Introduction
The OnePlus 7 and the Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro are two of the most popular entries in the growing mid-range flagship segment. We call it the mid-range flagship segment because while these phones are priced at what you'd generally expect mid-range phones should be, they offer most of the performance and features that one would normally expect from premium flagship devices.
The segment was more or less invented by OnePlus back in 2014 with its OnePlus One. That phone showed us that you can have a flagship-level device without having to spend flagship-level money. Sure, there are some compromises but if you want a truly no-compromise experience you are still looking at spending at least twice as much for the premium flagship devices and for a lot of people that's not a deal worth making.
Since the original OnePlus One, OnePlus phones have gone up in pricing. This has opened up room for other manufacturers to step in and take up the space previously occupied by OnePlus. Xiaomi is trying exactly that with its new Redmi K20 Pro, which offers some seriously impressive hardware at a price that even undercuts OnePlus' own 7 and 7 Pro.
OnePlus 7
- Build: Aluminum frame, Gorilla Glass 6
- Dimensions: 157.7 x 74.8 x 8.2 mm, 182g
- Display: 6.41-inch, 2340x1080 AMOLED, 402PPI
- Rear camera: Main: 48MP f1.7 PDAF OIS Depth: 5MP f2.4
- Front camera: 16MP f2.0
- Chipset: Snapdragon 855
- Memory: 6/8GB RAM, 128/256GB storage
- OS: Android 9, OxygenOS
- Battery: 3700mAh, 20W charging (Warp)
- Misc: In-screen fingerprint sensor, stereo speakers
Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro
- Build: Aluminum frame, Gorilla Glass 5
- Dimensions:156.7 x 74.3 x 8.8 mm, 191g
- Display: 6.39-inch, 2340x1080 AMOLED, 403PPI
- Rear camera: Main: 48MP f1.7 PDAF laser AF Telephoto:8MP f2.4 Wide: 13MP f2.4
- Front camera: 20MP f2.2
- Chipset: Snapdragon 855
- Memory: 6/8GB RAM, 128/256GB storage
- OS: Android 9, MIUI 10
- Battery: 4000mAh, 18W charging, optional 27W (QC 4.0)
- Misc: In-screen fingerprint sensor, headphone jack
Of course, with experience comes wisdom and OnePlus has spent the past five years further refining its phones. The new OnePlus 7 may look like last year's OnePlus 6T but it's more refined and more powerful than any OnePlus phone before it. Whether that experience or refinement will play to OnePlus' advantage, we will have to see.
So today we are pitting these two phones against each other to see which is the best option in the mid-range flagship segment. Should you save some money and go for the Redmi K20 Pro? Or does the OnePlus 7 have something valuable to offer for the extra money? Let's find out.
Packaging
Both the OnePlus 7 and the Redmi K20 Pro come with fairly standard packaging. Both include a fast charger, a data cable and a case.
The OnePlus 7 comes with a 20W Warp Charge compatible charger while the Redmi K20 Pro comes with a 18W Quick Charge 4.0 compatible charger. However, the Redmi K20 Pro does support up to 27W charging and Xiaomi sells a compatible charger on its website. OnePlus also has a faster 30W charger but it's only compatible with the OnePlus 7 Pro and the now discontinued OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition.
Both packages have a case bundled in. The OnePlus 7 has a standard clear silicone case, which should be fine for most people. However, the Redmi K20 Pro comes with a nicer hard plastic case, which is very thin and barely feels like you have anything applied to the phone while also offering decent protection. We definitely prefer Redmi K20 Pro case, even over the optional silicone cases that Xiaomi sells on its website.
Neither the OnePlus 7 nor the Redmi K20 Pro come with any earphones in the package. The OnePlus 7 also lacks a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter in the box, which is a rather unfortunate omission. The Redmi K20 Pro doesn't need one because it still retains a headphone jack.
Winner: Redmi K20 Pro. Both phones have similar packaging but the Redmi K20 Pro has a nicer case bundled in. The OnePlus 7 packaging also lacks a headphone adapter, which is frustrating since it doesn't have a headphone jack.
Design
Both, the OnePlus 7 and the Redmi K20 Pro are modern, attractive-looking devices and one could easily sway one way or the other.
The OnePlus 7 design is largely a rehash of the OnePlus 6T but that isn't really a bad thing, as even nearly a year later it still looks fresh. The OnePlus 7 has a notched design with a small teardrop notch and a thin chin at the bottom. Along the sides are the volume buttons, a power button and the highly useful alert slider on the right. A sizable camera bump sticks out the back of the phone.
