Redmi K20 Pro, a phone with high-specs at a low price

Xiaomi has risen into the world market with their ingenious phones with high-specs and low budget. Among their different product variations, the Redmi-series has been on the main components that has paved Xiaomi's path from being unknown to one of the powerhouse brands in terms of smartphones. The utmost strategy being price penetration, Xiaomi has offered aggressive specs within reasonable pricing.

However, the brand has not yet coped and infiltrated the high-midrange and premium segments. Nevertheless, with the inception of the new K20-series, Xiaomi is chasing a more dynamic perspective towards features and specs while revamping their image. With the introduction of the Redmi K20 Pro, Xiaomi has been very optimistic by featuring and promoting the model as 'flagship killers 2.0' across different platforms.

The pricing of the smartphone has sparked debate as Xiaomi is budget friendly. This stance was prompted out because Xiaomi wanted to penetrate the high-mid range market with this device.

Exterior (Design and build)

The Redmi K20 Pro is available in different shades: Flame Red, Carbon Black, Summer Honey, Pearl White, and Glacier Blue. The colours look and feel fantastic both in inside and outside environment. The Red color of the model looks quite appealing even though it is a bit too showy. The Carbon Black model look very bold and solid in all angles. The Glacier Blue model gives out an avid gradient outlook. The multi-layer substances in the exterior helps in generating distinctive effects on this Xiaomi smartphone. The device has a glass-metal formation with a metal side rail which attaches the front and rear glass. The front glass and the rear glass is attached with a Gorilla Glass 5, which gives it a more pleasant vibe.

Furthermore, the front is equipped with an AMOLED screen and there is visibly no notch. The selfie camera is accommodated by a motorized pop-up module which is situated on the top of the device. Regarding the build, there are no creaks in the body. The Gorilla Glass 5 instills an idea of protection in both the front and rear area. The Xiaomi K20 Pro is not water-resistant certified yet there is a nanocoating for splash resistance. However, the glossy design is rather perceptive towards finger smudges. The smartphone weighs about 191 grams and has an 8.8mm thickness.

Display features

Xiaomi has upgraded its games up compared to its competition in this smartphone. The K20 Pro has a 6.39-inch Super AMOLED screen which covers around 86.1 percent screen-to-body ratio, which is comparatively better that what Xiaomi offered in their previous flagships. The screen offers a full HD+ resolution with 19.5:9 aspect ratio and 16 million colours. Being an AMOLED display, it offers great contrast and it looks quite astonishing in dark mode. Xiaomi has also integrated an always on feature which suits perfectly with its ambient display. The screen is bright, colourful and quite sharp. The K20 Pro's display additionally supports HDR content which comes in handy while viewing anything on Netflix or Amazon Prime. The display is easily adjustable by the display settings in the notification shade.

Specs

In terms of performance, the Xiaomi Redmi K20 pro excels quite a lot compared to other smartphones in its price range. The device comes with a 7nm process-based Snapdragon 855 which is currently the top Qualcomm chipset. Additionally, it comes with one extreme performance cores which clocks at 2.84GHz followed by multiple performance cores ticking at 2.41GHz and four powerful cores at 1.78GHz.

 The K20 pro comes in both 6GB and 8GB RAM and fast UFS 2.1 storage (up to 64/128GB in 6GB RAM and 128/256GB in 8GB RAM) which makes the smartphone quite fast in usage and capable in handling every app or game available out there.

 The device accelerates in gaming due to its Adreno 640 GPU which delivers lag-less and excellent gameplay. Xiaomi has also added a gaming mode that enables special features while gaming. The K20 Pro comes with Android 9.0 (Pie) and MIUI 11 which are both upgradable.

Camera

The Redmi K20 Pro comes with triple rear camera and one front pop-up selfie camera. Whilst keeping up with recent flagships, the three camera comes with a 48MP (f/1.75) IMX586 primary sensor, joined with a 13MP (f/2.4) ultra-wide camera and an 8MP (f/2.4) telephoto lens. For selfies, there is a 20MP selfie camera that pops up every time you want to use it. The primary camera acts as a 12MP sensor with very large 1.6µm size pixels. The dedicated 48MP camera mode is there just in case you need to print a billboard or poster. The wide and telephoto lenses come with PDAF (Phase Detection Auto-Focus) but there is no OIS (optical image stabilization).

The camera manages to capture great images in most conditions. It has a decent dynamic range but with increasing light, the highlights blow up to some extent. The photos taken by the phone are mostly crispy. The low light camera performance is quite low but if pictures are taken with the night mode, it delivers better images. As for videos, it can record 4K videos at 60FPS, but you have to keep your hand steady to record seamlessly.

Battery, audio and biometrics

The Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro is equipped with a 4,000 mAh Li-Po (Lithium polymer) battery which delivers daylong usage with ease. The battery depletes faster with more usage but it is still praiseworthy. The phone supports Quick Charge 4+ which means it can handle faster charging. The audio output is merely average. The device comes with a bottom mono speaker which is loud but not the best in its class. However, the phone has a 3.5mm headphone jack which is obviously a great addition. The K20 Pro has both face unlock and fingerprint scanner. The pop-up selfie camera provides a much slower interaction while unlocking through face unlock.