Xiaomi teased the upcoming Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 2021 for some time before rolling it out officially. It has some major upgrades although the specifications largely remain the same w.r.t. the display, battery, camera, and other aspects.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 released in October 2019 is one of the most successful models in the Redmi Note 8 with more than 25 million units sold worldwide. However, it isn’t the most sold and perhaps Xiaomi could have gone for other models to get a 2021 refresh. But let’s just stick to what is not available. Presenting the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 2021 powered by Helio G85 chipset. Here are all the specifications and how it is different from the 2019 variant.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 2021 has the same display as its 2019 variant i.e. a 6.3-inch Infinity-U IPS LCD panel with 1080×2340 pixels resolution with 409 PPI density and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on top of it. Moving on, the major change on the new Redmi Note 8 2021 is the chipset. It is now using a MediaTek Helio G85 12nm chipset clocked at 2.0GHz with Mali-G52 MC2 while the Note 8 2019 had Snapdragon 665 with Adreno 610 GPU. Apart from that, there are only two configurations available i.e. 64GB+4GB and 128GB+4GB.
The device is also running on the latest Android 11-powered MIUI 12.5 and soon, it will get its hands on MIUI 13 and Android 12 as well.
About the optics, it is untouched and in fact, now has a major downgrade too. The device has a quad-camera setup at the back arranged in a vertical camera stack. It houses a 48MP primary, 8MP secondary ultrawide, and two 2MP sensors with depth and macro cam onboard. Apparently, now you have the option to shoot videos at 1080p@30fps and 120fps. The 4K@30 video recording mode is gone. The front camera is the same at 13MP.
Available color variants with the new Redmi Note 8 2021 are Space Black, Moonlight White, and Neptune Blue. The device runs on the same 4,000 mAh battery pack with an 18W fast charging tech. There are some changes in the connectivity features though. Now, Redmi Note 8 2021 supports newer Bluetooth 5.2 with LE and A2DP, GPS with Galileo in addition to A-GPS, Glonass, and BDS systems. There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack, an IR blaster, a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, and a state-of-the-art 1217 super linear speaker.
The Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 2021 is now listed on Mi global website, however, there’s no update on its pricing and availability at the time of writing this.
