We previously reviewed the Motorola Edge S, the first phone with the Snapdragon 870 chip. It’s possible that you were not quite satisfied with its overall performance of that phone. At the time, it was the only Snapdragon 870 phone launched in the market, so you didn’t have a choice. But now Redmi gives you a brand new option — the Redmi K40. Without further ado, let’s see how Redmi’s breakout model, the K40, performs in real life.

Redmi K40 Review: Design

The Redmi K40 comes in a regular-sized box. The charger and cable that disappeared from Mi 11’s box reappear in the K40 box. A 33w charger is included, and we’ll talk about the charging part later. 

At first glance itself, you realize that the K40 is much more refined than the K30. It weighs only 196g and is 7.8mm thick. The whole back is a continuation of the Mi 11 design. The camera module is elongated and the elements are distributed more evenly. This makes the back look much better than its predecessor. The red and blue gradient color is the main color of the K40. It refracts blue and red in different lights. While this is not the first time we have seen this color, if you are a person who likes a design that stands out, you will definitely like it. 

The side fingerprint sensor embedded into the power button is a bit raised. This differentiates the phone from the previous side fingerprint recognition phones which featured a sensor that was situated in a groove on the side. The advantage is that it is more integrated into the frame and looks like a normal power button. And this makes it easier to press with your finger. Overall, the design of the K40 is a definite improvement. It’s even better looking than the Mi 11. This should be the first time that Redmi is on par with Xiaomi in terms of design. 

You can check out the design of the Redmi K40 and K40 Pro in more detail in our hands-on article. 

Redmi K40 Review: Display Experience

This year the K40 series uses a flat E4, 1080p, 120hz refresh rate OLED screen. The screen is one of the main selling points of the K40 series. Featuring 1300 nits of peak brightness and a 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio, while consuming 15% less power, the performance is truly outstanding. And with support for a three-finger 360hz touch sampling rate, multi-finger control should be more responsive than other phones. But the improvement in experience is more obvious to the user perception than the improvement in parameters. 

There are two obvious points of improvement in the screen experience of the K40. First one is the tiny 2.76mm hole-punch and the second one is the “Adaptive Color display”. This is one of the smallest hole-punch we’ve seen, allowing you to almost ignore the front camera and immerse yourself in the joy of video. As for “Adaptive Colors”, it is not a strange concept for iPhone users. It adjusts the color temperature of the screen to the color temperature of the ambient light. This feature can help reduce eye strain. 

Apart from the plastic frame and the wide bezels, the screen for the price point is excellent.

Redmi K40 Review: Performance & Gaming

As you might have already seen in our Motorola Edge S review, the Snapdragon 870 is a very well-balanced chip. As a long-time Qualcomm customer, will Redmi be able to tune the Snapdragon 870 any better?

 Let’s look at the regular Benchmark results first. 

The phone scores the following in benchmark tests: AnTuTu score is 662,201, 3DMark score is 4192, and GeekBench 5’s single-core score is 1034, and multi-core score is 3485. We can see that the K40’s peak performance tuning is similar to the Edge S. 

Next, let’s look at the tuning optimization for sustained performance output. In the Genshin Impact half-hour stress test the phone ran at 50.45fps, a little higher than the Edge S. Although judging from the frame rate curve, Redmi’s K40 and Edge S’ gaming performance look about the same. But looking at the frequency of lag, the K40 seems to be more consistently tuned.

Now let’s take a look at the BrightRidge 20 minute test, in which the K40 got an average of 42 fps. This is lower than the Edge S. And there were a few times when the frame rate was only about 20 frames after down throttling. The experience was not very good. So it looks like for games that were optimized for the Redmi model, the phone offers a better gaming experience than the Edge S. And the temperature never went above 50℃. But if there were no targeted optimizations, the gaming experience would be inferior to the Edge S.

Redmi K40 Review: Camera Performance

Given its price segment, we knew the cameras were going to be average. Let’s see how good it is at taking photos.

