Redmi Note 8T Review - The Actual Review

Ok, with all that preamble and context out of the way, why did I choose the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T? At TechTravelGeeks.com we are no stranger to Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone and consumer electronics brand. You can check out our videos of the Xiaomi Mi 9T on the Tech Travel Geeks YouTube Channel.

Frankly, the decision all came down to the price and the device’s value proposition. As stated in the my introduction, I needed something inexpensive, but also with reasonable grunt and a promise of some updates. Put these 3 ingredients together into your mixing bowl and Xiaomi is one of the first brands that comes to mind (Honourable mentions to Huawei/Honor & Moto G in this segment).

So, having been burnt recently by eBay (did I mention something about a stolen Note 9…) and because I have the benefits of Amazon Prime, i headed to Amazon.

What I saw on Jeff’s site was astonishing: a phone with a quad camera, waterdrop FHD+ display, 4GB RAM, 64GB storage (plus Microsd expansion), dual SIM, Snapdragon 665 (which is roughly on par with the 835 or the 710) for close to £150 ($200). Dubious? Check it out on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/38b9LTR

Subsequent research found that this was the T model with the extra RAM and base storage. A standard Note 8 with 3GB/32GB is available for about £140, and a Pro version with a 64MP Camera and 6GB RAM 128/256gb of storage can be had at just around £200 (depending on storage).

I am sorry but this to me is just silly. This amount of computing power at this price? I did a little bit of digging around in the reviews and apparently the 3GB version is a bit under-powered. But that didn’t change anything. I ended up clicking the “Buy Now” button.

But we all know that specs don’t tell the full story. Samsung have for many years had top-of-the-line specs but stuttery performance. LG sometimes bring great innovation, but are largely ignored. Even the Google Pixels have a tendency to slow down over time. iPhones have tended to offer better experiences than their specs may suggest. I’m not even going to go into synthetic benchmarks, they may have a role in comparisons of chipsets (like when I was trying to figure out what kind of performance to expect from the 665) . But in the end real-life performance is what counts.

HARDWARE

The Note 8T is a veritable sight to behold. Yes its the usual glass sandwich, but it feels really well built, lovely to hold. In the white finish that i have, frankly it felt like an iPhone 11 (which is £600 more expensive). It just oozes quality. I’ve asked unsuspecting friends and family how much they think it costs and most reply between £400 and £500.

There is a 6.3 inch FHD IPS LCD display. Its a pretty good display, good viewing angles and colour reproduction. Sometime you get a bit of LCD back-light glare and it wont beat the AMOLED screens out there, but it’s still really good for content consumption via YouTube or Netflix. I’ve been using a curved screen (my OnePlus 7 Pro) and I actually found it refreshing to go back to a flat screen. I think curved screens may start going out of fashion as they can cause distortion at certain viewing angles though no doubt they are more immersive.

The back has one of my favourite features, a rear mounted fingerprint scanner. I love the ergonomics of these and whilst the in-display tech may be cool, it’s just functionally not as good

The bottom has 3.5mm jack, or as Matteo would call it a Courage Port, and a USB-C charging port. There is a down facing speaker which is a bit tinny and lacks base, but is perfectly fine for my uses.

On the side is the dual SIM tray, which can house 2 nano-sims + Micro SD card. This makes it extremely versatile. NFC is also on-board for all your contactless needs.

SOFTWARE

Out of the Box the device runs MIUI 10 on top of Android 9 Pie. However on first boot, the device updates to MIUI 11. MIUI has a reputation for being an iOS clone, and I can see why, no app drawer and similar shortcuts folders, even the colour palette in the settings. But I must say this iteration has definitely got a look and feel of its own and doesnt feel like some rip-off.

I thought this iOS-ness would annoy me. Which it often does. The lack of an app drawer, as found on other Android devices is annoying. Yes, i know I can get a third party launcher. But I’m actually going to stick with it for as long as I can. It works well, incorporates a lot of the gesture navigation from Android 10, Split-Screen is better than “stock” and it is heavily customisable with a dedicated theme store. I am annoyed that there are a lot of pre-installed apps which I can’t hide or disable. Bear in mind my use case though.

This is a device I am using specifically for work. I am not going to have the 300+ apps on it as I do on my OnePlus 7 Pro. Its gonna have some Office, Email, Messaging and specific medical apps. This means even with a bit of folder chicanery, i can have a single homescreen. Lets see how long this lasts. There is a degree of duplication of apps (Mi Browser + Chrome, Mi Cloud + Google Drive) but that’s not unexpected. Whilst i dont expect to be able to uninstall the Mi apps, the fact that the Google services were system apps was surprising as I thought European rules had stopped them doing so.

There’s a stack of data management and battery management tools to keep your device running smoothly and as it was “out of the box”. It’s a very granular system and means that you can fully control what each app is doing or can do with your battery and precious data. Stop background data, stop cellular data and more – it’s all there and it’s very easy to understand. You can even decide how the notch looks/behaves!

There is the odd bit of “weirdness”, bluetooth not connecting properly or the Wifi Hotspot being a bit hit-and-miss. Nothing too serious, and it is somethhing that i’ve noticed with XIaomi and MIUI devices before. I’m assuming its software related. Not a deal-breaker though.