The OnePlus 7 primarily comes in Mirror Grey. Select markets also get the significantly nicer looking Nebula Blue and Red.
The Redmi K20 Pro design is ever so slightly more modern. There is no notch, so the display looks even more immersive. The camera has been tucked away inside a popup unit at the top, which rises with red LED color accents on either side. While that does look a bit gimmicky, the LEDs also shine through the top of the front camera for notifications, which is clever. Along the sides, the Redmi K20 Pro has a more traditional key layout and on the back the triple camera array has a far more subtle bump.
Like the OnePlus 7, the Redmi K20 Pro also comes in three colors. The Flame Red and Glacier Blue colors, however, are a bit of an acquired taste, as they have a flaming pattern etched into the back that reflects light differently as you move the phone around. The Carbon Black with a subtle carbon-fiber pattern looks a bit more grown-up, for lack of a better term.
Redmi K20 Pro (left) next to its twin Mi9T Pro
As these phones are basically trying to be flagship devices, appearances matter. Both phones look reasonably good in the hand, with the OnePlus 7 looking a tad bit more sophisticated but the Redmi K20 Pro having a more wow-factor, thanks to its notch-less design and popup camera.
Both phones also feel very good in hand. Neither is particularly big but again, you may disagree on that if you have smaller hands. The shape, size and overall weight of the Redmi K20 Pro feels excellent in hand with a very satisfying grip that just makes you want to use this phone without any case. The OnePlus 7 feels thinner and lighter, which some may value more, but it does feel less substantial in hand.
When it comes to build quality, both phones are made out of glass and aluminum. However, the OnePlus 7 does have weather sealing, even if OnePlus doesn't advertise it as such. In comparison, the Redmi K20 Pro isn't as well isolated from the elements and likely won't survive an accidental dip in a pool or a bath, especially with an open camera module at the top. The OnePlus 7 also uses Gorilla Glass 6 while the Redmi K20 Pro has the older Gorilla Glass 5.
Winner: OnePlus 7. While looks are subjective, the OnePlus 7 definitely has a more durable and insulated design.
Display
Both the OnePlus 7 and the Redmi K20 Pro have very similar display specifications. Both have fancy sounding name, with OnePlus calling theirs Optic AMOLED while Xiaomi calling it Horizon AMOLED.
At the core of it are two AMOLED panels with the resolution of 2340x1080. The OnePlus 7 display is slightly larger at 6.41-inch while the Redmi K20 Pro display measures 6.39-inch. The OnePlus 7 uses the newer Corning Gorilla Glass 6 protection while the Redmi K20 Pro uses Gorilla Glass 5. Both claim 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 standard and have HDR10 video support.
Both phones feature multiple presets and customization options to adjust the image quality of the display. Out of the box, both are set to appear more vibrant, with the OnePlus 7 set to its Vivid preset and the Redmi K20 Pro set to Automatic contrast, both of which adhere to the DCI-P3 standard. Of course, none of the content on these devices is in the DCI-P3 standard, so keeping them in this mode will simply oversaturate all the colors as they are stretched from their sRGB values to cover the wider DCI-P3 space.
Fortunately, both offer a standard sRGB mode, with OnePlus calling it Natural and Xiaomi calling it Standard. In this mode, both exhibit accurate colors, with an average dE of 2.4 on the Redmi K20 Pro and an outstanding 1.1 on the OnePlus 7, which is more in line with professional monitors than smartphone displays. The Redmi K20 Pro has cooler whites in this mode, which is likely the reason why it trails behind the OnePlus 7 in color accuracy.
Both also allow you to adjust the image more finely, with the Advanced mode on the OnePlus 7 offering a choice of color gamuts and color temperature. On the Redmi K20 Pro, you can select the color tint more finely with a color wheel but it's only available on the Advanced contrast mode so you can't change the color gamut as it is fixed to DCI-P3.
Both phones use Android's color management feature, which means even if you set them to their sRGB presets, if an app supports displaying wide-color content then it will be rendered correctly without having to set the entire display to wide-color mode, which further renders their wide-color-only modes useless.
In terms of peak brightness, the Redmi K20 Pro slightly edges out the OnePlus 7, with a peak of 453 nits, which can go as high as 643 nits in auto mode under bright light. The OnePlus 7 manages a respectable 443 nits with the manual brightness slider and 642 nits with the auto brightness under bright light. However, while the Redmi K20 Pro gets brighter, the OnePlus 7 gets darker, with the lowest brightness level much lower than that of the Redmi K20 Pro, making it better for use in complete darkness.
