Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro hands-on review

Performance and charging

Marvin Rodriguez, 05 Aug 2019.

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.

 Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro hands-on review

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

Reader comments

  • Tech fc
  • 15 Jul 2020
  • rAf

High quality,rich and louder sound.But I think you won't get a headphone with the phone.

  • Tech fc
  • 15 Jul 2020
  • rAf

That was a perfect review.Redmi k20 pro rules over oneplus 7,Asus 6 and many more in overall performance.😎

  • Tech fc
  • 15 Jul 2020
  • rAf

No.You will get a gorilla glass 5 protection in both sides with the phone.