PERFORMANCE

I was very happy with the performance. The Snapdragon 665 is verry similar to the 835 of a few years ago. I had no slowdowns, at times there were minute stutters, but I have a feeling this is more to do with miui then anything. The RAM management is aggressive, but since I’m running a relatively small number of apps it wasnt an issue for me. Video playback and Sound quality were good. I think proper AAA gaming might be a bit of a push, but it wouldnt have any problem with most titles.

BATTERY

The Note 8T come with 4000mA battery, and with an 18W Fast-charger. There are reviews out there talking of 2 day battery-life. MIUI does have a raft of power-management tools and I actually think this is achievable. Now, I have to qualify this by saying that this is a second device therefore doesn’t get as much use as my primary device. But the fact remains that 24+ hrs after I took it off the charger it still has 55% battery-life left means this is a bloody champ. Very Impressed. It finally died over two days later

CAMERA

The device has an AI enhanced quad camera system, with a 48MP main lens, with an 8MP wide-angle lens, and a 2MP Macro lens, AND another 2MP depth sensor. All of this means its actually a damn good camera. HDR is switched off by default (for some reason) but all the photos come out very reasonable indeed. There is some degradation of quality in low-light situations, and the Night Mode doesnt do much to enhance night shots. But still good nonetheless. The 13MP front sensor is reasonable at selfies too, with a dedicated portrait mode

Anyway, here are some samples

The Video is slightly more nuanced. There is Full HD upto 60fps, whilst eh front facing 13MP sensor maxes out at 1080p@30fps. It seems 4K isnt stabilised, and can be quite choppy. This is also slightly noticeable 1080@60fps, but it wasnt as significant or obvious as the 4k footage. I had a bit of difficulty uploading these, so unfortunately you’ll just have to take my word for it! Maybe we’ll be able to host them on our YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/techtravelgeeks

CONCLUSION

You know that thing of “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”? Well, this device might prove me wrong. It really has made me think of some preconceptions I had about mobile devices. We have such amazing computer power in our phones, that an unashamedly budget device could legitimately giving an experience up there with the top-end (maybe even flagship) devices. Frankly it could be the daily driver for many people and nobody would even realise the low price.

So in conclusion, I can recommend the device wholeheartedly. Majid says….YES

You can purchase the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T here: https://amzn.to/38b9LTR

Tesla Model 3 Performance First Impressions (UK Right Hand Drive)

Wow!  What a crazy month it has been! After almost 3 years of waiting, my dream came true and I took delivery of one of the first right hand drive Tesla Model 3s here in Scotland.

Watch the Tech Travel Geeks video I poured my soul into here:

Delivery experience

It all started on the 29th of June, when I picked up Matteo in my 15 year-old Ford Fiesta on my way to pick the brand new ride. We arrived at the Tesla service centre and experienced a super smooth delivery - no waiting, no unnecessary sales pitches, no basic "here is the steering wheel, the pedals, and to open the glove compartment, you need to use the screen". My delivery specialist knew that I spent the last 3 years watching YouTube videos and doing research about the car, so we focused on my questions only. Matteo and I also got some time to film some footage for you at the Service Centre. 

Tesla Edinburgh Service Centre

To take delivery of the vehicle, all it took was a single signature on a fruity tablet, the handing over of the two key cards, and off we went!

I spent the rest of the day enjoying the car with my close friends. We sure had some great fun. We drove around the hills and forest roads nearby, checked how much horsepower the car has, went to the beach and got the only fuel we needed that day - some fried chicken.

Pure performance

The configuration I picked was the 2019 dual motor all wheel drive Performance version, which is rated at crazy 3.2 seconds to 60 miles per hour, around 450 horsepower, and can go as fast as 162 miles per hour (according to Tesla). The acceleration is impossible to describe, but my friends compared the feeling to riding a roller coaster. It's definitely great fun.

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Tesla Model 3 Performance acceleration - first reaction

But more importantly, it makes the car one of the safest on the road. Whenever something is happening and you need to quickly accelerate and fit somewhere, or you're overtaking and don't have much time to do it, you always have enough power to do it. With great power comes great responsibility though, and because it's easy to accelerate and the car is very quiet because of the super quiet electric motors, you need to be careful to avoid speeding.

Self-driving features

The other major stand-out feature is self-driving. Some of the functionality is included with all new Tesla cars: adaptive cruise control adjusts the speed of the vehicle based on the situation on the road without controlling the direction, while Autosteer assists the steering of the car within the lane. It works great on highways and is truly impressive. This, just like all the other self-driving features at the moment, requires full attention of the driver, who has to keep the hands on the wheel and be able to take the steering back at any time. Still, I managed to use it even on a winding one-lane road here in Scotland - the clip you’re watching has the car on basic Autosteer controlling both the speed and turning. It’s not perfect though, as it can’t make some sharper turns, change lanes or direction.

