The REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G might just be the toughest smartphone Xiaomi has ever built.
We witnessed this resilience firsthand during the Philippine launch in Cebu, where the handset went through a series of brutal tests: 2.5-meter drops, boiling water, golf ball impacts, tank submersion, and even a stapler taken directly to the display. Brand ambassadors SB19 were in attendance, taking the stage not only to highlight the phone’s features but also to literally crack a coconut (endocarp) against it to prove its durability. The device withstood the impact without cracking or bending.
SEE ALSO: REDMI Note 15 Series PH launch: Prices, promos, and availability of ‘Titan Tough’ lineup
But as impressive as these theatrics are, they come with a catch — a higher price tag. Is this newfound sturdiness enough to justify the premium, or should you look elsewhere? Read our review to find out.
Titan toughness
At first glance, the new REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G doesn’t seem to be a radical departure from its predecessor. It adopts a near-identical aesthetic, retaining the familiar squircle-shaped camera island, as well as the curvature of both the front and back panels. There’s still a metal frame, too. However, that frame swaps the old rounded edges for a flat profile that feels decidedly modern. More impressively, Xiaomi managed to make the chassis noticeably thinner while making it tougher.
The color you pick determines the material. You can get a fiber-reinforced plastic back or the vegan leather found on our Mocha Brown unit. The leather feels premium and doesn’t pick up fingerprints. Between this and the denim on the POCO F8 Ultra, which we reviewed last year, Xiaomi is really nailing its smartphone designs lately.
@revuphilippines We’re unboxing the latest from a lineup 460 million users strong. 🙌 Ready to see what makes the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G special? Tune in to the official #RedmiNote15Series global (and Philippine) launch on Jan. 15! 👉 https://www.revu.com.ph/2026/01/redmi-note-15-series-launch-date-global/ #RedmiNote15ProPlus #RedmiNote15ProPlus5G #RevuDotComDotPH #Xiaomi @Xiaomi Philippines @Xiaomi @monch @Alora Uy Guerrero ♬ original sound – REVU Philippines
Our REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G unboxing video
Flip the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G over, and you are greeted by a sheet of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2. While this provides the flagship-grade scratch resistance we’ve come to expect, the bigger story here is the ingress protection. The device now boasts an IP68/IP69K rating — a significant leap over previous generations.
Xiaomi even claims this model is certified to withstand immersion at depths of up to 2 meters for a full 24 hours. This ruggedness pairs well with the Wet Touch 2.0 feature. Whether you get caught in the rain (which is fairly common if you live in a tropical country like the Philippines) or have damp hands from washing dishes, the screen should stay responsive and ignore ghost touches.
This rare toughness is the focus of the brand’s “Titan Durability” campaign. The REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G has earned the SGS Premium Performance Certification, proving it can handle drops, crushing, and bending. Internally, the phone is supported by REDMI’s Titan Structure that includes a reinforced motherboard designed to resist cracking or flexing during drops and a shock-absorbing midframe. Together, these enable certified drop resistance from heights of up to 2.5 meters.
@revuphilippines Smashed, shot, dropped, boiled, and scratched — the Xiaomi REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G faced it all. Did it survive the durability tests led by Pinoy pop band SB19, athlete Mark Mugen Striegl, influencers, and members of the media during its Philippine launch in Cebu? Watch the highlights. #REDMINote15ProPlus5G #REDMINote15ProPlus #REDMINote15Series #RevuDotComDotPH @Xiaomi Philippines @monch @Alora Uy Guerrero ♬ original sound – REVU Philippines
Smashed, shot, dropped, boiled, and scratched!
Now, if you follow the company’s marketing, you might have seen the promotional video where the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G survives a 400-foot (roughly 121-meter) drop. While impressive, we obviously don’t recommend tossing your new gadget off a building. These tests are strictly meant to offer peace of mind during everyday fumbles; they don’t grant you permission to be reckless.
On the audio front, the dual speaker setup is located at the top and bottom, with the upper grill doubling as the earpiece. As is common in this segment, the bottom driver sounds a tad louder, creating a slight imbalance. Surprisingly, these speakers can get incredibly loud. Engaging the loudness boost extends the volume slider to 400% rather than the standard 100%, which is handy if you’re trying to share a video in a noisy environment.
The bottom edge houses the dual SIM tray. There’s no option for storage expansion via a microSD card (perhaps to the disappointment of some power users), but the inclusion of eSIM support is a welcome tradeoff, particularly for travelers who want to avoid the hassle of swapping physical cards when hopping between countries.
The AMOLED display has grown slightly to 6.83 inches. It pushes a fairly standard 1.5K resolution, keeping text and images crisp. The panel tops out at a 120Hz refresh rate, while dimming is handled by high-frequency PWM at 3,840Hz, ensuring the screen remains easy on the eyes even for those sensitive to flicker.
As is usually the case with Xiaomi panels, the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10 Plus. This means it works nicely with HDR content on YouTube and Netflix, offering deep blacks and punchy colors. Peak brightness has been bumped to 3,200 nits — brighter than last year — which, in our testing, proved more than sufficient for comfortable outdoor legibility and a proper HDR experience.
Navigating the UI, the system offers two refresh rate modes: Default and Custom. The former dynamically switches between 60Hz and 120Hz depending on your activity. The Custom profile, however, gives you more granular control, allowing you to cap the framerate at 60Hz to save power, or force apps to hit the full 120Hz for fluidity, dialing back down only when the phone is idle.
A new 200MP standard
Beyond the ruggedized body, the marquee feature of the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G is its imaging system. The rear camera island sports a new 200-megapixel main sensor from Samsung. It’s worth noting that this is a different piece of silicon than the ISOCELL HP3 unit used in last year’s release.
