Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro review

The volume rocker and power button are located on the right spine of the handset, while the SIM card slot can be found on the left. There is a micro-USB charging port at the bottom with holes on both sides. On the top, you’ll find the IR blaster and the headphone jack.I found no issues in accessing the buttons on the handset and the phone doesn’t feel slippery or heavy in the hand either. Except for the notch, the design offered by the Redmi 6 Pro feels slightly boring, especially when we consider that some of the mid-range handsets are now offering a premium glass sandwich designs at affordable prices.

There is a vertically-stacked dual camera module on the top left, with the LED flash sandwiched in between the lenses. The fingerprint sensor is placed right in the middle, where it is easily accessible. Even though the handset’s body is primarily made out of plastic, the Redmi 6 Pro feels sturdy in the hand.

The Redmi 6 Pro features a 5.84-inch full HD+ (2,280 x 1,080 pixels) IPS LCD display with a taller-than-usual aspect ratio of 19:9. I found the display to be vibrant but slightly oversaturated. The viewing angles are good, and the images as well as text, appear crisp on the display. While this observation is getting slightly old, it is important to point out that the screen cut-out never feels like much of an issue and when you are watching videos on YouTube app, the notch doesn’t come in the way as it is covered up by a neat uniform bezel.

The Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro comes with a dual-camera module at the rear, consisting of a 12MP primary sensor with a f/2.2 aperture and a secondary 5MP f/2.2 depth sensor, accompanied by an LED flash. At the front, the phone has a 5MP camera for selfies and video calls. Having spent some time clicking pictures in both daylight as well as poor lighting conditions, I can safely say that the camera performance offered by the Redmi 6 Pro is good for its price range. However, for what it’s worth, the low light performance and selfie camera still leave room for improvement as there are some exposure and detail issues in these conditions.

The new Redmi handset runs Android Oreo-based MIUI 9 out of the box and comes with all the features that you might expect out of a Xiaomi phone. Our Chinese unit came out of the box filled with some bloatware but users can expect other features like dual apps, lite mode, and Full Screen Display, which will make way to units across regions, if and when the handset is launched outside China.

The smartphone handled some graphically demanding games like PUBG and Injustice 2 relatively well. I did not face any heating issues but there were occasional hiccups, though not far too often to ruin the experience. The Second Space feature allows you to install apps and keep pictures separately for security. If we talk about the AI-based Face Unlock feature, the handset manages to offer convenience but we are not too sure about the security. This is because we managed to unlock the handset even in poor lighting conditions as well as with part of our face covered.

Due to the presence of the notch, apps and games are usually displayed with a black strip on that side of the screen. Oddly enough, when you try to take a screenshot in these apps and games, the screen grab also features a thick black strip, which is not the case with other phones that come with the notch display design. 

The Redmi 6 Pro packs a rather massive 4,000mAh battery. Given this particular specification, it should not come as a surprise that the handset easily manages to last beyond a day under regular as well as heavy use. To give you further perspective, in our HD video loop test, the handset managed to last around 20 hours.

Effectively, this all means that the smartphone from Xiaomi won’t disappoint you if you are heading out for a road trip and planning to catch up on a TV series or watch a movie or two. At this point, we would seriously appreciate if all phones would offer this kind of battery life across price ranges. 

The Redmi 6 Pro can be described as a horse for all courses. The handset looks good, comes with the trendy notch design, and packs a massive battery. Although Snapdragon 625 feels like a dated processor at this point, the SoC gets the job done. Currently, the 3GB RAM and 4GB RAM variants of the smartphone are retailing for CNY 1,199 (roughly Rs 12,300) and CNY 1,299 (roughly Rs 13,300), respectively in China.