Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro hands-on review

Performance

The main area of difference between the K20 and the K20 Pro is the chipset. The cheaper Redmi K20 ships with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 730, the highest-end model in Qualcomm's mid-range series. Meanwhile, the K20 Pro ships with the flagship Snapdragon 855 chipset, putting it in the same league as far more expensive devices, such as the Samsung Galaxy S10 and the Sony Xperia 1, at least as far as the performance is concerned.

In our subjective testing, the K20 Pro exhibited excellent performance during everyday use. Applications open and close swiftly and scrolling performance was consistently smooth throughout. Demanding applications such as 3D games also faze no issues to the phone as the combination of a high-performance GPU and a relatively low-resolution display means it can crunch through them with ease.

In our synthetic benchmark tests, the K20 Pro keeps up with all the flagship Android smartphones on the market. The standard K20 does reasonably well here considering its more mid-range chipset but is left in the dust by the K20 Pro and its Snapdragon 855, especially in gaming tests.

With so much power at its disposal, we wish Xiaomi had put it to better use, such as by providing a higher resolution display or, ideally, a high refresh rate display, such as the 90Hz display on the OnePlus 7 Pro. However, at this price point, that's probably too much to ask for at this point in time.

The K20 Pro is available in two storage and memory tiers, with the base tier including 6GB of memory and 128GB storage and the more expensive model having 8GB memory and 256GB storage.

The Redmi K20 Pro is one of those rare Xiaomi phones that does not feature expandable storage, so perhaps it's not a bad idea to get the higher tier model, which also comes with more memory that will make the device more future-proof, if you intend to keep it around for a few years.

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Black Shark 2
  11192
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  11181
• OnePlus 7
  11075
• Sony Xperia 1
  10985
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  10943
• Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro
  10883
• Asus Zenfone 6
  10721
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  10387
• Samsung Galaxy S10
  10174
• Huawei P30
  9789
• Xiaomi Pocophone F1
  9003
• Samsung Galaxy A80
  6934
• Xiaomi Redmi K20/Mi 9T
  6863

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S10
  4543
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  4522
• Black Shark 2
  3515
• Asus Zenfone 6
  3505
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  3503
• Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro
  3492
• OnePlus 7
  3461
• Sony Xperia 1
  3447
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  3402
• Huawei P30
  3295
• Xiaomi Redmi K20/Mi 9T
  2537
• Samsung Galaxy A80
  2516
• Xiaomi Pocophone F1
  2438

AnTuTu 7

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 9
  372006
• Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro
  369082
• OnePlus 7
  367812
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  364025
• Asus Zenfone 6
  361679
• Sony Xperia 1
  356734
• Black Shark 2
  343460
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  333736
• Samsung Galaxy S10
  328366
• Huawei P30
  287960
• Xiaomi Pocophone F1
  265314
• Xiaomi Redmi K20/Mi 9T
  211915
• Samsung Galaxy A80
  207502

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 7
  71
• Sony Xperia 1
  71
• Black Shark 2
  71
• Asus Zenfone 6
  71
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  70
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  69
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  68
• Samsung Galaxy S10
  68
• Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro
  67
• Xiaomi Pocophone F1
  60
• Huawei P30
  54
• Samsung Galaxy A80
  30
• Xiaomi Redmi K20/ Mi 9T
  27

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro
  57
• OnePlus 7
  57
• Black Shark 2
  57
• Asus Zenfone 6
  57
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  56
• Sony Xperia 1
  55
• Xiaomi Pocophone F1
  53
• Huawei P30
  48
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  37
• Samsung Galaxy S10
  37
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  33
• Samsung Galaxy A80
  26
• Xiaomi Redmi K20/Mi 9T
  24

3DMark SSE 3.1 Unlimited

Higher is better

• OnePlus 7
  6388
• Black Shark 2
  6330
• Asus Zenfone 6
  6263
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  6093
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  5816
• Sony Xperia 1
  5792
• Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro
  5023
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  4632
• Samsung Galaxy S10
  4550
• Huawei P30
  3597
• Samsung Galaxy A80
  2543
• Xiaomi Redmi K20/Mi 9T
  2329