Both phones have an HDR10 capable displays, even though OnePlus chooses not to advertise this for some reason. Both phones support HDR in the YouTube and Netflix app and the OnePlus 7 also supports it in the Amazon Prime Video app. The Prime Video app supports neither HDR nor HD on the Redmi K20 Pro.
HDR performance on both devices is mediocre, largely due to the less than enthralling peak brightness values. The OnePlus 7 does a better job overall as it correctly switches over to the HDR dynamic range and color space when viewing HDR content in the supported apps. The Redmi K20 Pro, for some reason, only switches over to the correct HDR dynamic range but not the correct Rec. 2020 color space, which means some colors appear more desaturated compared to how they should look and also how they appear on the OnePlus 7. It also has a slightly higher gamma than the OnePlus 7 in HDR content, which makes it appear a bit brighter but at the cost of some near black posterization. In reality, neither phones offer a satisfactory HDR experience but the OnePlus 7 is better overall.
Both phones have good quality panels that don't exhibit any dirty screen effect. Viewing angles are typical for OLED, meaning adequate for normal viewing but with some color shift at extreme angles. Both displays do exhibit near black posterization when viewing dark scenes in compressed SDR video content but the OnePlus 7 does particularly worse here, with darker grays clipping to complete black while the Redmi K20 Pro shows better gradation. However, this issue is fairly typical of OLED displays and found on most devices. At least the clipping isn't as prominent as on Samsung Galaxy or Google Pixel devices with OLED panels.
Both phones also feature optional DC dimming, which adjusts the brightness by varying the voltage rather than flickering it at different intervals (PWM). On the OnePlus 7, this feature is hidden in the OnePlus Laboratory menu deep inside Settings app while on the Redmi K20 Pro it's in the Display settings and simply titled Anti-flicker mode. The feature works as advertised on both devices but it does cause slight desaturation of colors at very lower brightness levels, particularly reds, although it's not particularly noticeable.
The biggest difference between the two displays is the notch on the OnePlus 7. When using the phone normally, the notch does not take up much space and is also not distracting. However, when you turn the phone sideways for watching videos or playing games then it becomes a lot more prominent and also cuts into your content. If that's going to be an issue for you then you will definitely prefer the uninterrupted display on the Redmi K20 Pro.
Both phones also have a fingerprint sensor built-into the screen. Both are straightforward optical sensors rather than the ultrasonic sensors found on some Samsung phones. Both generally perform well, although the one on the OnePlus 7 is a bit flaky at times. The Redmi K20 Pro sensor, on the other hand, has been extremely reliable.
Winner: Tie. The OnePlus 7 has better color calibration and better handling of HDR video but the Redmi K20 Pro gets slightly brighter and doesn't have a notch.
Battery Life
The OnePlus 7 has a 3700mAh battery while the Redmi K20 Pro has a 4000mAh battery. This should give the Redmi K20 Pro a clear advantage in our battery life testing.
Well, it does but not significantly. The OnePlus 7 managed 102 hours in our endurance test, just one hour behind the Redmi K20 Pro. The web browsing and video playback results are even closer than that. The only test where the Redmi K20 Pro surged ahead was in 3G voice calls, where it posted a sizable 8 and a half-hour lead over the OnePlus 7. Unless you're a heavy voice caller, the battery life on the two devices should be nearly identical.
Where they differ a fair bit is in charging speed. The OnePlus 7's smaller battery and faster charger put it at an advantage, charging to 54% in 30 minutes while the Redmi K20 Pro managed 44%. A full charge takes about 80 minutes on the OnePlus 7 and 90 minutes on the Redmi K20 Pro with its standard 18W charger.
However, things turn around a bit when you go for the optional 27W charger. Then the Redmi K20 Pro managed to charge up to 58% in 30 minutes and 100% comes in around 78 minutes. These numbers, while better, aren't impressive enough to warrant purchasing the optional 27W charger in our opinion.
One thing we like to add is that while both the Warp Charge and Quick Charge 4.0 on the OnePlus 7 and Redmi K20 Pro are proprietary, there are far more Quick Charge compatible chargers and power banks available on the market while the only Warp Charger you get is from OnePlus. This makes Xiaomi's solution more practical for everyday use.
Winner: Redmi K20 Pro. It's a small difference but the Redmi K20 Pro battery does last longer. The OnePlus 7 wins at charging speed but that can also be changed by getting the optional 27W charger for the Redmi K20 Pro.
