Gadgets
RedmiBook 15 Pro First Impressions: The Redmi Formula for Laptops
Priced at Rs. 49,999 in India, the RedmiBook 15 Pro isn’t quite a budget laptop but doesn’t aim for the premium performance, gaming, or ultraportable segments either. The focus is on core specifications, and there are some interesting characteristics to talk about.
This laptop is relatively slim at 19.9mm thick but weighs 1.8kg which might be a bit more than some people want to carry around every day. The body is made of polycarbonate which looks quite plain in its Charcoal Grey finish. The look, while minimalistic, isn’t very impressive, unlike the metallic Mi Notebook series. There is a small reflective Redmi logo to one side of the lid, and if you look closely, you’ll see a tagline that reads “Power your creativity”. This feels unnecessary, but at least it isn’t in your face, like some examples we’ve seen recently.
There’s an unescapable plasticky feel to the RedmiBook 15 Pro. It isn’t cheap by any means, but it’s a little underwhelming. The hinge however is quite firm and you can raise the lid with one finger, which is nice. On the inside you’ll see the 15.6-inch screen which thankfully is not glossy and reflective. The frame around the screen isn’t particularly narrow, but there is thankfully a webcam at the top.
We’ll talk about usability and ergonomics in detail in our full review, which will take some more time. For now, suffice to say that the keyboard layout might disappoint some people – there’s no number pad, which a lot of other brands include on their 15-inch models. The arrow keys are full-sized and there are dedicated paging keys to the right. The trackpad is relatively large and the whole thing can be clicked physically.
The keyboard layout has its pros and cons; we’ll soon see how comfortable it is to use
You get two USB 3.2 Gen1 (5Gbps) ports and an HDMI 1.4 output on the left, along with the DC power inlet. On the right, there’s one USB 2.0 port, a collapsible Ethernet port, a full-sized SD card slot, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a Kensington security slot. The complete lack of Type-C ports is a big surprise. There’s dual-band Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.1, and stereo speakers. The webcam has a 720p resolution and the spec sheet lists a single microphone. The battery capacity is 46Wh and Xiaomi claims 10 hours of runtime per charge.
There are no options when it comes to the RedmiBook 15 Pro’s specifications– though the RedmiBook 15 e-Learning Edition is practically the same laptop with more affordable hardware. This model is powered by an 11th Gen Intel Core i5-11300H CPU, which has four cores with Hyper-Threading. What’s interesting is that this CPU has a 35W TDP and is part of a new tier within the 11th Gen ‘Tiger Lake’ series. Despite its -H suffix, it’s actually a more powerful incarnation of the low-power U-series models which are aimed at thin-and-light laptops, and not the beefier mainstream 45W+ H-series that you’ll find in most high-end and gaming laptops. That’s also why you get the relatively capable Iris Xe integrated graphics but no discrete GPU.
The RedmiBook 15 Pro has a number of ports, but surprisingly no USB Type-C
Xiaomi has gone with 8GB of DDR4 RAM which is soldered down, and there’s no free slot for you to add more later. You also get a 512GB NVMe SSD, which the company says is a standard M.2 module and can be replaced, but again, there isn’t an additional slot. The RedmiBook 15 Pro comes with Windows 10 and will be eligible for a free update to Windows 11 when it’s released. You also get a full license for Microsoft Office Home and Student 2019.
This combination of hardware should be great for everyday productivity but it won’t let you play modern games at maxed out graphics quality settings. Of course that leaves room for Redmi gaming laptops to be launched in India in the future, if or when Xiaomi decides to do so.
The RedmiBook 15 Pro seems like it could be a competent workhorse. We don’t yet have the answers to the questions we started out with, but that’s what the full review is for. It will be interesting to put this laptop to use and see how it works for entertainment, office work, and communications. We will of course also run a barrage of tests to check its performance, battery life, display and sound quality, portability, construction quality, and much more, so do stay tuned to Gadgets 360.
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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