cut as this is not an LTPO panel, so it can’t scale right down to 1Hz to save energy, and I found the automatic refresh rate setting to be a little uneven, with some operations and scrolling seeming choppy when I expected it to be smoother.

Brightness is great, with the screen able to top out at 3,500 nits in direct sunlight. Everything is easily readable even in the sunniest conditions. There’s also 3,840Hz PWM dimming, a feature designed to reduce flicker at all light levels to reduce eye strain. 

With a reading mode that takes out some blue light for more comfortable low light use, the Note 17 Pro Max is a good choice if you want to read e-books in the dark – or if you simply stare at your phone all day and don’t want your eyes to suffer for it.

This isn’t as well-calibrated or high quality a screen as you’ll find on the Pixel 11 Pro XL or Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, but it’s exemplary for a mid-range Android phone, with HDR10+ support and Dolby Vision certification.

Cameras

• Capable if inconsistent 50MP main camera
• Not great 8MP ultra-wide
• 32MP front facing lens

I appreciate the design of the phone doesn’t hide that there are only two cameras, but the 8MP ultra-wide is really only here for occasional use. Photos lack detail and there is blur in all but the brightest conditions.

Much better is the 50MP main camera with f/1.5 aperture, which can produce some wonderful images. Results are not on par with Xiaomi’s 17T Pro, but for the Redmi series it’s a very solid shooter that has a filmic quality to it with the default settings applied. In fact, there are even two ‘Film’ filters called Positive and Negative that offer more creative flourish, alongside other fun filters.

Optical image stabilisation on the main lens meant I got sharp shots even when not standing stock still, though in some instances photos of people were disappointingly washed out, with this shooter performing best on bold colours in bright light.

If you’re fed up with Samsung Galaxy photos that can often apply an unrealistic saturation or sheen to photos, the Note 17 Pro Max offers a refreshing alternative that could stoke a bit of creative satisfaction.

The 32MP selfie camera is also pleasingly sharp and will suffice for group shots and video calls too. 

Video isn’t top tier, with jitter and shake when you film while walking, but colours pop nicely. It’ll more than suffice for most casual phone video use to capture family birthdays, gigs and other events for sending to friends or to post on social media. The maximum resolution for video on the main lens is 4K at 30 frames per second.

Performance

• Snapdragon 6 Gen 5
• 8GB RAM as standard
• Good but not great performance

Corners must be cut for mid-range phones to keep the price down, and the performance of the Note 17 Pro Max is decidedly middling. 

Even in basic daily use, I found slight stuttering flicking between apps, and the keyboard sometimes struggled to keep up with fast taps after being initially opened. Perhaps the 8GB RAM is not quite enough in this instance, paired with the middle-of-the-road Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 chipset.

That said, I got used to the slightly slower-than-flagship operation after a couple of days and was not left with an overall frustrated impression of the phone. Apps generally open swiftly, and for my daily app rotation of WhatsApp, Spotify, Google Tasks and Pocket Casts, there’s more than enough power under the hood.

My review sample came with 256GB storage which is enough for my personal use but might not be if you intend to store lots of files locally or indulge in many triple A mobile games that take up tens of gigabytes of storage. 

Despite the mid-range specs on offer, I found gaming on the phone absolutely fine. Graphics-heavy, demanding titles such as Call of Duty Mobile and Genshin Impact ran smoothly enough, and though hardcore mobile gamers will want a device that can max out frame rate options and stay consistent for longer sessions, as handset got hot after ten minutes or so of the aforementioned titles, this is a phone that will suffice for most casual mobile gamers.

You also get NFC for mobile payments, eSIM, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 6.0 to keep you connected.

Software & AI

• Android 16 at launch
• HyperOS is functional but over-engineered
• Google Gemini has you covered for AI smarts

Taste in Android software versions depending on the manufacturer is of course down to personal preference, but I don’t love Xiaomi’s HyperOS. It changes an awful lot of visual elements compared to (the admittedly now all but extinct) ‘stock’ Android experience, and cuts too close to copying iOS for my liking.

