Xiaomi sub-brand Redmi has two new smartphones that have tongues wagging: the Redmi K20 and Redmi K20 Pro.
The two devices target the budget smartphone buyer by combining features users will find useful with those that they would otherwise never find on a “budget” device. That is especially true for the superior variant, the Redmi K20 Pro.
The device packs Qualcomm’s current flagship mobile application processor, the Snapdragon 855, the same image sensor from Sony (IMX 586) that can be found in other 2019 darlings like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro, Honor 20 Pro, Honor 20 among others, a pop-up selfie cam, an in-display fingerprint sensor and variable generous storage and memory options.
All that, for a price that is below Kshs 40,000 for the base model and the next configuration and just under Kshs 45,000 for the maxed out version. Maybe more if one is interested in a gaming pad going for just under Kshs 3,000.
As such, the Redmi K20 Pro is going to be turning heads for the remainder of the year everywhere it launches (fingers crossed that it eventually makes it to Kenya).
In fact, many are already referring to it as both a “flagship killer”, the name another Chinese smartphone brand, OnePlus, coined for its then ‘bang for buck’ smartphones but which it has since slowly moved away from and as “Pocophone F2”, an ode to the real flagship killer of the year 2018 from another Xiaomi sub-brand, Pocophone.
As if all that is not enough, the Redmi K20 Pro has another feather in its hat to bolster its standing in the crowded smartphone marketplace: it is now one of the smartphones enrolled to the Android 10 beta-testing programme.
There, it joins 2 other smartphones from the mother brand, Xiaomi, i.e. the Xiaomi Mi 9 and the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 5G.
While Xiaomi’s website has already been updated to reflect the K20 Pro’s new status and steps on how to go about exploiting it, it is yet to show up on the Android developer page listing other devices that are part of the Android 10 beta rollout. That should change soon, though.
At its developer conference early this month where it revealed the 23 devices that were allowed to test-drive the next version of Android (one of which has since been dropped), Google promised that more and more devices would be joining the Android Q beta-testing programme. The Redmi K20 Pro is one of the first to do so.
Now, before you get too excited about that, it is worth noting that the Android Q beta build is available only to users of the Chinese version of the existing firmware.
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