Please note that the below galleries feature the full-size samples from the K40 and a few samples from the K40 Pro for comparison. If you want to check out the comparison with Motorola Edge S, please watch our video review.

Main Camera

K40’s main camera is the IMX582 sensor introduced the year before and there is no optical stabilization. The ultra-wide-angle sensor is 8MP, and there’s a 5MP telephoto macro lens of the same type as the Mi 11. 

In real life, the K40’s primary camera underexposed samples in daylight conditions. Dynamic range is also not good, with serious loss of detail in dark areas. Colors are also not vibrant enough. The resolution is also inadequate.  Apart from the slightly better control of the purple-fringing issue, the K40 loses out in all daytime scenes. 

Night Camera Performance 

At night the K40’s exposure returns to normal. Although the highlights still spill over, there is much less noise than the edge s with almost the same resolution. There is also more detail in the dark areas than in the Edge S. This was applicable with Night mode on as well. Although the Edge s has improved its exposure in extreme dark lighting conditions, the noise is still not reduced. So the night time camera performance is a small victory for the K40.

Ultra Wide Angle Camera

Both phones’ ultra-wide lenses perform the same as the main camera in daylight. The K40 didn’t do well and was defeated in this department. Since the results were the same, I won’t repeat myself. At night the K40 achieves another comeback. It wins across the board, except for the small range of highlight suppression, which sometimes was not good. If you turn on night mode, the gap will widen even more.

Macro Shooting

The K40 uses a separate special lens for macro shooting. So the focus distance is much closer than the Edge s. This is why the results are particularly impressive. As for the video, I just want to remind you that the K40 does not have 6K videos on its main camera. 4K only supports 30fps. Both the Edge S and the K40 only support up to 1080p 30fps from its ultra-wide camera.

Redmi K40 Review: Battery Life 

The K40 comes with a 4520mAh battery. After our tests, half an hour of Tiktok and half an hour of 1080p internet video both use only 5% of the power. 30 minutes on the Genshin Impact consumes 18%. 20 minutes on the BrightRidge consumes 20%. This battery optimization is still good. 

Although the K40 is still using 33w of charging, they’ve optimized it a lot this time. It charges to 69% in half an hour and can be fully charged in 54 minutes. So this is faster than many other brands’ 40w charging. So you don’t have to worry at all that the 33w of the k40 is not enough.

Redmi K40 Review: Conclusion

To conclude, if you’re looking for a phone with high performance, low heating, and not so demanding camera, the K40 is perfectly suited for you. There are even a few surprises, such as the excellent E4 screen and the sophisticated design. Given its drawbacks, it’s not the best phone but it will be the most comfortable phone you can buy in this price range, at least for now. 

There have been a lot of new phones recently, so the competition will definitely get tougher in the coming months.

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The post Redmi K40 Review: The Budget flagship killer in 2021 appeared first on Gizmochina.

Redmi began the ‘K’ series budget flagship smartphones trend with the launch of the Redmi K20 series in China back in 2019. The company then continued to launch successors in the next year with Redmi K30 and K30 Pro. And in 2021, it is back with the Redmi K40 series.

Right from the day the retail boxes leaked, there’s been a lot of buzz about these two models. Hence, let’s look at the specs and whatever we know so far before the launch next week.

Redmi K40 Series Design

Xiaomi has always kept its design distinct from Mi and Redmi flagships so far. The Redmi K20 had a full-screen display, circular camera layout on the back while the Xiaomi Mi 9 that launched in the same year had a notch-display and a pill-shaped vertical camera layout.

The same was the case last year but Redmi K40 Series’ leaked pictures- Redmi K40 (M2012K11AC), and Redmi K40 Pro (M2012K11C) on TENAA certification and the one officially teased by Redmi today(Feb. 22) shows that the gap is shrinking between them in terms of design this year.

The teaser image of the Redmi K40 series shows a camera layout that’s just like an elongated version of Xiaomi Mi 11. You can see the resemblance in the rear design below.

