It was about a year ago when Xiaomi’s sub-brand Redmi forayed into the premium smartphone segment with modest pricing akin to a OnePlus ‘flagship killer.’ The Redmi K20 has already seen a follow-up as the Chinese company rushes to democratize 5G connectivity, and now it’s time for the Pro model to receive a successor, which Xiaomi announced earlier today in China. The K30 Pro takes over as the most premium handset in Redmi’s arsenal, packing four cameras and a nearly edge-to-edge screen.
The colorful, more artistic back of the Redmi K20 Pro has been replaced with a flatter color profile. Xiaomi has trimmed the bezels on the K30 Pro but the pop-up selfie camera remains, allowing for an improved screen-to-body ratio. Speaking of the display, it’s a 6.67-inch AMOLED panel that is enabled for HDR10+ and can reach 1,200 nits of peak brightness. However, the refresh rate is limited to 60Hz even though 90 and 120Hz screens are becoming the new norm — even the lower-end K30 has a 120Hz display, albeit an LCD one.
In line with the non-Pro variant, the K30 Pro also supports 5G connectivity and the new Wi-Fi 6 standard. Except for the lowest memory configuration (6GB+128GB), all other combinations use the newer LPDDR5 and UFS 3.1 standards for RAM and storage, respectively. The handset is powered by the Snapdragon 865 and houses a 4,700mAh battery. As for the camera system, the primary sensor is a 64MP Sony IMX686, while there is also a K30 Pro Zoom Edition that swaps the 5MP macro sensor on the standard edition for an 8MP telephoto which offers 30x digital zoom.
As you’d expect, the Redmi K30 Pro and Zoom Edition will launch in China first before heading to other markets in Asia and around the world. The base configuration of the standard model comes in at ¥2,999 ($425), while the top-tier variant with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of flash memory costs ¥3,699 ($525). The Zoom Edition comes only in two options — 8/128GB and 8/256GB, priced at ¥3,799 ($540) and ¥3,999 ($570), respectively.