Loudspeaker
This one is a clear win for the OnePlus 7. The Redmi K20 Pro has one of the better sounding single speakers we have heard and it technically beats the OnePlus 7 in outright loudness on paper, even if you can't actually tell the difference in person.
| Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Ringing |
Overall score | |
| 68.1 | 73.1 | 82.2 | Very Good | |
| 71.5 | 75.2 | 84.0 | Excellent |
However, the stereo speakers on the OnePlus just sound better. They have better imaging and better soundstage, which makes watching videos and playing games a far better experience. You can actually play games like PUBG on the loudspeakers of the OnePlus 7 and not suffer because the stereo sound will help with the positioning of the enemy footsteps and gunfire. With the Redmi K20 Pro, everything just sounds like it's happening on the right.
Winner: OnePlus 7. While decent in its own right, the Redmi K20 Pro single speaker is simply outnumbered here by the two also very decent speakers on the OnePlus 7.
Audio quality
While the previous category was a clear win for the OnePlus 7, the Redmi K20 Pro takes this one. Not only did Xiaomi was nice to include a headphone jack on this phone, but it also includes a fairly impressive HiFi DAC courtesy of the Qualcomm WCD9340 chip, which is capable of 192kHz/24-bit playback and has Hi-Res Audio certification.
The OnePlus 7, on the other hand, has no headphone jack. It also comes with no audio adapter in the box, nor are there any bundled earphones with it. It's a shame really because when we tested the phone with an optional audio adapter that came with previous OnePlus phones the OnePlus 7 matched and in some instances even outdid the Redmi K20 Pro audio output. But the convenience of having the headphone jack built-in beats having to buy the adapter separately.
Winner: Redmi K20 Pro. Headphone jack beats no headphone jack every time. In this case, the Redmi K20 Pro also has the high audio output quality to go with the convenience of having the jack.
Software
When it comes to software the OnePlus 7 and the Redmi K20 Pro are like chalk and cheese.
The OxygenOS on the OnePlus 7 is modelled after stock Android. The idea here is to keep the UI design in line with Google's vision of Android, while adding some useful features missing in stock Android. This way, you have the look and feel of stock Android while getting all the functionality of some of the more heavily altered Android skins.
MIUI, on the other hand, has always been far removed from whatever Google has been doing with Android in terms of design since the very beginning. For a novice, it would be hard to even associate MIUI with Android based on design alone if they weren't already aware of the operating system underneath. MIUI has a complete top to bottom redesign that really looks nothing like stock Android while borrowing heavily from iOS. The reliance on iOS design elements has reduced over the years but you can still see the influence in many areas, such as icons and design of the stock apps.
Which one you pick is heavily subjective; a lot of the enthusiast crowd prefer the approach OnePlus has taken. They are aware and care about Android itself, so having the general UI guidelines of Android show through is important for them. But not everyone is like that. Many people simply want a working phone with an easy to use UI that is also reasonably attractive. They don't know what operating system is underneath as long as they can run all their apps and they honestly don't care. Such people will have no qualms using MIUI or indeed any of the other heavily customized Android skins as long as it gets the job done.
Personally, we prefer the way OxygenOS looks and works. Everything looks and works in a familiar manner and we don't have to hunt around for a particular option in the Settings app because it's where we expect it to be. Other things like app notifications also work the same way they do in stock Android. MIUI, on the other hand, requires a brief reorientation period before we can get used to all the ways it chooses to be different.
Another point in favor of OxygenOS is how much more clean it is. There are some apps pre-installed but it's very few and most of them can be uninstalled. In comparison, MIUI comes with a lot more bloatware out of the box. This can change from market to market but in countries like India, MIUI phones are usually jam packed with all the bloatware imaginable.
Xiaomi is also yet to let go of its habit of duplicating Google's apps. There is a Xiaomi browser, a Xiaomi music player, a Xiaomi gallery, a Xiaomi calendar and a Xiaomi app store, all on top of the ones provided by Google and they all coexist simultaneously on every MIUI device. This just adds more clutter on top of the existing bloatware. In China, these apps exist because the Google apps aren't available. But in other markets like India they are primarily there to serve ads and promotional content.
MIUI is also full of annoying notifications. All of the stock apps that come with the phone are constantly blasting notifications at you. The first thing we have to do after uninstalling all the bloatware on MIUI is disabling the notifications on the stock apps because we know it's only a matter of time before they start bothering us. Unfortunately, the OS won't allow you to disable notifications for some of the apps, which will forever keep annoying you.
Advertising has also been an issue on MIUI devices. In markets like India, Xiaomi displays ads in all of its stock apps and apps like the Mi App Store simply exist to shove promoted apps in your face all the time. Fortunately, the Redmi K20 and the Redmi K20 Pro don't have ads enabled on them but these are an exception to a rule. The ad situation is so bad on MIUI that several other manufacturers are now advertising the fact their phones don't have ads. In fact, even Xiaomi promotes the fact that its own K20 series phones don't have ads, as if it's something to be proud of.
