You only buy this smartphone for its battery life
28.10.2026
Translation: machine translated
Pictures: Jan Johannsen
The Redmi Note 17 Pro Max impresses with an exceptionally long battery life. However, you have to make compromises in terms of camera and performance.
The Pro Max is the top model from Xiaomi's Redmi Note 17 series. In terms of price, it has arrived in the mid-range segment, and that is where you have to make compromises. The question is: What is more important to you in a smartphone? A large battery, which the Redmi Note 17 Pro Max has, or a telephoto camera, which it lacks?
Being able to be on your phone all day
Other manufacturers – and sometimes Xiaomi itself – justify smaller batteries in European smartphone versions with regulatory requirements. This does not seem to be an obstacle for the Redmi Note 17 Pro Max. Xiaomi is launching it here with a substantial 10,000 mAh battery as well.
In the settings, with a full battery, the smartphone proudly shows me a forecast of over 48 hours of remaining runtime. In our battery test, it is over 20 hours less, but 27 hours and 54 minutes is still enough for second place on our leaderboard.
When it comes to charging, the Redmi Note 17 Pro Max also performs excellently with up to 100 watts. With its large battery, it is also generous: it charges other devices via cable with up to 27 watts. However, you have to do without wireless charging entirely.
Plastic instead of aluminum and still waterproof
Xiaomi does not skimp on the battery, but it does on the materials. The frame and back are made of plastic instead of aluminum and glass, as is often the case with more expensive models. Nevertheless, the smartphone does not feel cheap.
Gorilla Glass Victus 2 is used to protect the display from scratches. The entire smartphone is waterproof according to IP68 for 30 minutes at a depth of 1.5 meters. Xiaomi goes further and even promises up to 72 hours at a water depth of two meters. There is just no separate IP certification for that.
The 6.83-inch AMOLED display is bright enough even in sunshine and convinces me overall. While other smartphones offer a higher refresh rate than 120 Hertz or a resolution higher than 2772 × 1280 pixels, this difference is hardly noticeable in everyday use.
Performance suitable for everyday use
Xiaomi also saves on the chipset. The installed Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 is one of the affordable mid-range chips. It is also only supported by eight gigabytes of RAM – in other countries, Xiaomi also offers versions with twelve gigabytes. Accordingly, the results in the benchmarks are not very impressive.
The Redmi Note 17 Pro Max performs better than its predecessor with the Helio G200-Ultra, but it remains significantly behind the similarly priced Galaxy A57 with the Exynos 1680 and the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro with the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4. Despite this criticism, the performance of the Redmi Note is suitable for everyday use.
In terms of wireless connections, the chipset supports Bluetooth 6.0 and Wi-Fi 6. The USB-C port charges quickly, but is slow for data transfer with USB 2.0.
Good main camera, bad ultra-wide-angle camera
Xiaomi also saves on the cameras. Like the Galaxy A57, the Redmi Note 17 Pro Max has no telephoto camera. That remains a feature of the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro in this price range. An 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera complements the 50-megapixel main camera of the Redmi Note. The front camera has 32 megapixels available for selfies.
The main camera with an f/1.5 aperture and a 1/1.95-inch sensor convinces me in daylight. The colors look natural and not overly vibrant, and the level of detail is high.
In the dark, the level of detail decreases. However, the camera captures the nocturnal atmosphere well and does not brighten the image too much. As long as I only view the images on the smartphone, the quality is sufficient for me.
With the ultra-wide-angle camera with an f/2.2 aperture and a small 1/4.0-inch sensor, the low resolution results in a low level of detail, which is not noticeable on the smartphone itself. But even on a notebook, the shots no longer look razor-sharp.
The 32-megapixel front camera takes good selfies in daylight with its f/2.2 aperture and a 1/3.6-inch sensor – as long as it is bright.
All of Xiaomi's AI tools and annoying third-party apps
Xiaomi ships the Redmi Note 17 Pro Max with Android 16, and an update to Android 17 is not yet available on my test device. Xiaomi's user interface, HyperOS 3, makes visual adjustments to the operating system and adds numerous apps from the manufacturer. Some of these annoy me with persistent notifications about new games, apps, or themes. The only thing that helps is to restrict the notifications. As system apps, they cannot be uninstalled.
On the other hand, I can get rid of the numerous pre-installed third-party apps. They not only take up space on the home screen, but above all, they take up several gigabytes of storage space together. It is worth cleaning up when setting up the smartphone and uninstalling them manually one by one.
The "Xiaomi Hyper AI" complements the pre-installed AI assistant Gemini and is also available in full on the mid-range smartphone. I see no difference to the manufacturer's more expensive smartphones – unlike, for example, Samsung, where there is a difference between the S and A series. An indication that Xiaomi's AI services run in the cloud.
In a nutshell
Only worth it if battery life is your top priority
The Redmi Note 17 Pro Max impresses with a very long battery life. With average usage, two days of battery life with the smartphone is quite realistic. However, you have to forgo a telephoto camera and put up with annoying software. The performance of Xiaomi's mid-range smartphone is sufficient overall, and the display leaves nothing to be desired. In this price range, I would rather sacrifice some battery life to get a telephoto camera instead. My choice therefore remains the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro.
Pro
- very long battery life
- good main camera in daylight
- beautiful AMOLED display
Contra
- no telephoto camera and poor ultra-wide-angle camera
- many annoying pre-installed apps
- no wireless charging
Header image: Jan Johannsen
Jan Johannsen
Senior Editor
Jan.Johannsen@galaxus.deAs a primary school pupil, I used to sit in a friend's living room with many of my classmates to play the Super NES. Now I get my hands on the latest technology and test it for you. In recent years at Curved, Computer Bild and Netzwelt, now at Digitec and Galaxus.
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