Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro first impressions: Big battery and dedicated microSD card slot

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Xiaomi has been dominating the Indian budget smartphone market for quite some time now. The company's Redmi and Mi series offers affordable yet performance-driven products that deliver best-in-class features and performance in their respective price-point.

 
Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro first impressions

Adding on to its budget portfolio, the company has today launched the Redmi 6 Pro for the Indian market. The Redmi 6 Pro is the third device from Xiaomi in the Redmi 6 series. The other devices which come in the Redmi 6 series are the Redmi 6 and Redmi 6A. The Redmi 6 Pro comes with some trending features such as a notched display, dual rear camera setup, AI Portrait mode and more.

This is the first device from Xiaomi which features a notched display at a budget price point. As for the availability, the Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro will be an Amazon exclusive product and interested users can get the device from the e-commerce giant. We were present at the launch event and got our hands on the device for a while and this is our first impressions of the Redmi 6 Pro. As for the pricing, the Redmi 6 Pro 3GB+32Gb variant comes with a price tag of Rs 10,999 and the 4GB+64GB variant comes with a price tag of Rs 12,999.

Design: Compact body with Matt textured finish
 

Design: Compact body with Matt textured finish

Xiaomi has used an all-plastic casing to construct the smartphone. The plastic appears to be of decent quality. The rear panel of the device has a Matte textured finish. The Redmi 6 Pro is slightly heavy due to the fact that it packs in a massive 4,000 mAh battery unit. However, the device has a compact form factor which makes it quite easy to operate with a single hand. Also, the matte finish back ensures a good grip that as the device feels less slippery in hands.

The front of the Redmi 6 Pro has a notch at the top. The notch houses the front camera and a bunch of sensors along with the earpiece. The rear panel of the device houses the dual-rear camera set up along with an LED flash. The fingerprint scanner is also placed at the rear and is positioned ideally where our finger will rest naturally at the spot. This should help the users to unlock the device quickly without any fuss. The volume rockers along with the power key are placed at the left panel, whereas, the SIM card tray is placed on the right panel of the device. The 3.5mm headphone jack for audio output is placed at the top, whereas, the bottom panel houses the speaker grilles and a micro USB port for charging and data transfers. Overall, the design has nothing new to offer apart from the notch. The design is pretty old school and resembles the previous releases from Xiaomi such as the Redmi 5. But it is very practical.

 

Display: 5.84-inch Full HD+ display with a notch

Display: 5.84-inch Full HD+ display with a notch

In terms of display, Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro features a 5.84-inch FHD+ screen which has an aspect ratio of 19:9. As we mentioned earlier this is the first budget Xiaomi device to feature a notch. The notch is smaller in size much like the Nokia 6.1 Plus and houses the camera and earpiece.

The display offers a screen resolution of 1080 x 2280 pixels. The display is bright and vibrant and the colors produced are also good. We
were not able to test the display under direct sunlight, therefore, it will be hard to comment on the sunlight visibility of the display for now. We will test the display outdoors in our comprehensive review.

 

Camera: Dual-lens rear camera and 5MP front camera

Camera: Dual-lens rear camera and 5MP front camera

Redmi 6 Pro sports a dual-rear camera setup
and a single camera at the front. The dual-rear camera setup includes a 12MP primary sensor and a 5MP secondary sensor. The rear camera comes with features such as AI Portrait mode and AI beautify mode. The rear camera is capable to capture good quality images in daylight. The images show decent detail and nearly accurate Colors.

The front camera in the Redmi 6 Pro is a 5MP selfie shooter which also has the AI Portrait and AI beautify modes. The front camera also captures decent selfies and you will not be disappointed with the output. The device also has the Face unlock feature which has become an industry standard nowadays. The Face unlock feature works fine, however,we still need to test the device thoroughly to check the performance of this feature in challenging light situations.

 

Hardware and Software:

Hardware and Software:

Under the hood, the device is powered by a Qualcomm's mid-range Snapdragon 625 SoC along with Adreno 506 GPU for graphics. The Redmi 6 Pro is available in two different storage and RAM variants with the first being 3GB+32GB variant and the second is a 4GB+64GB variant. The device has a dedicated microSD card which indicates that the storage is expandable. The on-sheet specs of the device are pretty decent and it appears that we will get a lag-free user experience.

The Redmi 6 Pro ships with Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box with MIUI 9.6 on top. The UI is user-friendly and is feature rich and in terms of performance, the UI is pretty good. However, it would have been appreciated if Xiaomi had shipped the device with Android 9.0 Pie out of
the box.

 

Battery and Connectivity:

Battery and Connectivity:

The Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro is powered by a massive 4,000mAh battery which is quite impressive. The bigger battery should make sure that the device last for a longer duration with moderate to heavy usage, however like we mentioned earlier we still need to test the device thoroughly before we can verify any claims or the performance of the device.
The connectivity aspects of the Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro include support for dual 4G VoLTE, Bluetooth and others.

Verdict:

Verdict:

The Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro is the company's latest budget offering. The handset offers a good spec sheet and seems like a worthy buy in this price range. The big battery coupled with a dedicated microSD card slot will please Indian consumers who are looking for an affordable handset for multimedia requirements. We will test the handset in the coming week to give you a better understanding of its overall performance.

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