Redmi K20 Pro unboxing & hands-on

We got our hands on the Redmi K20 Pro, Xiaomi’s latest flagship killer. It comes with top-of-the-line hardware and in China, it is priced lower than the Xiaomi Mi 9. This is also Xiaomi’s first smartphone to come with a pop-up selfie camera mechanism.

At the moment, the Redmi K20 Pro is only sold in China and it is expected to be announced internationally as the Mi 9T Pro. The global launch event is taking place on 12th June 2019 but if you can’t wait, the folks at Mobile2Go have already started selling import sets in Malaysia.

The Redmi K20 Pro comes with a 6.39″ Full HD+ AMOLED display that’s free from any notches or punch-holes. There’s also an in-display fingerprint sensor which worked rather quickly and reliably during our short usage. Under the hood, the K20 Pro is running on a Snapdragon 855 processor and it can be configured with up to 8GB RAM and 256GB of storage. Unfortunately, you can’t expand the storage further as it lacks a microSD expansion slot on its dual nano-SIM tray.

If you need to take a selfie, the Redmi K20 Pro comes with a motorised rising camera which houses a 20MP front shooter. Unlike other pop-up cameras, the module lights up whenever the camera rises. In our carbon black unit, it illuminates in red.

The overall build is pretty solid and it feels more expensive than the Pocophone F1 that uses a polycarbonate back. Over at the rear, you’ll find a triple camera setup that comes with a 48MP f/1.75 main camera which uses a familiar Sony IMX586 sensor. The K20 Pro also gets a 13MP f/2.4 ultra-wide-angle camera as well as an 8MP f/2.4 telephoto unit that does 2X optical zoom.

Unlike the Xiaomi Mi 9 that has a weird way of transitioning between ultra-wide-angle to normal to zoom, the Redmi K20 Pro lets you switch between each lens easily without changing modes. It’s also worth pointing out that the Redmi K20 Pro does not come with optical image stabilisation.

The device comes with a huge 4,000mAh battery, which is 21% larger than the Xiaomi Mi 9 and it also supports 27W fast charging via USB-C. However, out of the box, the Redmi K20 Pro comes with an 18W fast-charger that supports QuickCharge 3. There’s no wireless charging support but the K20 Pro does come with a 3.5mm headphone jack which is good news for a lot of people.

We would like to give a special shoutout to Mobile2Go for making this unboxing possible. Just a reminder again that this Redmi K20 Pro is an import unit and it doesn’t come with Google Play out of the box. The base 6GB RAM + 128GB storage model is priced at RM1,898, while the 8GB RAM + 128GB storage version is going for RM2,098. If you prefer to get the highest-spec model, which is the one we have right here, it will cost you RM2,298.

Apart from the K20 Pro, there’s also a more affordable Redmi K20 model that runs on a Snapdragon 730 processor. It also retains the same display and battery capacity, but it uses a different triple-camera array at the back. You can learn more about it in our announcement post.