Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 rumoured to have dual camera from the P9 supplier

Dual cameras are something we are seeing a lot more of this year, and according to supply chain chatter the next gen Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 could also come with dual rear lenses.

After the launch of the Xiaomi Max, a huge Xiaomi with large battery if any of you had managed to miss it, attention has now shifted to what Xiaomi could launch next. On the cards are a 2nd generation Xiaomi Mi Note 2 (rumoured to have a curved display like the Vivo Xplay 5), and then there are the 4th generation versions of both the Redmi and Redmi Note 4.

While its unlikely that we will see the Redmi Note 4 launch too soon (the Note 3 only came a few months back) it doesn’t mean that the supply chain for the phone hasn’t been solved which has lead to some interesting news.

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Along with apparently getting a Mediatek Helio X20 chipset, the new Redmi Note 4 could also receive a dual camera rear camera set up supplied by the same manufacturer who supplied the sensors and lenses for the Huawei P9.

If Xiaomi were able to offer the same hardware and similar camera performance to the P9 at the price point of the Huawei P9, it would really deal a blow to the Chinese tech giant even with their exclusive cooperation with Leica.

Other details which have emerged are that the Redmi Note 5 will retain a 5.5-inch screen size, all metal body and a fingerprint scanner.

What do you think? Is a Redmi Note 4 with dual camera set up possible?

Disclaimer: We may be compensated by some of the companies whose products we talk about, but our articles and reviews are always our honest opinions. For more details, you can check out our editorial guidelines and learn about how we use affiliate links.

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Andi

Chico Migraña
May 16, 2016
Hope they put cameras far from fingerprint scanner, I can’t take a photo with flash on Redmi Note 3 Pro with finger

GoldenBoy
May 16, 2016
i think that xiaomi should stop to release so many phones in so little times, and should start to optimize what they sell.
i’m one of the lucky ( sarcasms ) guy that bought redmi note 3 and after a month found xiaomi sold redmi note 3 PRO, while the redmi note 3 suffered, and suffer even now, of serious standby drain by kernel wakelocks.
Instead of optimize mediatek soc they just sold the fix version… the qualcomm variant.
And after months nothing changed, mtk variant still suffer “old” bugs, and every new version is just fix o previous bugs they created, and even qualcomm one has bugs they put in a version and fix in another.
Xiaomi put a step forward and a step back, and when they fix a thing, they bug another one, like a too short blanket.
I don’t know if it’s just a “faulty” device the redmi note 3 series or whatever, but i don’t like actual xiaomi politics.
- Chico Migraña
  May 16, 2016
  They sold Qualcomm version because they can’t sell MTK ones in India, so bugs are equal for everybody but different SoC, i hope Miui8 have more fixes than bugs for both
- Danny H.
  May 16, 2016
  I feel you man! That’s why I don’t really want to buy another xiaomi again. I got burnt with the Mi 2A. I’m more interested in manufacturers that has a small amount of phone at a time but they support what they have well, like OnePlus or ZUK.
  - Airyl
    May 16, 2016
    - Danny H.
      May 17, 2016
      The MI 2A has been support abandoned since September last year. And miui is so ram heavy that the phone get stutter all the time!
  - SnowyCat
    May 16, 2016
    i’m still perfectly fine with the mi 4 and for me its really hard to chose a new phone because i dont like the size and design of the new xiaomi ones but i really love miui.
- realjjj
  May 16, 2016
  A lot of people complain about he Note 3 Pro too. Mostly about the cam and the slow and bloated ROM.
  Maybe the just launched MUI 8 is faster.
  They do launch too many models , they seem to be in a bit of a panic as sales are stalling.It’s also difficult to keep up as others keep offering more and more for less.
  Meizu , LeEco, 360 and more are rather aggressive now.
  - SnowyCat
    May 16, 2016
    actually everyone i know that owns a redmi note 3 pro is completely happy, ofc. the camera isnt that great but thats not the primary reason they went to that device..its because of the performance and battery life.
- Airyl
  May 16, 2016
  It’s because of their current position in the market. Releasing new models quickly allows them to stay in the news and inside of everyone’s heads, and in turn will garner for them more sales.
- Steven Fox
  May 16, 2016
  Amen to that brother 😀

