Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro first impressions: The budget killer gets a notch and four cameras

The upcoming Redmi Note 6 Pro comes with major upgrades to the camera and display

Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro is the first smartphone in the series to feature a notch display. (HT Photo)

The succesor to Xiaomi's most popular and highest-selling Note series will launch in India on November 22. The new Redmi Note 6 Pro will be available the very next day for sale on Flipkart and mi.com at 12pm.

Redmi Note series has been Xiaomi's claim to fame in India. The company has successfully introduced new generations of the Note series which were continuously the bestsellers. The present Redmi Note 5 series crossed the 5 million mark in India. Even after nine months of its launch, the Redmi Note 5 series still poses strong competition to every new budget smartphone.

The upgraded Redmi Note 6 Pro has similar and even more expectations riding on it.

The upcoming Redmi Note 6 Pro comes with major upgrades in the camera and display front. The most noticeable change is the notch display up front. Redmi Note 6 Pro has a boat-shaped notch which is quite big as compared to the current trend of cutting down the notch as much as possible. If you're not a fan of the notch, there's an option to hide it.

Moving on, you get a bigger 6.26-inch display but with the same Full HD+ resolution. Redmi Note 5 Pro has a slightly smaller 5.99-inch display but the overall size on the successor is smaller, thanks to its notch. You also get a wider 19:9 aspect ratio. Coming to the build of the smartphone, you have an aluminium body with a brushed metallic finish.

Redmi Note 6 Pro has a similar design language like the Redmi Note 5 Pro. (HT Photo)

Redmi Note 6 Pro has a similar design language like the Redmi Note 5 Pro. (HT Photo)

Redmi Note 6 Pro however feels much lighter and compact. You'll also notice this design change where there's this bump in all four sides. The placement of the cameras, fingerprint sensor, buttons are all in the same location.

On the software front, Redmi Note 6 Pro ships with the latest MIUI 10 based on Android Oreo. MIUI 10 comes with redesigned icons for volume bar, music player, brightness panel and more. It also supports navigation gestures for pulling recent apps and going back to the main menu. During my brief usage, the gestures worked pretty fine on the Redmi Note 6 Pro. If you're not a fan you can always go back to the navigation buttons.

Coming to the highlight of the smartphone, it features a quad-camera setup. Redmi Note 6 Pro is Xiaomi's first phone with four cameras. Up front, there's a setup of 20-megapixel and 2-megapixel selfie cameras. We tried out the selfie camera indoors with HDR, AI and Beautify turned off and the result was impressive.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro features dual 20-megapixel and 2-megapixel selfie cameras. (HT Photo)

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro features dual 20-megapixel and 2-megapixel selfie cameras. (HT Photo)

At the rear, the dual-camera setup comprises 12-mgeapixel and 5-megapixel sensors. This is the same setup found in the Redmi Note 5 Pro which is known to offer one of the best cameras in its price range. We'll go in detail with the camera in our review.

Our first impression on the Redmi Note 6 Pro has been good so far. The smartphone continues with key Xiaomi traits along with new features and incremental upgrades at the same time. Our detailed review will give a better judgment on how the new budge killer performs.