Then there's the issue of updates. While both the OnePlus 7 and Redmi K20 Pro receive regular updates from their respective manufacturers, Xiaomi is often slow at bundling in the Android security updates. At the time of this writing, the OnePlus 7 was running the Android security update, which it received within the first week of August. Meanwhile, the Redmi K20 Pro is still on the July security update. And security updates are just one part of the story. Xiaomi MIUI phones are also known to be slow at receiving major Android releases while OnePlus has a far superior track record of updating its devices in a timely manner.
Add all of this up, and the OxygenOS on the OnePlus 7 comes out as a clear winner in our books. Whether you are an enthusiast or a novice, everyone can appreciate the clean, bloatware-free, ad-free and nuisance-free experience on this phone. Where you don't have to rush to uninstall the apps, disable notifications and spend another hour to get everything right. Where the out of the box experience is how Google envisioned Android to be. It's also less China-centric and better adapted to global tastes. We think these are important things to have and something for Xiaomi to consider.
Winner: OnePlus 7. The OxygenOS on the OnePlus 7 nabs this victory thanks to a cleaner, easy to use UI, less bloatware, fewer annoyances and quicker updates.
Performance
Both the OnePlus 7 and the Redmi K20 Pro come with the flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset. Both offer a choice of 6GB or 8GB memory with 128GB or 256GB of storage. However, while the OnePlus 7 uses UFS 3.0 storage, the Redmi K20 Pro uses the slower UFS 2.1. Neither phone has expandable storage.
GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- OnePlus 7
11075 - Redmi K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro
10684
GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)
Higher is better
- OnePlus 7
3461 - Redmi K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro
3000
In terms of performance, we found both phones to be excellent. Both offer quick app launch times, fast multitasking and smooth scrolling in apps. Both can render even the most demanding games with exceptional ease (and both get fairly warm doing it). The performance on these devices is simply not a concern and it is this aspect of these devices that feels most like a proper flagship costing several times more. In fact, we can't really differentiate between the performance of these devices and something like the Galaxy Note10+.
AnTuTu 7
Higher is better
- Redmi K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro
368846 - OnePlus 7
367812
We also didn't feel any difference in performance between the OnePlus 7 and the Redmi K20 Pro due to the latter having a slower storage drive. The read/write speeds on both phones, especially at the larger 256GB tier is high enough for the storage to not be a bottleneck for performance and while that could change 2-3 years down the line at least as of this writing in 2019, the faster storage on the OnePlus 7 doesn't make any appreciable difference.
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- OnePlus 7
71 - Redmi K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro
71
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- OnePlus 7
57 - Redmi K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro
57
GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- OnePlus 7
42 - Redmi K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro
42
GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)
Higher is better
- OnePlus 7
36 - Redmi K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro
36
There is one area though where the OnePlus 7 pulls ahead, and that's the USB speeds. While the Redmi K20 Pro is stuck with USB 2.0, the OnePlus 7 features much faster USB 3.1 Gen 1. While USB transfer speeds may not matter to as many people today as they did a decade ago, if you do want to take advantage of all the storage these phones come with by transferring data to and from your computer then you will definitely appreciate the OnePlus 7 more.
Winner: Tie. Choosing between these two powerhouses is like splitting hairs. Both offer flagship tier performance.
Camera
While both the phones have been neck and neck so far, this is where the Redmi K20 Pro pulls ahead comfortably. We don't believe more cameras are necessarily better, but the OnePlus 7 simply offers a single main wide-angle camera and a depth sensor, the Redmi K20 Pro offers a far more practical combination of wide-angle, ultra-wide-angle and telephoto cameras.
The wide-angle cameras on the two phones are actually identical. Both phones come with the ubiquitous Sony IMX586 stacked CMOS sensor with its 48MP resolution and Quad Bayer color filter array. The difference is that the OnePlus 7 has OIS while the Redmi K20 Pro doesn't. The Redmi K20 Pro, however, does have laser autofocus, which the OnePlus 7 lacks. The second camera on the OnePlus 7 is a 5MP depth sensor and does not capture images. The Redmi K20 Pro meanwhile also has a 13MP ultra-wide-angle lens as well as an 8MP telephoto lens.
On the front, the OnePlus 7 has a 16MP f2.0 camera while the Redmi K20 Pro has a 20MP f2.2 camera.
