I bought this phone for a friend who just wanted a practical phone in the Rs10k price bracket. So, I got him this phone and it is surprisingly good. Let me explain it from a practicality viewpoint.
Pros-
1. CAT6 modem - This is the most important thing for a phone in my opinion, yet no one talks about it! For those who don't know, this is the number which indicates the maximum speed supported by the 4g modem inside this phone. Usually, the phones in the price range come with CAT4 modem which just has a single antenna and supports a max of 150Mbps. However, this phone has a CAT6 modem which has two antennas and supports up to 300Mbps. Now, these are maximum ratings and in the real world, the difference is that CAT4 can max get you 25Mbps, while CAT6 can get a max of 90Mbps.
You can get these speeds only if the network tower at your location also supports CAT6 with Carrier aggression. In India, Airtel and Jio are upgrading many of their towers to support this, and at many locations, it has been already available for two years now, especially in Kerala and major towns & cities. Having two antennas also improves network reception, so you get a steady signal while traveling etc.
High-end phones like Samsung Note 9 supports CAT18 and all, but anything over CAT12 is useless because no cellular network in the world supports that much speed and they never will because they will next move to 5G. In my opinion, no one should buy a phone with a modem that is less than CAT6 in 2018 as everyone is constantly using 4G for everything.
2. Good Build Quality - When you hold this phone in your hand, you will feel like you are holding a premium sturdy phone. It feels quality due to metallic build, good glass in the front and the optimum weight. If you have ever held any of the recent Redmi phone, this feels exactly the same.
3. Good Display - The full HD resolution is the perfect resolution for a phone as even if you closely inspect it, you will not be able to see any pixels. No one needs any resolution more than it. Apart from that, this panel has a really good contrast ratio with deep blacks, and I love that. The colors feel like it is popping out, and playing videos on it is a great experience.
4. Great Battery - After all of the above points, the next important point for a normal person is battery life, and this phone's 4000Mah batter provides us with over two days of use. So, you don't need to have battery-anxiety.
5. Good Wifi - Today, everyone needs to use Wifi and it is important to have a good wifi range. For that, not only you need a good router, but you also need good wifi modem in your device, and this one has a good modem with good range. It also supports 5Ghz frequency if you need it. I was able to get 1.5x more range from my router with this phone than a 3-year-old phone.
6. UI - Xioami's version of Android is a very feature rich. It is good for most people but I personally don't like it. However, their next MIUI 10 is super awesome. I love that one. I am sure this phone will get upgraded to MIUI10 soon and its gesture-based navigation is fantastic. Even in the current version of this phone, I went to settings and chose the gesture-based navigation and I was able to use the phone in a more fluid way with it than with the old style button-based navigation. I found that even those who are not familiar with technology is able to use the gestures better than the onscreen buttons.
7. Super fast fingerprint reader. It is surprisingly fast and accurate.
8. Good speakers - It is a mono bottom firing speaker, but it is loud and clear. It is as good as any redmi phone.
10. Headphone jack - This needs to be mentioned because many phones dont have it nowadays.
11. Good processor and SOC - I know snapdragon 625 is almost a two-year-old processor, but it is good for most people. You will not see any lags due to this. Everything works smoothly. Although, if you are a super heavy user, like a gamer, then you should go for higher priced phones with better processors. For average to mid-level users, this is more than enough.
12. Good RAM. - 3GB RAM is good for most regular people. It allows for plenty of multitasking. Actually, more RAM doesn't impact the performance much. The only thing it does is that you will be able to open more apps at the same time. So, having too much of RAM is not going to be useful if you do not open like 15 apps simultaneously and keep it running in the background. 3GB is the ideal size for 95% of the people out there. People buy phones with more RAM because it is an easily marketable number for the companies and not because more RAM is actually useful.
It is like buying a tempo traveler instead of a car because a tempo traveler has 15 seats while a car has only 5. But, you only travel with 4 people 99.9% of the time. So, not only are you wasting fuel with the tempo traveler, but you are not even getting any use out of it. That is the same scenario with those who buy phones with 6 or 8GB RAM. Those extra rams are like the unused seats of the tempo traveler.
13 - Smudge resistance - I like that the back side doesn't attract fingerprints and dirt like the flagship phones of today which are made of glass. It is really practically awesome.
14- Good GPS reception - Again, practically this is one important feature to travel around.
15- I personally don't like notch, but it seems to be done pretty well in this case. I didn't face any problem due to the notch. I wish if the curves around the display was a little less. Currently, it feels like it is too curved.
Cons-
1. Very low power LED light. This phone has only one LED light, and most people in India use their phones as a torch at least once in a while, so it is practically very important. This one's brightness was like 30% compared to an LG G3 with two LEDs. In my opinion, all phones should have a dual LED with good brightness.
2. Average camera - The cameras are good enough for 80% of the people. It takes okayish photos, but it is not comparable to the LG G3 or Pocophone or any high-end phone. It is good for the price, but nothing extraordinary. I found the photos to be too soft, like lacking sharpness or losing details, however, you can see these imperfections only if you zoom into the photo and check it. So, if you are not pixel peeping, it is a good enough camera for you. However, don't expect it to take as good photos as expensive phones. Even at this 10k price point, you might find other phones with a slightly better camera. Even the portrait bokeh effect was not good with it blurring the edges of the face. The videos are also of average quality. Don't mistake this as "poor quality", this camera still produces good enough photos which are perfectly usable for everything. Just that it is not as good as higher priced phones. Indians generally make it sound worse than it actually is, and I see the same phenomenon in the review section here.
3. Lack of Gorilla glass - I don't know if this glass has any sort of protection, so it might easily get scratched. It is highly recommended that you buy a screen protector as the specs don't talk about any scratch resistance. I think to make a phone practically useful, it needs some good quality glass with protection.
4. Thick bezels all around - This is not really a problem at least in this price range, but the bezels on all four sides are thicker than other phones. There is a large chin, thick side bezels and thick top bezel above the notch. Again, I didn't face any problem due to this, but it diminishes the looks/beauty of the phone.
5. Lack of fast charging - No phone in this price range provides it, but I just wanted to mention it as some people might need it. You need to double the price range to get this feature.
6. MicroUSB - The world is moving towards USB-c, so I think even budget phones should start having this, but again no big deal. And I don't think any other phone is providing it at this time.
7. Old design - Xioami has been using this same design language for the past four years. So, it is a highly overused design which has now become kinda boring for techies like me. It is very much practical, but not exciting or beautiful.
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Comparison with other phones - If you want a camera phone or a gaming phone, this is not the one you should get in my opinion, instead, you should spend much more, like 21k for the poco F1. But, the value difference between this phone and poco is around 15% for most people. You are getting a significantly better camera & processor, that's all, and you are paying 2x more money for it. So, you need to think carefully on how you are going to use this phone, and remember that you can still play 99% games in playstore smoothly in this phone itself and that it can take good enough photos.
Overall, you are basically getting a good phone at a very optimal price point. There is nothing much you are losing out by not going for a more expensive device. In my opinion, there is only about 15% difference between this phone and the phones sold at 20k and about 30% difference in a phone sold at 35k to 100k price range. So, 10k is a good price point at which you are getting the maximum value for money. I wouldn't suggest going below this price range as well, as then you will start losing out on quality and display resolution. In short, 10k is the price you should pay for getting the most value for money phone you can buy, and Redmi 6 pro is an excellent choice for that.
I hope you find this review helpful. :)
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