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*images- From left to Right- K40(Official Teaser), Possible K40 and K40 Pro(M2012K11AC, M2012K11C as on TENAA), Mi 11

Upfront, the Redmi K40 series will be a big departure in design. It will ditch the Pop-up camera mechanism found on the predecessors for a centered punch-hole panel. And Lu Weibing has already confirmed that it will sport a display with the smallest punch-hole in the world.

Redmi K40 and Redmi K40 Pro Specifications (Expected)

Surprisingly, just like the Redmi K20 and K20 Pro, this year’s devices are expected to share a lot of specs between them with few differences. Do note that these are the specs that have appeared on the TENAA listing in China and some other reports.

Let’s have a look at the specs of the Redmi K40 and K40 Pro below:

• Dimensions:163.7 x 76.4 x 7.8mm
• Display: 6.67-inch punch-hole display(Expected: E4 Samsung AMOLED with 2400×1080 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate), industry-leading touch sampling rate
• Processor: Snapdragon 888 (on Redmi K40 Pro), Snapdragon 870(on Redmi K40, spotted on Geekbench) chipsets.
• Cameras: AI Triple-Camera(Maybe 64MP main- on Redmi K40, 108MP large 1/1.5-inch Camera sensor on K40 Pro)
• Battery: 4,520mAh battery  with 33W fast charging
• Memory: 6/8GB DDR5 RAM, 128/256GB UFS 3.1 storage
• Other features: 5G, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, Dual Stereo-Speakers, Dolby Atmos
• OS: MIUI 12.5 based on Android 11

Redmi K40 and K40 Pro Launch Date, Availability, Price

Regarding the launch, Redmi has already confirmed that the Redmi K40 series will debut in China on February 25. As for the Price, the Redmi K40 Pro could start at 2,999 yuan ($462) considering Redmi prices its flagship aggressively and its predecessor launched at the same starting price.

Since the launch is happening in China first, don’t expect it to debut outside of the country anytime soon. However, some vague rumors say that the K40 could debut under POCO branding in countries like India. Let’s wait for official confirmation on the same.

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The post Redmi K40, K40 Pro: Expected Specs, Features, and Price ahead of launch appeared first on Gizmochina.

Ever since Redmi became an independent brand, it has been releasing a flagship smartphone of its own. The first model was Redmi K20 Pro (Mi 9T Pro), followed by Redmi K30 Pro, which is sold as POCO F2 Pro in global markets. Now, just a few days after the launch of Xiaomi Mi 11, the world’s first smartphone powered by Snapdragon 888, Redmi also confirms the arrival of the Redmi K40 series powered by the same Qualcomm chip.

The information regarding the launch of the Redmi K40 series comes directly from Redmi’s General Manager, Lu Weibing. He shared a post on Weibo revealing some key features of the brand’s upcoming flagship smartphone series.

According to him, the Redmi K40 series will be officially announced in February. Since the post as well teaser poster read ‘series’, we expect at least two devices – Redmi K40 and Redmi K40 but there could be more. Because last year, Redmi released multiple variants of Redmi K30 and a Zoom Edition of Redmi K30 Pro with a different camera setup.

That said, although the GM mentions Snapdragon 888, this chipset should be mostly exclusive to the Pro version, which he also confirms to start from ¥2,999 ($463). In other words, the Redmi K40 Pro could be the cheapest Snapdragon 888 smartphone for a while just like its predecessor.

Further, the brand’s executive also reveals the device to probably sport the “most expensive flat display” (translated”) and a battery rated above 4,000mAh. Since expensive panels are usually associated with AMOLED displays, we can expect the phone, at least the Pro variant to come with this type of screen. But there’s a chance that all the devices in the series may feature 144Hz refresh rate LCD panels like the Mi 10T (Redmi K30S Ultra) and the Mi 10T Pro.

Anyway, we expect to learn more about the Redmi K40 series via certifications, leaks, and teasers ahead of the official launch next month.

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The post Redmi K40 series confirmed to launch in February, key specs and price revealed appeared first on Gizmochina.