Both phones have a somewhat similarly designed camera app with the camera modes placed on a bottom sliding bar, a 2x zoom button and some important toggles at the top. The OnePlus 7 app does the sensible thing by having a few options up top and hiding the rest in a slide up menu, which makes them easy to access. It also allows you to customize their order or hide them if unnecessary. The Redmi K20 Pro app, however, lays out all the modes like on iOS, which makes it annoying and difficult to swipe back and forth to reach the ones you want, and there's no option to rearrange them, either.
Both phones have an option to shoot in the full 48MP resolution on the main sensor but while the Redmi K20 Pro makes it an easily accessible mode, the OnePlus 7 hides it in the Pro mode where all the image enhancements available in auto mode are disabled. The OnePlus 7 does let you shoot in RAW (only in 12MP) while the Redmi K20 Pro has no such option.
Both phones have a portrait mode but the Redmi K20 Pro lets you choose whether you want to shoot with the wide-angle or telephoto lens. It also features several effects such as depth of field adjustment and background effects for portrait images. Both phones also feature a night mode.
Both phones also have AI scene recognition. OnePlus 7 has it permanently on with no user-facing switch or even any indication that it's working. The Redmi K20 Pro has an option that can be toggled and even denotes the scene that it has detected.
For the front camera, both phones feature a portrait mode. There are also beauty modes on both. The OnePlus 7 app has three degrees of strength for the beauty mode. Meanwhile, the Redmi K20 Pro goes way over the top, with the option to adjust your skin smoothness, shape of your face, eye size, nose size, chin, lips and risorius. And that's before you get to the makeup options, which include eyebrows, eyeliner, lip gloss, eye sparkle and rouge. Of course, it can all be disabled so simply having them around is not a problem.
When it comes to video recording, both phones are capable of recording up to 4K video in 60fps on their main camera. Both offer electronic image stabilization but the OnePlus 7 also has optical stabilization. Both can record slow motion video in 1080p at 240fps but the OnePlus 7 can record 720p video at 480fps while the Redmi K20 Pro can record at 960fps but only for a short duration. The Redmi K20 Pro can record video in a storage friendly HEVC codec but the OnePlus 7 can only record in H.264. Both phones shoot time lapse video but the Redmi K20 Pro app provides much more control over the video speed.
On the front camera, both phones can record up to 1080p video at 30fps.
Winner: Redmi K20 Pro. The OnePlus 7 app has a simple and easy to use design but the Redmi K20 Pro app has a lot more features.
Daylight images
For image quality analysis, let's start with the main 48MP, which also happens to be the only camera worth discussing on the OnePlus 7.
Both phones have the same sensor and similar optics, so it all comes down to how the software processes the raw data coming off the sensor. First, let's look at some daylight samples.
Looking at images from both cameras, we can see that they both produce excellent images in the daylight scenario but there are a few differences. Both phones have different takes on white balance, with the OnePlus 7 images looking cooler with a magenta tint while the Redmi K20 Pro looking warmer with a greener tint. Both are off slightly but the OnePlus 7 is off by a greater factor. Subjectively speaking, the Redmi K20 Pro's warmer tones also generally look more pleasant even if they aren't super accurate. Apart from that, both phones have good color accuracy.
Daylight main camera: OnePlus 7 • Redmi K20 Pro
In terms of detail, both phones capture a good amount but the Redmi K20 Pro applies greater sharpening. This helps the images appear more detailed in low frequency areas and texture in particular looks a bit sharper. However, in high frequency areas such as grass and foliage, the extra sharpening on the Redmi K20 Pro produces some ringing around the edges, which looks unpleasant. The OnePlus 7 renders foliage with greater accuracy but tends to look a bit soft in other areas.
Daylight main camera: OnePlus 7 • Redmi K20 Pro
The softer images from the OnePlus 7 may also be due to another factor. We noticed OnePlus 7 images were generally much smaller in file size compared to Redmi K20 Pro images. This despite both having the same resolution and same general content. We noticed some compression artifacts in the sky in the OnePlus 7 images compared to the slightly more grainy but generally more natural-looking Redmi K20 Pro sky. We think OnePlus may be compressing its images a tad too much.
Another thing we noticed was the moire in the Redmi K20 Pro images. Subjects with small repeating patterns such as grilles had a lot of unpleasant moire on the Redmi K20 Pro while the OnePlus 7 software was able to clean it up with greater success.
We also took some 2x zoomed samples, which uses the telephoto lens on the Redmi K20 Pro. The OnePlus 7 uses the center portion of its 48MP sensor to give a 1:1 output, which produces surprisingly good results. You actually get higher resolution 12MP images from the OnePlus 7 in 2x mode compared to the 8MP images from the Redmi K20 Pro.
