Both phones feature Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor, 90Hz refresh rates, a 4,mAh battery, and its astonishing megapixel camera , which first made its debut last year on the Mi Note 10 series and was actually co-developed by Samsung though it did not feature in the South Korean company's phones. The Mi 10's rear camera also has a megapixel wide angle lens and 2-megapixel macro and depth sensor, but surprisingly it does not have a telephoto lens.
One can't talk about Xiaomi and not talk pricing. With a four-lens camera setup that includes a megapixel sensor and top-notch battery power, the Xiaomi Mi 10 series is nearly up there with the Samsung S20 line in terms of its impressive internals, but it also has a noticeably lower price. Both have been in available in China since Feb. Xiaomi has cultivated a reputation for producing quality phones at affordable prices.
But the Beijing-based company hasn't enjoyed much recent success domestically, and instead has made an aggressive push into international markets with a presence in more than 80 countries worldwide. The US market however, has proven elusive for Xiaomi so far, especially in light of the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing. Even after gawking at the patterns for literally several minutes in a row, I feel myself being so much in awe of the mesmerizing reflective surface.
Design & screen
The underlying pattern shifts and changes with the incident light. In my first impressions of the Redmi K20 Pro, I talked about the fundamental layout of various elements in the design, so this section will be more critical and revolve around aspects worth admiring as well as being cautious about. The curvature of the glass back adds to the grip and makes the phone feel slightly lighter, even though it weighs a little over grams. Redmi has added a thin and flexible plastic case within the box for those who prefer covering up fragile phones.
For the durability of the glass design, there is Gorilla Glass 5 on both sides and it is likely to put off users expecting the Redmi K20 Pro to feature the latest version of the protective glass. By mistakenly throwing the smartphone in the same pocket as my keys, I have been able to create thick grooves on both the front or the back. Based on the comments we received in our first impressions, many individuals seemingly equate curved screens with a premium smartphone and this disposition, in my understanding, is a side-effect of Samsung heaving its premium phone portfolio with curved screens.
With the OnePlus 7 Pro , the original flagship killer brand — OnePlus — used this trick to make the smartphone appear more attractive. Personally, however, I prefer the flat display since that not only makes it easier to type on the keys in the outward rows but also makes it easy to use MIUI gestures, especially the back gesture which involves swiping inwards from either of the edges.
The display measures 6. The Redmi K20 Pro is embarked on a journey to acquire a similar reputation and the display does help it qualify as a premium device with its thin bezels around all the edges resulting in an attractive appearance. In an era when dongles are common, the presence of a 3.
It is commendable that Redmi has managed to cram a headphone jack in the conveniently slim profile of the Redmi K20 Pro. However, that does come at the expense of an IR blaster, which sadly does not find a place on this smartphone. This is especially useful when the selfie camera rises for incoming video calls or facial authentication. Throughout my usage, however, I have come to witness an issue with the selfie camera thanks to Twitter user F.
In most cases, this flaring is trivial unless the smartphone is held at a certain angle to the light source but it does leave you with the constant anxiety of avoiding it.
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This video should help you understand the problem. The overall design of the Redmi K20 Pro is quite compelling, especially due to the not-so-subtle pattern on the back that can be likened to anything from blazing flames of fire to constantly shifting bands of clouds over Jupiter, to fractal patterns.
The design is thoroughly fascinating and competent enough to leave you awestruck. The reflective metal surface enclosing the pop-up camera remains to be a matter of concern. Notably, this is the same AMOLED panel as the flagship Xiaomi announced earlier this year — the Mi 9 — but the lack of a notch up on the top allows the Redmi flagship to have a slightly higher screen-to-body ratio. The display is hemmed in by thin bezels along all four edges, including the slight chin, which is modestly broader than the other three sides.
Just like other devices running this Android skin, you can alter the color tones to suit yourself. To the naked eyes, DC Dimming increases the brightness a tad bit but it prevents pulsating light beams at low brightness levels from causing any damage to your eyes. Dylan confirms that the issue is venial as it plagues almost every mid-range OLED panels.
Bands caused due to uneven illumination under the panel.
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On the matter of the quality of this display, I ran a few quick tests using the free version of the Display Tester app by Braintrapp. It supports multi-touch for up to 10 points simultaneously and this, again, is something standard yet delightful. The Redmi K20 Pro passes with flying colors in the banding, contrast, and saturation tests, and only appears to be strained at the extreme ends of the color gamut i.