realjjj
May 16, 2016
The dual cam wouldn’t be the key upgrade.
Would be nice if they could match the 360 N4 in specs at the same 899CNY/138$ – 5.5 inch 1080p, MT6797m (x20 at 2GHz), 4GB, 32GB NAND and so on.
This slower X20 is still pretty fast.
In Geekbench single core vs the MI5 Lite https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/6603610?baseline=6588302
In Integer the X20 wins, in FP it loses and all in all you get about the same thing.
GFXBench for the SoC
If they do go dual cam, it would be more likely for them to use a second cam with lower res.and do 3D, as in depth mapping.
- illystor
  May 16, 2016
  I have to disagree on the (if I read the implication right) assertion that people (in any broad or general sense) are more fussed about amount of RAM, use of NAND etc. than they are about camera upgrades (regardless of the actual effectiveness of the upgrade). I think increasingly people want their phones to look decent, take good photos and have a decent battery life. I’d say spec watchers like us are in the minority. And I’m sure you’ll have some hard numbers to throw at me but the X20, for all that it may do right, seems to suffer for being paired with a Mali again, after the X10’s PowerVR partner. I realize the Pro 6 is only a sample size of one, but the 3D gaming performance on that was alarmingly bad, and certainly in China, their key market, I see people *constantly* gaming on their phones. Think the X20 packing devices, if the Pro 6 is any indication, could at least not be too warmly received by customers when they have stuttering games.
  - SnowyCat
    May 16, 2016
    same goes to the letv phoens that suffer from laggs..but to be fair ..i really dont know if its only because of the mali..because that gpu should be better in theory and is only a bit lower clocked compared in the kirin 950 that has 0 problems with any games.
    letv said that they will fix those issues but that remains to be seen.
    - realjjj
      May 17, 2016
      The new LeEco must have software problems. In all benchmarks its a mess. In Geekbench it runs in 32 bit mode, in GFXBench it scores very low.
  - realjjj
    May 17, 2016
    Regardless of effectiveness? Really?
    It’s one thing if you have a good cam and another if you have a gimmicky feature like this.
    As for GPU, compared to what? A device that costs 3 times more? We are talking 900CNY(138$) and at that price or close to it you get 2-3 times less GPU, even in China from normal 8xA53 SoCs. Even the x10 with a better GPU than other A53 based SoCs is much slower.
    I would also really love to see some proof that The pro 6 has really bad gaming perf.I insist , lets see proof.
    - illystor
      May 17, 2016
      Yes. A gimmick makes marketing buzz easier. Whether the actual gimmick works out well long term and is well implemented is another question. It doesn’t change the fact that it gives a nice talking point at the product launch and something to hammer on about it promotional materials and on the website.
      The average consumer doesn’t know the difference between x86 and ARM, nevermind the relative efficiencies of different designs.
      This video, at around the 15min mark. Yes it is noticeably slower than the performance of the Mi5 in this game, but perhaps the 820 is an unfair comparison. It being slower than that isn’t my concern. It’s the fact that it is noticeably laggy and choppy playing that game.
      I’ve seen several videos popping up over the net that show similar relatively poor performance.
      Sure, there could be other things that are responsible, I’m not going to pretend to be an expert here.
      All I’m saying is, regarding the two points: new and novel camera tech is more easily marketed as an upgrade than the SoC, more RAM, NAND etc are.
      People might not know what is to blame for poor gaming performance (hell, I’m only hazarding a guess), but using a chip that may be responsible for said performance might create a product that at least the average consumer recognizes is underperforming, and that could lead to bad word of mouth.

MattD
May 16, 2016
As I said before: they’re like “we can’t make 1 camera working properly, so we’ll put 2 inside and see what happens” ?
Anyway, I don’t see a real problem with them releasing other phones, as long as they keep to OTA older devices… Probably they thought “no need to upgrade note 3 pro’s sw right now, better work on a stable miui 8 for it”, thus all of the complaints by the users for the bad miui 7… But it’s just my guess based of the fact that note 3 pro was intended for india, and they won’t sell an helio x20 phone there anyway, so no reason to think they won’t fix note 3 pro, sooner or later

Ricardo A.
May 16, 2016
Hope they put cameras far from fingerprint scanner, I can’t take a photo with flash on Redmi Note 3 Pro with finger