The swipe down options are split like iOS, with the notification shade a swipe down from the left and a control centre accessed from the right. I did not get on with how notifications behave – I frequently view notifications on the homescreen or from the notification shade by swiping down on them to expand them. On the Redmi, you can’t swipe and instead must reveal the text by tapping a tiny arrow. It sounds like a small thing, but in everyday use when triaging notifications, this adds an extra, slower step and makes me enjoy using the whole phone less.

This said, I got used to most of HyperOS’s quirks after a few days. I just prefer the plainer Google Pixel software, but it’s true that most Android players from Samsung to Oppo to Vivo also change a lot of Android for the sake of it. If it sounds to you like I’m being too picky, then you’ll forgive the software’s quirks and get on with it all just fine.

More annoying is the boatload of bloat the phone comes pre-installed with. TikTok, AliExpress, Booking.com, Amazon Music, Facebook and a plethora of games are all here. They’re all uninstallable, so it’s not the end of the world, but it feels icky. 

There’s also oddly no option to permanently enable the always-on display, meaning it can’t actually be always on. Settings only allow for time, date, battery and notifications to be displayed for 10 seconds after the screen is tapped. It’s very unusual to not have other options, and I wonder if it’s an oversight that might be fixed in an update, unless Redmi is hell-bent on curbing all possible drains on the mega battery.

As for AI, the phone has Google Gemini built in that will cover the needs of most users. The other tools I found useful were the photo editing tools in the Gallery app, including Xiaomi’s own AI Beautify, though you have to sign in to a Xiaomi Account in the settings app to access all editing features.

Xiaomi’s HyperAI largely stays out of your way if you don’t go looking for it, though it’s there in the Settings app with writing, speech recognition, translation, interpreter and subtitle tools, which you need to manually enable.

Battery Life

• Exemplary three day battery life
• 9,210mAh silicon carbon cell
• 100W wired charging

Xiaomi has outdone itself with the Note 17 Pro Max’s battery, which is hands down the phone’s best asset. A huge 9210mAh battery is possible to squeeze inside the normal-size handset thanks to silicon carbon technology, which is more energy-dense than traditional lithium-ion. In other regions it’s 10,000mAh, but not in my UK model. 

This is still one of the biggest batteries you can currently get on a phone available to purchase, with the added bonus of very fast 100W charging speeds. My review unit came with an EU charger in the box, although it’s not yet clear whether all models will come with a charger.

It is impossible to kill this phone in a day. Using it as my main phone, I never got the level to dip below 70% after a full day of use. Coupled with the 100W wired charging speeds that can refill the huge battery in just over an hour, this is a phone to get if you hate seeing the indicator turn red on your current phone.

Using the EU charger with a UK adapter, I charged the phone from 1% to 19% in 15 minutes, which is slower than the 22% Xiaomi claims it can hit in 10 minutes. Maybe the adapter slows things down. It got to 50% in 44 minutes, and fell short of the 64 minutes that Xiaomi says it’ll charge to 100% in. At that time it was only at 70%, with a full charge taking 90 minutes.

I easily got three days of use out of the phone, which I was using more than I normally might, testing out all its features. It’s conceivable that with light use, you’ll get into a fourth day. This sort of longevity is unimaginable on most other phones.

Xiaomi claims the battery “lasts 6 years without significant degradation”. This is obviously a projection, and I’m not sure the firm should be claiming this. All batteries degrade over time, and silicon carbon tech in particular is unproven in its ageing. But rest assured, at launch this phone has truly next-level battery life.

This is also handy as there’s support for 27W reverse wired charging, so you can use the phone as a power bank. The massive battery means you can top up earbuds or even a friend’s phone and probably not have to worry about the juice you’ve lost.

Should you buy it?