Redmi Unveils Powerful Redmi K20 Pro: A OnePlus 7 Pro Alternative?

Though Xiaomi has made strides in the budget and midrange smartphone market with phones like the Pocophone, Redmi Note 7, and Redmi Go, it hasn’t been able to penetrate the upper midrange or the premium smartphones market. Even though Mi 9 and Mi 8 (Xiaomi’s flagships) were and are great phones, not many people talk about it (in the international market).

That may change with the Redmi K20 pro. Redmi K20 pro launched on May 28th (yesterday) and it comes packing some serious specs at a serious price. This may be the first phone in Redmi’s K lineup (don’t quote me on that) but it is already off to a good start.

The major complaint about Xiaomi phones has been their bland design. Redmi K20 looks to challenge that perception with a flaming radiant back design that looks super-cool and hot in the renders. The cameras at the back are placed at the top center portion. There are three of them. The main one is a 48MP sensor; there’s a 13MP ultrawide and an 8MP telephoto one.

Redmi K20 Pro vs OnePlus 7 Pro

One other cool design element (it looks great in the renders) is a ring-like design around one of the camera lenses. Xiaomi has kept things interesting at the front too. There is no notch or a punch hole in the display. The front is nearly all-screen much like the OnePlus 7 pro. The screen is an FHD+ 6.39 inch AMOLED display. This is a great display without a doubt but it doesn’t come close to beating the 1440p 90Hz refresh rate OLED panel on the OnePlus 7 pro.

The selfie camera is a pop-up camera that pops up from the left side of the display. It is a 20MP sensor.

Inside, the phone houses the latest Snapdragon 855 processor. This will be accompanied by either 6GB or 8GB RAM.  So, you won’t have to worry a thing about performance. There will be 3 different options for storage: 64GB, 128GB, or 256GB. If you go with the 128GB version, you won’t have to worry about storage either. But if you chooes to go with the 64GB version, you should know that there’s no microSD expandability here.

Like the OnePlus 7 Pro, Redmi K20 pro has an under display fingerprint sensor too. This is an optical fingerprint sensor but it’s a 7th gen sensor. Xiaomi is boasting 100% more photo-sensitive area, 30% more accuracy, and 15% increased scanning area than the previous generation optical fingerprint sensors.

Redmi K20 pro also supports 27W fast charging that can charge the internal 4,000mAh battery within 80 minutes. Though this sounds cool, one of the best thing about the K20 pro may be that this smartphone includes a headphone jack!!!

OnePlus 7 pro starts at the asking price of $650. While this price is nowhere near as much as the $1000 flagships, K20 pro’s starting price of $360 for the 6GB/64GB variant blows OnePlus’s pricing out of the water. Even the specced out 8GB/256GB version costs about $435 (These prices are direct translation of the Chinese price). Xiaomi might be able to convince its fan base in India to buy its phone instead of the 7 pro. But they will need some good marketing and a plan to bring this phone to market other than China.

Redmi K20

In the event, Redmi also revealed K20, a mini version of the K20 pro. The only thing that is mini about the K20 is its processor. It uses Snapdragon 730 instead of the 855. Otherwise, the rest of the specs is identical, even the camera setup except for the main camera. The main camera is a 48MP lens but it uses a different sensor.

Redmi K20 is available with 6GB RAM only and will come with either 64GB or 128GB internal storage. The 6GB/64GB model will cost around $290, and the 6GB/128GB version will cost $305.