The Redmi 6 is a 2018 budget range smartphone from Xiaomi that has a lot to offer. It is a budget mobile that gives good value of money. There are many special things on this phone and we have tested them. We used the Redmi 6 for a month after launch in Nepal. So this is our total coverage of Xiaomi Redmi 6 full review, benchmarks, features, impression. We have tried to cover all the aspects of this smartphone such as camera, performance and features.
Build and Design: Redmi 6 is a very normal looking smartphone with simple design language. It comes with a 5.45″ screen at front with front camera and sensor at top. The body is made up of polycarbonate which feels like brushed aluminium. It has slots of dual SIM card at SD card at the left side and at right there is volume rocker and power button. The back side consists of fingerprint sensor and dual camera. It is a light phone and houses a 3000 mAh battery on the inside. The design and build is good as it should be for a budget range phone.
Xiaomi Redmi 6 Specifications: Lets have a look at the specifications of this phone before dealing with details and full review of other aspects.
- 5.45″ IPS LCD Screen with 720×1440 resolution
- Helio P22 Chipset with 2 GHz Octa core processor
- 3 GB RAM
- 32/64 GB On-board storage
- 3000 mAh Lithium Polymer Battery
- (12+5 MP) f/2.2 Back Cameras
- 5 MP Primary Front side cameras
- Android 8.1 OS With MIUI 10
Display: There is 5.45″ IPS LCD screen on the Xiaomi Redmi 6. It has a resolution of 720×1440 which gives a pixel density of 295 ppi. HD+ is a good resolution for budget range phones of this size. These days phone screens are getting bigger. People enjoy big screen to watch videos and get enough content at single view without scrolling. So the screen does that with ease and it is nice to have big screen.
Power and Performance
Whatever the budget is, we expect good experience from a device. Power and performance are the apex aspect of reviewing a phone. This is a subjective matter and depends on the type of phone, its cost and many other factors. The Xiaomi Redmi 6 is a budget range phone so we expect low to mid level performance. This phone has a Helio P22 chipset which as 2 GHz Cortex A53 octa core processor.
There are models with 4 GB and 3 GB RAM in international market but in Nepal we are only getting 3 GB RAM model. The RAM is just 3 GB in Nepal but the storage variant available are 32 and 64 GB. You can choose anyone you like, it doesn’t matter much because Redmi 6 supports micro SD card up to 256 GB. For battery there is 3000 mAh battery and for OS there is MIUI 10.
We got more than 3 updates since the official launch. The first was for camera and face unlock then it was for MIUI 10. Redmi 6 is packing an octa core processor with 3 GB RAM so it provides good mid level performance. 3 GB memory is perfectly appropriate for this price segment and the 32 GB base model is also good offering. In our review, it performed really well with normal apps, light games and mid level loads. In our view MIUI 10 is a substantial upgrade which brings good new UI and features. We really liked the new design, notification panel, split screen features of the phone.
Camera
Redmi 6 is a budget segment phone that offers dual camera and very few phones give this luxury. Rear side hosts 12+5 MP f/2.2 dual camera setup and the front side hosts 5 MP sensor. The 12 MP back camera is for details and the sensor size is 1.25 μm. Next 5 MP camera is for depth sensing. In our tests we saw decent and satisfactory results. There is HDR, FHD recording and many other small tweaks inside settings. Portrait shots are also pretty nice due to that dual camera.
One of the best thing we liked about this phone is Manual Mode. Almost none of the phone in market gives manual mode and manual focus. We are hugely impressed by this and give it plus marks. We encourage other manufacturers to follow this so that we can see manual mode in other phones as well. The samples taken from this phone are included in our review video.
Additional Features and Experience
Redmi 6 offers Face unlock at budget price which is very good. The software works pretty well and for harsh conditions, there is fingerprint scanner at the back. There are many things inside the software. MIUI 10 offers a lot of tweaks and features so that is where everyone should explore. It also supports USB OTG which comes very handy sometimes. Battery life in the phone is on the mid ground. Software is good and filled with a lot of features but it still needs more optimization in our view. Sometimes the app switching and camera app opening took a bit of time when the RAM was heavily loaded.
Xiaomi Redmi 6 Impressions and Verdict
In our view, Redmi 6 is a phone which tries to offer a lot of things in a package. It comes with octa core processor which gives good performance for the price. Then there is sufficient RAM for a budget segment phone and also comes with good enough camera that is capable for pretty good photos and even portrait selfies. Xiaomi Redmi 6 also offers new software and new features. In our review, we found this phone satisfying, it is a very good choice for the price considering hardware and software. All it needs is more polishing and optimization which can surely be brought using new updates. It is a good choice for the budget segment users but it you wan to go above than this then Mi A2 Lite is one to see.
