Redmi K50 Pro review – Powerful budget machine with great breakthrough MediaTek Dimensity 9000

Rating： 4.5

I bought the Xiaomi Redmi K50 Pro and here’s my review.

CPU performance beyond Snapdragon 8 Gen 1

The Redmi K50 Pro is a smartphone powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9000.

Until now, MediaTek SoCs have been nothing more than “cheap products that don’t perform well” but this time, the CPU performance exceeds even the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, and is so powerful that it can play the highest quality Genshin Impact at an average of 55 FPS.

The Redmi K50 Pro supports super fast 120W charging and has a Samsung AMOLED with 120Hz refresh rate support, making it perfect for those who value everyday use and gaming performance outside of the camera.

This review is done with the V13.0.9.0.SLKCNXM, 8GB+128GB version.

• WQHD+ with 120Hz refresh rate support
• Vivid Samsung AMOLED
• 120W charge from 10% to 100% in only 20 minutes
• Higher CPU performance than 8 Gen 1

• Camera performance is not as high as it should be
• Balanced mode limits performance without notice
• Stereo speakers, but bass is weak

	Redmi K50 Pro 22011211C
OS	Android 12
RAM	8GB/12GB LPDDR5
Storage	128GB / 256GB / 512GB UFS 3.1
SoC	MediaTek Dimensity 9000
Display	6.67″ WQHD+ 120Hz AMOLED
Size	163.1 x 76.15 x 8.48mm
Weight	201g
SIM	nano SIM + nano SIM
Rear Camera	108MP (Samsung s5khm2) + 8MP (Ultra-wide Samsung s5k4h7) + 2MP (Macro GalaxyCore gc02m1)
Front Camera	20MP (SONY IMX596)
Battery	5000mAh
USB Port	USB Type-C (USB 2.0)
Bands	5G ：n1/ n3/ n5/ n8/ n28a/ n38/ n40/ n41/ n77/ n78 4G：FDD-LTE ：B1/ B2/ B3/ B4/ B5/ B7/ B8/ B18/ B19/ B26 TDD-LTE：B34/ B38/ B39/ B40/ B41/ B42 3G：WCDMA：B1/ B2/ B4/ B5/ B6/ B8/ B19 CDMA EVDO : BC0 2G：GSM：B2/ B3/ B5/ B8 CDMA 1X : BC0

The accessories included in the box, which emphasizes 120W and 2K, are a transparent protective case, a 120W charger, a dedicated USB Type-A to C cable, and an instruction manual.

It also has Redmi’s mascot character, the dinosaur, written on it.

It appears to be a type that can charge 120W even at 100V.

It has only USB Type-A port but is USB PD compliant, which is a mysterious specification. USB PD allows up to 20V/3.25A = 65W charging.

Flat Samsung 2K resolution AMOLED display

The Redmi K50 Pro has an AMOLED display with WQHD+ resolution. (Can be changed to FHD+ in settings)

It is surprising to see 2K resolution finally becoming a common feature in the budget Redmi series.

The colors are good and the viewing angles are adequate.

The screen is a little pale at a right-angle viewing angle, but this is not a problem since people who view the screen from such an angle are not likely to be particular about the quality of the image.

The display area is flat, so the edges are not obscured by light reflections.

It is made by Samsung (ID 38) and is a diamond array.

Widevine L1 allows streaming in HD quality on Amazon Prime Video (beta) and others.

The average touch latency measured by the touch latency measurement application was 43.4 ms.

Rear design that appears to be cracked at a glance

In the Redmi K50 Pro Black color, the back of the device is designed to resemble a meteorite.

…However, especially when exposed to sunlight outdoors, the reflection makes it look like broken glass. Indoors, it looks like black crystals, which is cool…

With the Redmi K40 series, the Damascus steel motif was cool, so I personally was disappointed with the ink feather design.

The body is IP53 waterproof.

The weight was 207.6g including protective film.

Same camera as Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G

The Redmi K50 Pro’s camera is actually the same configuration as the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G, a triple camera of 108MP (Samsung s5khm2) + 8MP (ultra-wide Samsung s5k4h7) + 2MP (macro GalaxyCore gc02m1).

OIS optical image stabilization support makes the camera more resistant to camera shake, but don’t expect great camera performance, as the Redmi series has kept the price down by keeping costs related to the camera particularly low.

The photos taken are saved here.

The adjustment seems to have been made without increasing the saturation too much.

I felt that in bright locations, the white would tend to jump out.

Night scenes can only be photographed in the same degree of darkness as the naked eye.

It is better to be able to see the area around the LEDs, but I don’t think it is suited for nightscape photography.

Equipped with stereo speakers

The Redmi K50 Pro has stereo speakers, one at the top and one at the bottom.

However, they are not symmetrical in position.

If anything, the highs were stronger and the bass was a little harder to hear.

If you are looking for powerful bass, Redmi K50G is better.

The frequency response measured by miniDSP UMIK-1 from a distance of about 30 cm surrounded by sound-absorbing mats is as follows.

Wide range of supported bands

The bands supported by the Redmi K50 Pro are:

• 5G ：n1/ n3/ n5/ n8/ n28a/ n38/ n40/ n41/ n77/ n78
• 4G：FDD-LTE ：B1/ B2/ B3/ B4/ B5/ B7/ B8/ B18/ B19/ B26
• TDD-LTE：B34/ B38/ B39/ B40/ B41/ B42
• 3G：WCDMA：B1/ B2/ B4/ B5/ B6/ B8/ B19
• CDMA EVDO : BC0
• 2G：GSM：B2/ B3/ B5/ B8
• CDMA 1X : BC0

If VoLTE is not available, simply type “*#*#86583#*#*#*” in the phone app to activate VoLTE.

