First impressions of Xiaomi’s latest affordable smartphone, the Redmi 6 Pro.
While Xiaomi unveiled the Redmi 6 Pro in China in June this year, the company’s latest budget smartphone was launched in India today.
The budget and mid-range smartphone market in India is very crowded and Xiaomi has reveled in this chaos with a phone at every couple of thousand rupees – at certain points, more than one. With this launch, Xiaomi has nine Redmi phones (plus different memory variants of each device) in the market in India all under 15,000 rupees or about $200, along with non-Redmi devices like the Mi A2.
While the confusion to pick a device that fits one’s needs is a tad tedious, the wide choice for customers isn’t actually a bad thing. I spent a few days with the Redmi 6 Pro before the launch, and here are my initial impressions of the device.
The Redmi 6 Pro looks like, well, most other Redmi smartphones. Xiaomi has settled on this design language for a while, and although it has started to get boring, apparently, most users don’t mind. There’s no differentiation in design, but the ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ approach works for the company and the aluminum body with rounded edges looks just fine.
The front is where one sees an aberration. The Redmi 6 Pro is the first Xiaomi smartphone with a notch on top of the display, although the company was one of the earliest ones to offer an all-screen bezel-less display with its premium Mi MIX series. You can hide the notch if you so prefer.
There’s a tall 5.84-inch Full HD+ display with a 19:9 aspect ratio with a pixel density of 432 pixels per inch. It’s a good display for a phone in this segment, but nothing exceptional.
The Redmi 6 Pro is powered by the Snapdragon 625 processor, Xiaomi’s staple ingredient for most of the devices that it cooks for this segment. A good balance of horsepower and efficiency on a budget makes it a fine choice, really.
The phone comes in two memory variants and packs in 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage or 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage which can be expanded up to 256GB with microSD card. It comes with 2+1 slots allowing you to use two nanoSIMs as well as a dedicated memory card.
The internals make for a fine combination for an affordable smartphone and packs in enough punch for most users. In the limited time I spent with the higher spec’d device, I didn’t encounter any wobbles or lags, and even extensive multitasking or multi-tabbed browsing was a breeze.
The Redmi 6 Pro boasts of a large 4000mAh battery – clearly one of the highlights of the device. We’ll get to the battery life and charging times in our complete review. There’s microUSB instead of USB Type-C which is a relic of the past that most affordable smartphones stick with even in 2018.
The Redmi 6 Pro runs MIUI 9.6 out of the box, the company’s proprietary UI layer over Android 8.1 Oreo. It will be soon upgraded to MIUI 10, which is also based on Android Oreo. No word on Android Pie though. There’s a fingerprint sensor at the back as well as Face Unlock feature.
The Redmi 6 Pro sports a vertically-mounted dual camera setup at the back. The primary camera is a 12MP f/2.2 sensor combined with a 5MP secondary sensor. There’s PDAF and the usual AI shenanigans too like the AI portrait mode. The Redmi 6 Pro comes with Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) as well.
This is the same setup we saw on the Redmi Note 5 Pro which arguably offers the best camera performance in the segment.
On the front, there’s a 5MP camera. The front camera too sports AI portrait and AI beauty modes.
Priced at 10,999 rupees ($153) for the 3GB+32GB variant and 12,999 rupees for the 4GB+64GB variant ($180), the Redmi 6 Pro will be available exclusively on Amazon.in as well as on mi.com starting September 11 at 12 noon and subsequently at Mi Homes, Xiaomi’s own retail stores.
The Redmi 6 Pro will come in four color variants – Black, Blue, Gold, and Red – and it comes with a protective case bundled in the box.
What are your initial thoughts on the Redmi 6 Pro, and would you like to pick one up? Let us know in the comments. Stay tuned for our complete review!