In practice, this primary shooter is great for the price bracket, arguably encroaching on flagship territory. Sharpness and resolved detail are solid, and color reproduction is pleasant without being oversaturated. The dynamic range could be wider, though, particularly with regard to highlight retention. In our testing, we noticed occasional clipping in bright skies and areas with strong light sources, where the algorithm struggled to reign in the blown-out whites.
Conversely, the main camera handles low-light scenarios surprisingly well. The dynamic range holds up much better here, doing a commendable job of balancing shadows against artificial lighting. Whether we were taking photos from our hotel balcony at Mövenpick in Cebu or capturing subjects in the dim ballroom of Xiaomi’s local launch event, the results looked clean and sharp. The noise was kept to a minimum, and the colors remained punchy.
Sample shots
And a few more…
Additionally, you can opt to shoot in full 200-megapixel resolution. However, we found little to no benefit in doing so over the standard pixel-binned output. You are better off saving your storage space.
Switching to Portrait mode, skin tones are rendered accurately, and the images show a naturally defocused background. That said, Xiaomi still has some work to do regarding edge detection; the software occasionally struggles to distinguish the subject from the scene, leading to some artificial-looking blur around hair or clothing.
One omission to note is the lack of a dedicated telephoto lens. Instead, the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G relies on in-sensor cropping for zoom shots. Xiaomi has integrated 2x and 4x toggles directly into the viewfinder to make this seamless. The 2x crop produces good usable shots, and the 4x option is actually nice for closeups.
There’s also an 8-megapixel ultrawide, which remains largely unchanged from the last generation. The notable upgrade is on the front, where the selfie snapper has been bumped from 20 megapixels to a 32-megapixel sensor. Our test selfies showed decent dynamic range, with skin texture appearing natural in most lighting conditions.
Finally, for the content creators out there, this generation brings the ability to record at 1080p at up to 60fps using the front camera — something that was sorely missing from the previous model.
Trading speed for stamina?
Under the hood, the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G is powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 chipset. This silicon is built on a 4nm manufacturing node, featuring an octa-core CPU clocked at up to 2.7GHz paired with an Adreno 810 graphics unit. The GPU promises a bump in raw speed, supported by Snapdragon Elite Gaming features like the Adaptive Performance Engine 3.0 and Game Super Resolution.
In real-world use, the handset manages demanding titles like Deep Rock Galactic Survivor and Where Winds Meet without breaking a sweat. It even runs Heartopia — our current mobile obsession — smoothly at high graphic settings.
If there is a chink in the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G’s armor, however, it lies in that silicon choice. Although the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 is technically “new,” we can’t help but feel that Xiaomi could have opted for a faster chipset from a previous generation — an older 8-series flagship processor, for example — which would have offered significantly more raw horsepower than this newer, albeit slower, midtier component.
On the flip side, because the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 isn’t an excessively power-hungry chip, the device handles heavy workloads consistently well. In our 3DMark stress testing, the SoC maintained near-maximal output, posting stability scores of 98% and 99% in the Steel Nomad and Wild Life runs, respectively. The thermals hold up nicely, too. The back panel never became uncomfortable during our benchmark loops, getting only moderately warm at worst.
That efficiency, combined with a large 6,500mAh battery, results in excellent mileage on a single charge. In PCMark’s battery-rundown test, the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G clocked in at over 15 hours.
For everyday usage, we consistently squeezed out around one to two days of mixed use. To put that in perspective, we took the smartphone out for a particularly grueling day in Cebu. After hours of shooting sample photos, recording social media clips, and streaming music and gaming while stuck in traffic between scenic spots, we started at 100% and ended the day with 19% left in the tank. It’s proof that the handset can survive a chaotic schedule and still have enough juice to wake you up the following morning.
And when the battery finally runs dry, the bundled 100-watt HyperCharge brick makes short work of the charging process. In our testing, a mere 30-minute top-up was enough to get the indicator back to 72% — more than enough for a night out. A full charge, meanwhile, took about 48 minutes, which is respectable given the size of the cell inside.
Final thoughts
Ultimately, the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G asks a tough question: How much is peace of mind worth to you? At P27,999 (around $471), it lands with a higher price tag than its predecessor, nudging the series closer to premium territory. Pure value hunters looking strictly for the highest benchmark scores per peso might find the midrange chip debatable at this bracket.
But we think judging the REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G strictly through the lens of benchmarks and frame rates misses the bigger picture. Xiaomi has built a phone that trades marginal performance gains for meaningful improvements in structural integrity, water resistance, and endurance. If you’re after a daily driver that feels upscale and can actually survive the chaos of the real world without needing to be babied, that admission fee could be easily justified.
REDMI Note 15 Pro+ 5G specs
- 6.83-inch AMOLED screen, 1.5K resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, 3,200 nits brightness, Xiaomi All Around Liquid Display
- 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 processor
- Adreno 810 GPU
- 12GB/16GB RAM
- 256GB/512GB storage
- Triple rear cameras: 200-megapixel main (Samsung HP3 custom, 1/1.4″ sensor), 8-megapixel ultrawide, 50-megapixel telephoto (2.5x optical)
- 32-megapixel front camera
- Under-display fingerprint reader
- 6,500mAh silicon-carbon battery, 100-watt HyperCharge, 22.5W reverse wired charging
- Xiaomi HyperOS 2.0 based on Android 15
- Redmi Titan Structure + IP66/IP68/IP69/IP69K rating + SGS Premium Performance Certification
- Colors: Glacier Blue, Mocha Brown, Black
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