VoLTE may be enabled by opening EngineerMode in *#*#3646633#*#* and selecting “hVolte”  in Misc Feature Config.

120W charge that can charge from 10% to 100% in just 20 minutes

The 120W fast charge supported by the Redmi K50 Pro took only 20 minutes to charge from 10% to 100%.

Instead of charging while you sleep, you can wake up in the morning and plug it in for a full charge while you are getting ready.

The temperature rise is a bit hot at a maximum of about 45.4°C, but once charged to 100%, it cooled down to 35°C in about 5 minutes.

The full 120W only comes out when the remaining power is low, which is around 90W between 20-49% and is controlled to 70W at about 50%.

Note that 120W fast charging can also be turned off.

Fingerprint sensor on the side

Unusually for a recent smartphone with an OLED display, the fingerprint sensor is mounted on the side.

Authentication speed is fast.

The same finger will be rejected if it is not registered on the same part of the finger, and I think the accuracy is also reasonably good.

You can choose whether the fingerprint authentication is performed when you press the power button or when you touch it.

It can also be used with face recognition.

Can play at an average of 55 FPS with Genshin, but needs to be configured

The Redmi K50 Pro is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9000, which uses the TSMC 4nm manufacturing process and boasts CPU performance that exceeds even the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.

In the past, Snapdragon was the only high-end SoC, but MediaTek can no longer be ignored.

 

However, the full power of such Dimensity 9000 is limited by Xiaomi by default.

There is no specific explanation, but if “Performance” is not selected in the battery, performance is limited “except in benchmark apps”…what!?

Selecting it to “Performance” removes the limitation.

It only removes the limitation and does not seem to do any extra behavior such as sticking the CPU clock to the upper limit.

It is a troublesome point that unrestricted performance is shown even if “Balanced” is selected in the benchmark application, and an ordinary person with a little bit of knowledge may think “I got 1 million points on AnTuTu! (So it must have high performance in everyday use)”.

The normal Geekbench results were 1242 single-core and 4197 multi-core, but when the package name was disguised as that of the JD shopping app, the results dropped significantly to 940 single-core and 3073 multi-core.

This is a score equivalent to a Snapdragon 870, and if someone who expects the Dimensity 9000’s performance and used it without knowing anything about it, they would end up saying, “The benchmark results are good, but I can’t feel any difference in everyday use”.

 

By selecting “Performance,” even the version disguised as JD gave a single-core of 1232 and a multi-core of 4154, which is equivalent to the normal version.

Note that some games, such as Genshin, are optimized at the system level, so changing the package name to Genshin caused a crash.

In the 3DMark Wild Life Stress Test, the score was 7997, with a temperature increase from 21°C to 43°C (22°C increase) and 29 to 58 FPS.

While the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 was superior in CPU performance, it fell a step short in GPU performance.

However, considering that the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 was at the same or lower level as the Snapdragon 870, this is quite a big leap forward.

PCMark Work 3.0, which measures performance in everyday use such as document manipulation, scored 13039.

UFS 3.1 storage and LPDDR5 memory, with particularly fast sequential read/write and memory copy speeds.

As mentioned earlier, I measured the game’s operation in “Performance” mode, since it cannot show its true performance unless it is in “Performance” mode.

Running the Genshin Impact at the highest quality and 60FPS setting, the average FPS measured by WeTest PerfDog was 55.2 FPS.

The battery temperature rose to a maximum of about 44.2°C, and the back of the device was also hot.

However, thanks to the frame being plastic instead of metal, it was not so hot that I could not hold it.

Considering that the Redmi K50G with Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 averaged 51 FPS, this is a pretty good result, but it seems that heat generation issues are still unavoidable even with TSMC 4nm process.

After turning on USB debugging (Security) in the developer options, use the adb shell to run these commands:

• settings put system peak_refresh_rate 120.001
• settings put system min_refresh_rate 120.001
• settings put system user_refresh_rate 1

and 120FPS option will be unlocked in some games.

For example, in World of Tanks (WoT), where normally only 60 FPS is available, a setting for 120 FPS will appear.

With the highest graphics and 120 FPS setting in WoT, I was able to play at an average of 111.2 FPS. (The menu is limited to 30 FPS)

The “junk” that makes the screen seem to stop for a moment was a whopping 0, and the display was smooth and enjoyable.

Game Turbo can be used to increase screen saturation and contrast for better viewing and to adjust network bandwidth.

Conclusion

• WQHD+ with 120Hz refresh rate support
• Vivid Samsung AMOLED
• 120W charge from 10% to 100% in only 20 minutes
• Higher CPU performance than 8 Gen 1

• Camera performance is not as high as it should be
• Balanced mode limits performance without notice
• Stereo speakers, but bass is weak

The Redmi K50 Pro is capable of comfortable gameplay, taking advantage of the powerful MediaTek Dimensity 9000, as long as you are aware of the limitations that only make benchmark results look good.

Thanks to its 120W fast charging support, you hardly have to worry about battery life, and the high-resolution AMOLED display provides a video experience similar to that of a high-end smartphone.

It is unfortunate that the camera and speakers are not as good as those of $1000 class smartphones, but you have to save money somewhere for a cheap price so it can’t be helped.

 

The Redmi K50 Pro is available for 2999CNY (approx. $470) and up.

Buy at JD

Buy at GIZTOP

Buy at AliExpress