2017 was a great year for Xiaomi and the company crossed RMB 100 billion in revenue. In India, the company's biggest market outside of China, Xiaomi became the biggest smartphone vendor towards the end of the year.

Solid build quality Impressive battery life Great performance Good; bright display with 18:9 ratio

Average camera quality No fast charging - limited to 5V/2A microUSB; instead of USB Type-C

All said and done, the Redmi Note 5 is still a budget smartphone, just like its predecessors. The smartphone comes with a better, brighter and taller display, along with improved cameras. Xiaomi has also upgraded the base storage and RAM, while keeping the price intact.

While there are plenty of good reasons to stick with locally-certified and available smartphones, the rise of online tech resellers in recent years has made it easier and easier - and more and more tempting - to experiment with smartphone brands that aren't usually available for Australian...

Great battery; Solid performance

Weak camera; Subject to the usual drawbacks of importing a phone

Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus is a budget smartphone. If on start of sales it costed $180, then now you can buy it for only $160. It is a great deal! To be honest, it is difficult to find a really decent budget phone.

So, no more Redmi Notes, eh Or so we thought until Xiaomi recently launched the Redmi 5 Plus in India calling it the Redmi Note 5. The Redmi 5 Plus certainly looked like a proper successor of the Redmi Note 4 so we're glad the company's lineup naming is back at making sense.

With 18:9 aspect ratio phones being all the rage nowadays, we were not surprised in the least when Chinese brand Xiaomi announced their own take on the new technology. And while the Redmi 5 Plus appears to be a reworked Redmi Note 4X with an 18:9 display , the phone is still one of the best options...