Daylight telephoto: OnePlus 7 • Redmi K20 Pro
In terms of detail, the OnePlus 7 manages to come very close to the telephoto camera on the Redmi K20 Pro. The Redmi K20 Pro still manages to edge it out by having generally greater detail and better texture but we were impressed by what the OnePlus 7 managed despite not having a dedicated telephoto sensor.
Daylight telephoto: OnePlus 7 • Redmi K20 Pro
When it comes to ultra-wide-angle images, there's no trick the OnePlus 7 can employ. Here, the Redmi K20 Pro stands alone with its ultra-wide-angle lens that takes some great looking photos with plenty of detail, excellent colors, good dynamic range and low noise. There is the typical fish-eye distortion but that can be reduced from camera settings. Here we have presented the images without the setting enabled so we can see the full coverage of the lens.
Daylight ultra-wide: Redmi K20 Pro
Winner: Redmi K20 Pro. While both phones have comparable image quality in daylight on their main cameras and surprisingly, also in 2x zoomed mode, the OnePlus 7 has no answer to the excellent ultra-wide-angle camera on the Redmi K20 Pro.
Low light images
Low light is a close fight between the OnePlus 7 and the Redmi K20 Pro, especially as the two extra cameras on the latter aren't of much help in these conditions.
Low light normal mode: OnePlus 7 • Redmi K20 Pro
When shooting with the main camera, the OnePlus has better detail preservation and also generally better white balance. The details on the Redmi K20 Pro look more smudged and the white balance under tungsten lighting is too warm. The Redmi K20 Pro images are also oddly lacking in contrast, which gives them a hazy look, especially visible in the dark sky. The only area where the Redmi K20 Pro does better is in dynamic range as it is able to better preserve the highlights in bright areas like signboards.
Low light normal mode: OnePlus 7 • Redmi K20 Pro
Both cameras also have a night mode option and here once again the OnePlus 7 pulls out on top with a better implementation of the feature. There were very few scenarios where the Redmi K20 Pro night mode produced a better result but that's only because the image was brighter than what the OnePlus 7's Nightscape feature managed. However, every single time the OnePlus 7 image had better detail, dynamic range and overall quality. Of course, neither one comes close to matching the night mode on Pixel 3, Huawei P30 Pro or even the Galaxy Note10+.
Low light night mode: OnePlus 7 • Redmi K20 Pro
Despite having the same sensor and optics, the OnePlus 7 is able to beat the Redmi K20 Pro in low light because it has OIS, which allows it to shoot at a much lower ISO and longer shutter speeds. The Redmi K20 Pro, on the other hand, was shooting at five digit ISO most of the time with shorter shutter speeds, just to get comparable shots.
Low light night mode: OnePlus 7 • Redmi K20 Pro
With the 2x zoom, the two cameras are basically identical as even the Redmi K20 Pro is now reduced to digitally zooming in as it won't use its dedicated telephoto camera in low light. The Redmi K20 Pro was once again using higher ISOs and shutter shutter speeds but not by much. This meant that the only difference between the two phones was largely the colors and the contrast and the OnePlus 7 did better here overall.
The Redmi K20 Pro can, however, use night mode even with 2x zoom. It is still not using its dedicated telephoto lens but you can actually get slightly better results with it.
As for the ultra-wide-angle, the image quality wasn't very good at all unless there was sufficient light, so it's not really usable, especially since you can't even use the night mode with this lens.
Low light ultra-wide: Redmi K20 Pro
Winner: OnePlus 7. This is a classic example of how much of a difference OIS can make on its own when everything else is equal. A fairly decisive win for the OnePlus 7 here as the non-stabilized Redmi K20 Pro is left to bump up its ISO to scary levels just to produce a usable image.
Selfies
If you go simply by the specs alone, the Redmi K20 Pro might seem like it has a better front camera compared to one on the OnePlus 7. At 20MP, it certainly has the resolution advantage over the 16MP camera on the OnePlus 7.
Of course, numbers don't tell everything and when it comes to actual image quality, the Redmi K20 Pro receives a sound beating from the OnePlus 7. The OnePlus 7 images have excellent detail with great looking skin tones, good dynamic range and a natural soft background due to the wider f2.0 aperture.
Front camera selfie: OnePlus 7 • Redmi K20 Pro
In comparison, the images from the Redmi K20 Pro are comically oversharpened to the point where any resolution advantage the camera may have had is now lost to all the ringing artifacts. The skin tones also look less accurate, even with all the beauty enhancements turned off. The dynamic range is also poorer.
