Basically, Xiaomi, by offering Redmi K20 Pro under Rs. 30,000 price tag, did what OnePlus once started. However, they have now moved to a different price bracket, especially with the OnePlus 7 Pro. Redmi K20 Pro also comes all the features that make it a premium category phone like OP 7 Pro. Xiaomi‘s phone has a 3D glass back, pop-up camera at the front, AMOLED display with an under-display fingerprint scanner, triple cameras with a 48MP Sony sensor and much more. We’ve been using it for a week now and here’s our quick review of Redmi K20 Pro.
Redmi K20 Pro Review
Looks and Build: Metal and Glass
The Redmi K20 Pro comes sporting a glass body backed with a metal frame. This makes the phone look premium and it also a solid, sturdy build as well. There is Gorilla Glass 5 protection on both sides. The phone also has a Splashproof P2i coating.
On the back, there is an Aura Prime 3D curved design with a flame pattern in Red and Blue colors. There is also a Carbon Black version with kevlar pattern. The front panel of the phone has a big and bright AMOLED display with a pop-up camera design. There are minimal bezels on each side of the Redmi K20 Pro.
The pop-up mechanism sits on the top-left side. It has auto drop protection and it automatically retracts if you drop the phone. The lens is protected by sapphire glass protection. There is LED lighting in the pop-up module and it has a notification light as well.
With all these features, the company still manages to offer the 3.5mm audio jack which is at the top alongside pop-up camera and secondary mic. On the bottom, a speaker grill, primary mic, USB Type-C port, and SIM slot are located. To be noted, it doesn’t have an SD card slot. However, this should not be an issue as the phone has at least 128GB storage. Overall, I feel the Redmi K20 Pro is a premium-looking smartphone which also feels extremely compact and sturdy.
Display: Bright Samsung AMOLED
There is a 6.39-inch Full HD+(2340 × 1080 pixels) AMOLED panel provided by Samsung. The screen offers 19.5:9 aspect ratio and has fewer bezels and a minimal bottom chin. Thus it offers more than 91% screen-to-body ratio.
The display has support for HDR and DCI-P3 color gamut and offers up to 600nit brightness. The display is bright even in sunlight. You can keep the brightness around 40 to 50 percent for indoors. The colors are rich too because of the AMOLED panel.
The Redmi K20 Pro’s screen also comes with an in-display fingerprint sensor. This is a 7th generation optical fingerprint sensor which has a 3P lens which makes it quite fast.
Performance: Snapdragon 855
The phone is powered by the flagship Snapdragon 855 7nm SoC paired with up to 8GB of LPDDR4x RAM and up to 256GB UFS2.1 storage. The device is a flagship-level performer because of such internals. Interestingly, it is the cheapest SD 855-powered phone now.
The SD 855 makes it pretty snappy and powerful too. The K20 Pro is capable of running graphic-intensive games like PUBG and Asphalt 9 very well. In fact, I am impressed with the gaming performance. To be noted, it also has a Game Turbo 2.0 feature. However, there is still a little concern for me. As per the company, the device comes with 8 layers of graphite 3D sheet for better heat dissipation. But while we played PUBG Mobile for about 30 minutes, we noticed heating is still an issue up to some extent. Overall performance-wise, the Redmi K20 Pro can handle all the tasks you do on your phone without any lag. Here’s the AnTuTu score of Redmi K20 Pro.
Camera: 48MP Sony IMX586 sensor
The phone sports a triple camera setup at the back that includes a 48MP Sony IMX586 sensor with f/1.75 aperture, an 8MP telephoto lens for 2x lossless zoom and a 13MP ultra-wide angle lens.
The pictures clicked with the Redmi K20 Pro look vibrant and detailed. It captures really well, especially in daylight. The 48MP mode pictures look even more detailed. The portrait mode captures good pictures with good blur effect and sharp edges too. It has EIS and 4K 60 fps video recording for all the cameras and 960 fps slo-mo recording. The ultra-wide-angle and 2x telephoto lens also produce good results. There’s also a night mode which clicks well-lit pics. Talking about the selfies, the Redmi K20 Pro clicks sharp images with the 20MP front camera. The selfies are overall decent, however, these should be more detailed. The overall camera performance of the Redmi K20 Pro is good for a phone under Rs 30,000. Take a look at the camera samples below.
Battery: 4,000mAh with 27W fast charging
The phone packs a 4,000mAh battery with support for 27W fast charging. The company calls it SonicCharge and it can give a 58% charge in half an hour. However, the phone comes with an 18W charger in the box.
The 18W charger takes around 1 and a half hours to charge it 100 percent, which is not bad. Talking about battery life, I used the Redmi K20 Pro rigorously for a full day and it managed to run on a single charge.
Connectivity: All the nitty-gritty
The device comes with all the essential connectivity options including Dual SIM Dual VoLTE, WiFi 802.11 ac, Bluetooth 5, Dual Band GPS, GLONASS, and NFC, etc. The device also sports a 3.5mm audio jack on top. There’s a USB Type-C port for data transfer and fast charging. However, it lacks a microSD card slot, which is not a major issue though.
Software and UI: POCO launcher feels good
The Redmi K20 Pro runs on a well-optimized software with Android 9 Pie-based MIUI 10 out of the box. The K20 Pro comes with pre-installed POCO launcher that makes the UI feel good by bringing features like App drawer and dark mode. The MIUI, however, comes with some pre-installed third-party apps which many of use do not like much.
Wrapping Up
After spending a week with Redmi K20 Pro, I find out it to fit every user’s requirements. The design & display, overall performance or camera, the Redmi K20 Pro offers just everything you look for in a flagship-level phone. So, if you want a premium phone under Rs 30,000, the Redmi K20 Pro will be a solid option. And we think Xiaomi’s hype is real.