Guest
May 16, 2016
i think that xiaomi should stop to release so many phones in so little times, and should start to optimize what they sell.
i’m one of the lucky ( sarcasms ) guy that bought redmi note 3 and after a month found xiaomi sold redmi note 3 PRO, while the redmi note 3 suffered, and suffer even now, of serious standby drain by kernel wakelocks.
Instead of optimize mediatek soc they just sold the fix version… the qualcomm variant.
And after months nothing changed, mtk variant still suffer “old” bugs, and every new version is just fix o previous bugs they created, and even qualcomm one has bugs they put in a version and fix in another.
Xiaomi put a step forward and a step back, and when they fix a thing, they bug another one, like a too short blanket.
I don’t know if it’s just a “faulty” device the redmi note 3 series or whatever, but i don’t like actual xiaomi politics.
- Ricardo A.
  May 16, 2016
  They sold Qualcomm version because they can’t sell MTK ones in India, so bugs are equal for everybody but different SoC, i hope Miui8 have more fixes than bugs for both
- Danny H.
  May 16, 2016
  I feel you man! That’s why I don’t really want to buy another xiaomi again. I got burnt with the Mi 2A. I’m more interested in manufacturers that has a small amount of phone at a time but they support what they have well, like OnePlus or ZUK.
- realjjj
  May 16, 2016
  A lot of people complain about he Note 3 Pro too. Mostly about the cam and the slow and bloated ROM.
  Maybe the just launched MUI 8 is faster.
  They do launch too many models , they seem to be in a bit of a panic as sales are stalling.It’s also difficult to keep up as others keep offering more and more for less.
  Meizu , LeEco, 360 and more are rather aggressive now.
- Airyl
  May 16, 2016
  It’s because of their current position in the market. Releasing new models quickly allows them to stay in the news and inside of everyone’s heads, and in turn will garner for them more sales.
- Airyl
  May 16, 2016
  Why do you feel burnt with the Mi2A?
- Steven Fox
  May 16, 2016
  Amen to that brother 😀
- SnowyCat
  May 16, 2016
  actually everyone i know that owns a redmi note 3 pro is completely happy, ofc. the camera isnt that great but thats not the primary reason they went to that device..its because of the performance and battery life.
- SnowyCat
  May 16, 2016
  i’m still perfectly fine with the mi 4 and for me its really hard to chose a new phone because i dont like the size and design of the new xiaomi ones but i really love miui.
- Danny H.
  May 17, 2016
  The MI 2A has been support abandoned since September last year. And miui is so ram heavy that the phone get stutter all the time!

realjjj
May 16, 2016
The dual cam can’t be the key upgrade.
Would be nice if they could match the 360 N4 in specs at the same 899CNY/138$ – 5.5 inc 1080p, MT6797m (x20 at 2GHz), 4GB, 32GB NAND, fast charging and so on. To hell with dual cam, folks would rather have more RAM ,NAND and feature that do make a difference.
This slower X20 is still pretty fast.
In Geekbench single core vs the MI5 Lite https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/6603610?baseline=6588302
In Integer the X20 wins, in FP it loses and all in all you get about the same thing.
Just for the hell of it the N4 vs the Meizu Pro 5 ,last year’s best SoC https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/6603261?baseline=6588302
GFXBench for the SoC
realjjj
May 16, 2016
If they do go dual cam, it would be more likely for them to use a second cam with lower res.and do 3D, as in depth mapping since MTK is advertising that capability for their ISP anyway.
- illystor
  May 16, 2016
  I have to disagree on the (if I read the implication right) assertion that people (in any broad or general sense) are more fussed about amount of RAM, use of NAND etc. than they are about camera upgrades (regardless of the actual effectiveness of the upgrade). I think increasingly people want their phones to look decent, take good photos and have a decent battery life. I’d say spec watchers like us are in the minority. And I’m sure you’ll have some hard numbers to throw at me but the X20, for all that it may do right, seems to suffer for being paired with a Mali again, after the X10’s PowerVR partner. I realize the Pro 6 is only a sample size of one, but the 3D gaming performance on that was alarmingly bad, and certainly in China, their key market, I see people *constantly* gaming on their phones. Think the X20 packing devices, if the Pro 6 is any indication, could at least not be too warmly received by customers when they have stuttering games.
- SnowyCat
  May 16, 2016
  same goes to the letv phoens that suffer from laggs..but to be fair ..i really dont know if its only because of the mali..because that gpu should be better in theory and is only a bit lower clocked compared in the kirin 950 that has 0 problems with any games.
  letv said that they will fix those issues but that remains to be seen.
- realjjj
  May 17, 2016
  Regardless of effectiveness? Really?
  It’s one thing if you have a good cam and another if you have a gimmicky feature like this.
  As for GPU, compared to what? A device that costs 3 times more? We are talking 900CNY(138$) and at that price or close to it you get 2-3 times less GPU, even in China from normal 8xA53 SoCs. Even the x10 with a better GPU than other A53 based SoCs is much slower.
  I would also really love to see some proof that the pro 6 has really bad gaming perf.I insist , lets see proof.
- realjjj
  May 17, 2016
  The new LeEco must have software problems. In all benchmarks its a mess. In Geekbench it runs in 32 bit mode, in GFXBench it scores very low.
- illystor
  May 17, 2016
  Yes. A gimmick makes marketing buzz easier. Whether the actual gimmick works out well long term and is well implemented is another question. It doesn’t change the fact that it gives a nice talking point at the product launch and something to hammer on about it promotional materials and on the website.
  The average consumer doesn’t know the difference between x86 and ARM, nevermind the relative efficiencies of different designs.
  This video, at around the 15min mark. Yes it is noticeably slower than the performance of the Mi5 in this game, but perhaps the 820 is an unfair comparison. It being slower than that isn’t my concern. It’s the fact that it is noticeably laggy and choppy playing that game.
- illystor
  May 17, 2016
  I’ve seen several videos popping up over the net that show similar relatively poor performance.
  Sure, there could be other things that are responsible, I’m not going to pretend to be an expert here.
  All I’m saying is, regarding the two points: new and novel camera tech is more easily marketed as an upgrade than the SoC, more RAM, NAND etc are.
  People might not know what is to blame for poor gaming performance (hell, I’m only hazarding a guess), but using a chip that may be responsible for said performance might create a product that at least the average consumer recognizes is underperforming, and that could lead to bad word of mouth.