This is where full self driving comes in. It uses Tesla’s 8 cameras, a front-facing radar, 12 ultrasonic sensors and image recognition assisted by artificial intelligence to allow the car to follow the navigation and enter or leave the highway, recommend changing lanes if the current one is too slow and navigate some interchanges. It currently doesn’t support roundabouts or bigger crossroads, and it doesn’t read signs or traffic lights just yet, so driving fully autonomously from A to B or freely within the city is still a future development. However, while Elon and his team are working on enabling those features, the car already takes care of almost all of the effort of driving on highways and longer road trips, which to me already feels like science-fiction.

I’m still learning how those features work, and I haven’t had a chance to test some other ones like auto parking and Summon, which basically changes the vehicle into a giant remote controlled car which you can park or summon without sitting in the car itself. If you’re interested in learning more about those features, let us know in the comments below.

The looks

Tesla Model 3 in North Berwick, Scotland

As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I’m completely in love with the Tesla Model 3’s looks. I chose the Midnight Silver Metallic colour, and it looks just great. The front of the car might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but seeing it in person sold me completely, especially with the licence plate installed. I also love how the front lights look.  Since it’s the Performance version, it comes with 20” Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires, which look great, especially with the red Performance breaks and the Tesla logo.

The door handles require a bit of getting used to, as you need to open them using your thumb and then by pulling them towards you, but I got the hang of it quickly. On the back, there’s a carbon fibre spoiler installed on top of a surprisingly spacious boot. It also has an additional compartment for charging equipment or whatever else you need it for. Finally, storage space can get extended with the frunk at the front, which is very handy and is a bit of a shock if you aren’t prepared to see it there.

The minimalist interior

For the interior, I opted for the premium black and white finish, and it's just stunning. The white vegan leather seats look amazing and are very comfortable, and are fully adjustable - my cousin managed to take a decent nap on our road trip after he just got off a transatlantic flight. This is probably thanks to the comfy seats and how quiet the vehicle is while being driven. The tinted glass roof is just lovely, and I was told by my friends that it’s a must-have feature if you have kids, since it’s great to keep them busy. However, they quickly noticed that white leather might not be the best choice if the kids like chocolate. Oh well…  

Tesla Model 3’s minimalist interior

The interior design is very minimalist, with almost no knobs or buttons - just a single button for emergency lights and a few interior light buttons, two knobs on the wheel for controlling music, mirrors, autopilot etc, two sticks for indicators, drive modes and autopilot, and that's basically it. Everything else is controlled through the massive 15-inch screen in the middle, even climate control. The built-in satellite navigation is really good on such a massive screen and it supports voice control. The fact that you have to look to the side to see the current speed takes a bit of getting used to, but I feel like I’m quite used to this now.

The premium package I opted for also comes with a great sound system: it has 14 speakers, 1 sub-woofer, 2 amps, and immersive sound. Watch the video above to hear a quick sample (at 9m26s mark).

In the UK, you can now also use Spotify, in addition to TuneIn Radio, streaming from your phone or from a USB stick. The sound is fantastic, especially since the car is otherwise so quiet, so it’s just pure joy to crank the music up.

Some people have complained that the car has some issues, and sure, it’s not perfect. Opening the doors from both inside and outside is not the most intuitive, so each time someone new comes in, you have to explain how to do it. The centre console is a fingerprint magnet, etc. Still, even though this might not be the most luxurious car you can get, and there are a few quirks here and there, for what you pay and all the extra features no other cars have, I’m not going to complain, especially since I'm a fan of modern design.

Charging

Tesla Model 3 charging

When it comes to charging, I'm currently only using a normal outlet in my garage. It allows me to charge just 9 miles per hour, which adds up to more than 30 hours for a full charge, but since I don't drive much and can keep the car charging overnight, it's not a problem. The first few days added up to a bit of driving, but I never felt any range anxiety, and always knew that I can easily find a charging spot on the navigation. I'm currently looking into getting a proper wall charger installed, which should be around 5 times faster and allow me to go to full charge overnight. I haven't tested the Tesla Superchargers yet, but they can apparently charge your car to 80% in just 40 minutes, just enough time  to play some Beach Buggy Racing 2 on the big screen.

Driving experience

Tesla Model 3 Performance at a beach in North Berwick, Scotland

Finally, the driving itself - it’s just pure joy. The instant acceleration and torque are something you can’t live without. The steering is very responsive and feels great. The low centre of gravity and the fact that the batteries are in the floor make the car stick to the road like the glue. I kept on finding myself just smiling to myself all the time while cruising around the Scottish shores. 

At the time of preparing this article and Tech Travel Geeks video, I've owned the car for almost a month have and driven it in the city, on highways and on some winding roads in the Scottish Highlands. So far, it's been an absolute pleasure and joy, and there’s still a lot for me to discover about the vehicle and get acquainted with. I've never been a car person myself, but I've already been converted by Tesla. I couldn't recommend the car any more than I already do, so if you ever get a chance, I highly recommend trying one out.

Thanks for reading and watching the video. It's been an absolute joy making it, with the help of Matteo and some of my friends. If you enjoyed it, please leave a like and share with others, and if you want to see more similar content, please subscribe to Tech Travel Geeks on Youtube.