Additionally, the display is only slightly short of perfect in terms of the contrast test. However, the ghost touch issue linked with the 3-finger screenshot gesture , which peeved many POCO F1 users, persists on this device too. Surely, disabling the gesture option is an ideal way to deal with this but I would expect Xiaomi to fix the issue after almost a year of agitation by the users. Plus, it basically renders an effective gesture in MIUI useless. Do keep in mind the risks associated with such a move, though. The Redmi K20 Pro fares well on the expectations from a premium smartphone in terms of the overall build and the display as well as exhibits the right set of apparatus for a flagship-grade performance.
The octa-core of the mobile platform consists of eight 7nm Kyro cores clubbed in three different clusters. These include a single high-performance core at 2. Unquestionably, the muscle power that the Redmi K20 Pro displays is flagship-grade. Constantly using the device for a month now, I have not come across a single incident of stutter or lag and the same can be expected from the variant with 6GB RAM.
Starting first with AnTuTu, the K20 Pro breaches the k mark and comes near — although short of — other smartphones rocking the same chipset. Despite the same configuration as the Mi 9, our K20 Pro review unit lags slightly behind by a noticeable margin by almost 20, points. Moving to GeekBench 4, one of the most straightforward and diversely used synthetic benchmark.
Unlike the POCO F1, which had a liquid-based heat sink, the K20 Pro comes with multiple layers of graphite around the motherboard to dissipate the heat. PCMark Work 2. The Redmi K20 Pro takes a barefaced beating from the OnePlus 7 in these tasks and this is likely to be due to the faster storage technology on the latter. Not only does it fare below most other smartphones with Snapdragon , but it also falls short of other devices with Snapdragon , including the OnePlus 6T. Here are the comparison scores for you to check out:.
Aggressively priced
I ran GFXBench, which is another benchmark for demanding graphics-related tasks, and I could observe a similar trend with lower scores than the competitors in each of the tests. While UFS 2. Interestingly, Idrees found no substantial real-life difference despite the faster USF 3. Further, another intriguing trend in comparison with the UFS 3.
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The lower GPU performance we saw in the benchmarks above may be something to ponder over for a few seconds, but in real life, I have not experienced any lag or frame drop while playing every game I tested on the device at the highest settings. Unfortunately, I was not able to grant access to GameBench — both free and Pro versions — to be able to analyze what the smartphone can yield in terms of gaming more accurately. Xiaomi implemented ads into its OS for markets such as India. There are some more useful examples, however, including a mobile security app, barcode scanner, and screen recorder.
The hardware is certainly there. Many more affordable smartphones skimp on software. This is not the case with the Mi 9T. The two main characteristics of the photos that I took with the device were natural and lifelike. What they did do was accurately represent the tone, feeling, and atmosphere of the scene being captured. With HDR enabled something that is not on by default , the 9T shone in harsh conditions such as looking up at a building in direct sunlight.
Similarly, there was a lot of detail to be had with the telephoto camera, something that, again, is rare at a phone of this price. Low-light performance was a bit of a struggle for the 9T. Results looked a tad too soft for my liking; however, there were instances where it kept up well. Overall, low-light is a bit hit or miss. Portrait mode on the Mi 9T is fantastic, far better than I first expected it to be.
Edge detection is great, the depth itself is believable, and the images pop. Xiaomi allows you to change the aperture of the effect in the app and it works really well. When given enough light, the selfie camera can produce some good images. However, as soon as you dip below the required amount of light, the camera tends to open the shutter for too long, creating a lot of motion blur. At 4K, 30fps, the Mi 9T actually downgrades its video-capturing capabilities from the Mi 9 thanks to the use of a mid-range SoC.
Because of this, video is naturally worse than the Mi 9 which features better camera hardware on top of that flagship processor. I found video to look pretty smooth thanks to its electronic stabilization; however, there were artifacts in the video where you could see the camera correcting for the shaky handling. Want to see full-resolution camera samples? Click here! One of the best usability improvements of the 9T over the 9 is the inclusion of a headphone port. There are plenty of options that allow you to tune the sound signature to best fit your ears.
The single bottom-firing speaker on the Mi 9T is pretty poor. Xiaomi Mi 9T Display 6. Starting at euros, the Mi 9T is not a budget phone , nor is it a flagship killer. What it is, is a fantastic combination of hardware and software for the money. Compared to its competitors, which seem to specialize in one area or another, the Mi 9T shines in most, if not all, areas.
Considering its SoC choice, feature list, and cameras, it packs in a lot of high quality tech for the money.