Muhammad Yasir
May 16, 2016
- Plus
  May 16, 2016
MattD
May 16, 2016
As I said before: they’re like “we can’t make 1 camera working properly, so we’ll put 2 inside and see what happens” 😁
Anyway, I don’t see a real problem with them releasing other phones, as long as they keep to OTA older devices… Probably they thought “no need to upgrade note 3 pro’s sw right now, better work on a stable miui 8 for it”, thus all of the complaints by the users for the bad miui 7… But it’s just my guess based of the fact that note 3 pro was intended for india, and they won’t sell an helio x20 phone there anyway, so no reason to think they won’t fix note 3 pro, sooner or later

wolvie
May 16, 2016
I thought SD652 is better than X20 ?
So is it consider as downgrade , why not directly using X30 ?
I hate mediatek because their support for their own SOC are rather sucks. No upgrade, bug fixing, etc. Just fire and forget !
But I also know mediatek sell their SOC quite cheap compare to snapdragon. But again price not much different i better buy snapdragon as i know software support is much much better than mediatek.
- Steven Fox
  May 17, 2016
  Both chips perform pretty similar, although if you look at benchmarks the X20 is the better chip, so this actually is an upgrade from the Redmi Note 3 Pro.
- NextHype
  May 17, 2016
  Even if its a slight downgrade, X20 is much cheaper so Xiaomi may be able to stack a few more goodies in it’s Note 4 while dropping Qualcomm.
  Can’t build a dual camera setting + Snapdragon on a sub $200 phone unless you’re in to loose money ^^

Guest
May 16, 2016
- Guest
  May 16, 2016
Guest
May 16, 2016
I thought SD652 is better than X20 ?
So is it consider as downgrade , why not directly using X30 ?
I hate mediatek because their support for their own SOC are rather sucks. No upgrade, bug fixing, etc. Just fire and forget !
But I also know mediatek sell their SOC quite cheap compare to snapdragon. But again price not much different i better buy snapdragon as i know software support is much much better than mediatek.
- Steven Fox
  May 17, 2016
  Both chips perform pretty similar, although if you look at benchmarks the X20 is the better chip, so this actually is an upgrade from the Redmi Note 3 Pro.
- NextHype
  May 17, 2016
  Even if its a slight downgrade, X20 is much cheaper so Xiaomi may be able to stack a few more goodies in it’s Note 4 while dropping Qualcomm.
  Can’t build a dual camera setting + Snapdragon on a sub $200 phone unless you’re in to loose money ^^

Steven Fox
May 16, 2016
We all know the Redmi Note series are 199$-259$ devices, and also X20 is about as good(at least in benchmarks)as the Kirin 950, so I would say Huawei are in for a real fight here.
Steven Fox
May 16, 2016
We all know the Redmi Note series are 199$-259$ devices, and also X20 is about as good(at least in benchmarks)as the Kirin 950, so I would say Huawei are in for a real fight here.

Qidamin
May 16, 2016
Dual cams are just for hype, I don’t see any advantages of having two cam so far, everything they do can be done with just one cam!
Qidamin
May 17, 2016
Dual cams are just for hype, I don’t see any advantages of having two cam so far, everything they do can be done with just one cam!

Faux-News
May 17, 2016
Huawei’s Dual camera Honor V8 is already there at budget pricing. Note 4 is too late.
Rizuki
May 17, 2016
Mediatek ?
Looks like we should waiting pro version with snapdragon chip, again.
Faux-News
May 17, 2016
Huawei’s Dual camera Honor V8 is already there at budget pricing. Note 4 is too late.
Rizuki
May 17, 2016

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