It's worth remembering that while the OnePlus 7 images may look too soft in comparison, you can always add sharpening later if you desire. However, it's not easy to reduce the excessive sharpening in the Redmi K20 Pro images, which honestly look like they were shot at a much lower resolution than 20MP and then upscaled to 20MP, with the sharpening being added to hide that fact. We sincerely hope Xiaomi isn't up to such shenanigans and that the poor image quality is just a result of badly tuned software.
Both phones offer a portrait mode to blur the background. The Redmi K20 Pro also offers some additional effects for it, which replace the background with different patterns. These actually work surprisingly well most of the time but they do take a rather long time to process despite all the horsepower under the hood.
Front camera portrait mode: OnePlus 7 • Redmi K20 Pro
The actual edge detection is flaky on both devices and a bit of a hit or miss affair with neither being particularly good. The default background blur on the OnePlus 7 looks good, which is just as well since you can't adjust it. The default blur on the Redmi K20 Pro is a bit strong but you can adjust the fake aperture to control the blur.
Winner: OnePlus 7. No amount of megapixels, beauty modes or popup action can hide the fact that the Redmi K20 Pro just has a mediocre front camera.
Video recording
Both, the OnePlus 7 and the Redmi K20 Pro are capable of videos in a multitude of resolutions and frame rates. Both phones can record videos in 4K at 60fps and both can do slow motion video. However, the Redmi K20 Pro has some key advantages, namely, being able to record videos using its telephoto and ultra-wide-angle lens, recording 960fps slow motion and being able to save videos in H.265 codec for smaller file sizes. The OnePlus 7 does have OIS though while the Redmi K20 Pro only has EIS.
Testing the 4K video at first, both phones are capable of good 4K 30 video. The Redmi K20 Pro in our tests produced more detailed videos with slightly better exposure while the OnePlus 7 had better white balance and more accurate colors. For our tripod test, we kept the stabilization feature on the Redmi K20 Pro disabled. The OnePlus 7 does not let you disable the EIS, which is why the video is slightly cropped in.
At 1080p, the difference in detail is even more stark. The Redmi K20 Pro captures excellent looking 1080p videos. The OnePlus 7, meanwhile, produces extremely soft-looking 1080p videos, which look more like upscaled 720p videos.
The Redmi K20 Pro can also shoot 4K and 1080p videos from its telephoto and ultra-wide-angle lens. We didn't see much difference between the 4K and 1080p videos from these lenses but this time that has more to do with how underwhelming the 4K is on these lenses. Still, both perform significantly better than the OnePlus 7, which has no telephoto or ultra-wide lens and can only do digitally zoomed videos, which, unlike its images, look pretty poor even in 4K.
In terms of stabilization, the OIS on the OnePlus 7 didn't make as big a difference as it did in low light photos. The EIS on the Redmi K20 Pro is quite capable and although it does add a bit of wobble to the image the overall stabilization is on par with the OnePlus 7. You can even turn it off if you have the phone placed on a tripod and gain some extra field of view, which is not possible on the OnePlus 7.
Winner: Redmi K20 Pro. The combination of different perspectives from the three lenses and excellent image quality makes the Redmi K20 Pro a better option for recording videos.
Conclusion
The OnePlus 7 and the Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro are two very closely matched phones. Whether it is in hardware specifications or performance, both compete equally strongly against each other and if one takes a lead in one area then the other more than makes up in the other.
The only thing about them that is not equal is the price. The OnePlus 7 is unquestionably the more expensive phone of the two, and sometimes by a sizable margin in some markets. The question then is whether the OnePlus 7 justifies the extra price.
If software experience is your priority, then yes, the OxygenOS on the OnePlus 7 is definitely a superior experience overall. Despite MIUI making strides in this area, it remains riddled with annoyances and quirks that not everybody has the time or patience to deal with. The litany of duplicate apps and bloatware, the neverending notifications and the slow paced Android updates makes it fall behind the cleaner, leaner and far more user-friendly OxygenOS.
When it comes to hardware, it's a more difficult call to make. The OnePlus 7 has better build quality, a better front camera, stereo speakers and a faster charger out of the box. On the other hand, the Redmi K20 Pro features a telephoto and an ultra-wide camera, the latter of which makes a dramatic difference. It also has a headphone jack and a notch-free display, things we have more appreciation for now that they are rarer.
Despite its higher price, we think the OnePlus 7 suitably justifies the premium due to a combination of well thought out hardware and software. However, if you are on a tighter budget then we would steer you towards the Redmi K20 Pro instead. Regardless of which one you pick, you will have a really good phone for not a lot of money that will last you several years. And that's really what this segment is all about.
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