Redmi K20 Pro vs Realme X2 Pro: The Affordable Flagship Battle

We’ve compared both these phones in terms of hardware, design, camera and battery life and here’s what we found.

Redmi K20 Pro (left) and Realme X2 Pro (right)

(Photo: The Quint)

Realme launched its so-called "affordable flagship" phone called the X2 Pro in India a few weeks back, with prices starting from Rs 29,999. This phone goes up against brands like OnePlus as well as Redmi, which has the K20 Pro with similar features on board.

We thought it would be interesting to pit Realme and Redmi, who are looking to appeal to consumers with their power-packed devices, against each other.

We’re still testing out both the devices, especially their camera prowess. Here’s our detailed spec-to-spec comparison between the Realme X2 Pro and Redmi K20 Pro.

(Photo: Kamran Akhter/The Quint)

Design and Display

The Redmi K20 Pro sports a glossy finish at the back and overall ergonomics are quite impressive. The fact that the 6.4-inch display on the Redmi doesn’t have a notch gives it extra points. It has a wider profile, which makes it look bigger for its size, especially while holding it in one hand but the gentle curves around the sides make sure it doesn't feel cumbersome while using it.

Realme X2 Pro sports a notch, Redmi K20 gets a pop-up camera.(Photo: The Quint)

Design-wise, the X2 Pro does look appealing, with its clean, focused finishing and a simple layout for the device. But unlike the Redmi K20 Pro, it sports a notch at the top of the display. Most of the phones selling right now pack a notch, and it seems they’ve stuck to what works for users these days.

Glossy back design of both the phones.(Photo: The Quint)

Talking about the display, the X2 Pro sports a regular-sized display, with 1080 pixels resolution using a Super AMOLED panel, but it does support a 90Hz refresh rate screen. This means the experience of using the device will be at par with the OnePlus 7T and other high-end devices.

The Redmi K20 Pro also supports the same resolution but considering it was launched before the X2 Pro, buyers don’t get to experience the 90Hz refresh rate.

Hardware & Software

The Redmi K20 Pro runs on a Snapdragon 855 processor coupled with 6GB to 8GB of RAM. It is a phone you can put through rigorous multitasking and it won’t disappoint you. However, it is recommended you don’t overburden the processor as the phone tends to heat up a bit.

Both the phones get a 3.5 mm headphone jack.(Photo: The Quint)

With the X2 Pro, you’re getting the Snapdragon 855 Plus processor, which is only running on a few devices as of now in the market. This hardware gets paired with 8GB or 12GB RAM, with storage variants of 128GB or 256GB made available by the brand.

The added bonus on both these devices is the headphone jack, allowing you to invest in a quality pair of wired headphones.

Between all this, it’s worth pointing out that both the phones get a 4000mAh battery that supports fast charging with Realme and Redmi offering 50W and 27W (18W out of box) charger respectively.

And these charging features managed to live up to the hype. With the X2 Pro, the charging speeds are quite impressive, and we managed to go from 20 percent to 80 percent in less than 30 minutes. When it comes to the Redmi K20 Pro, we got decent charging speeds as well, but it does pale in front of what Realme has to offer.

Realme and Redmi are still offering phones with Android Pie.(Photo: The Quint)

Both the phones run on Android 9.0 out-of-the-box with their own custom UIs backing them. It’s up to the user to decide which of the two interfaces they would prefer. During our time, we felt that Realme’s UI feels a bit clunky and the amount of bloatware could have been avoided.

As for the Redmi K20 Pro, its UI also feels heavy but compared to the one running on X2 Pro, we found its experience and overall performance to be a lot better, even though the MiUi has its own drawbacks.

Camera

The Realme X2 Pro sports a quad-camera setup with a 64-megapixel primary camera, offering 20x zoom with an ultrawide lens. There’s a 13-megapixel sensor with telephoto lens, and you also have an 8-megapixel ultrawide lens, which gets paired with a 2-megapixel depth sensor.

Quad and triple camera setup at the back of both the phones.(Photo: The Quint)

With the Redmi K20 Pro, you get a triple rear-camera setup, sporting a 48-megapixel wide lens, an 8-megapixel telephoto sensor, and a 13-megapixel ultrawide lens.

Here’s a comparative look at the camera quality on both these phones.

Shot with K20 Pro portrait mode

Shot with K20 Pro normal mode

Shot with K20 Pro with less light

Shot with Realme X2 Pro macro mode

Shot with Realme X2 Pro in normal mode

Shot with Realme X2 Pro with less light

As you can see here, the imaging quality of both these cameras is pretty good. They capture a decent amount of detail and reproduce images with a balance of colour and contrast. Even though we found the X2 Pro offers washed out colours in a few cases. The shutter speed is quick and the output is generated without any lag.

Which One is Worth Buying?

Which one should you buy?(Photo: The Quint)

Realme wants to compete with Xiaomi (or Redmi) and with the X2 Pro, the brand is offering itself a good chance. This phone has the latest hardware in town such as competent cameras and fast charging (that is the best available in the market right now), you’re getting a power-packed phone in the form of the X2 Pro. For its price tag, there’s is not a lot you can ask for.

The Redmi K20 Pro was and is a solid offering, even though it has become slightly outdated with the launch of the X2 Pro. But it helps Redmi slashed the price of the phone, which starts from Rs 24,999 now. So, if you prefer a known brand like Xiaomi and like its heavily loaded MiUi interface, the K20 Pro is a worthy pick.