Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version Review

July 4, 2022
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At the end of January, Redmi brand general manager Lu Weibing revealed on Weibo that Redmi’s first flagship gaming phone is coming soon. It attracted a lot of attention. Now, the Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version is out. So it’s quite interesting to know how this ultraslim gaming smartphone performs.

Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version

Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version Design

When holding this phone in hand for the first time, we all have a question – is it a gaming smartphone?

The Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version is really slim at only 8.3mm in thickness and 205g in weight.

Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version

In addition, the Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version is much more restrained in the design style of the fuselage. Take the “Silver Wing” version we have as an example. The material of the back cover of the fuselage is glass. The color of the whole body is silver and gray. Also, it uses symmetrical mecha embossed lines everywhere.

Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version

In addition to the right line design, the Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version also has the word “FIGHTING”. It is printed on the center of the back, highlighting the strong gaming style.

The camera module in the upper left corner of the fuselage adopts a racetrack-shaped design. The three cameras are placed in it in an orderly manner. The two sides of the module are supplemented with the words “FREEZING” and “SPEEDIEST”. There is also a lightning-shaped flashlight on the side.

Although the overall design is not as popular as other gaming phones, the key RGB breathing light is not absent on this machine. The Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version hides the RGB ring lighting effect in the camera module. In addition to displaying the corresponding lighting effect in the game scene, it can also flash reminders when notifications and incoming calls are received. When charging, it will also display the corresponding power status.

Also, there are the magnetically powered shoulder buttons on the side of the fuselage. Compared with ultrasonic and capacitive shoulder keys, mechanical and physical shoulder keys have a better hand feel and press feedback. It has a high probability of avoiding false touches.

Toggle the switch will change the position of the internal magnet. The shoulder button will pop out in a way that the same poles repel. Suck the shoulder button back, and it can also prevent the button from loosening and shaking.

What Else

According to the official statement, the Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version has a magnetically powered shoulder button life of up to 1.5 million times. So there is no need to worry about damage even if it pops up and closes frequently.

The shoulder button principle of the Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version is the same as that on the Black Shark 4 series of gaming phones. However, the Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version does not have the function of customizing shortcuts like the Black Shark 4 series, and it is only limited to the game scene, which is a pity.

On the same side as the game shoulder button, there is the iconic side fingerprint module of the Redmi K40 series. However, the “Custom Gestures” function of tapping the fingerprint button twice to open the designated function on other models of the K40 series is not available on the Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version.

Visual perception is also an important part of the game experience. The Redmi K40 Game Enhanced Edition sports a 6.67-inch OLED screen with a resolution of 2400×1080, supports a 120Hz refresh rate and a three-finger 480Hz ultra-high touch sampling rate.

It is worth mentioning that this flexible straight screen compresses the chin of the screen to 2.7mm through the COP packaging process, presenting the look and feel of almost equal width on the four sides, which is very immersive.

Gaming Experience

The Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version is equipped with MediaTek’s Dimensity 1200 mobile platform. This processor uses TSMC’s 6nm process technology and uses a 1+3+4 core architecture with a large core frequency of 3.0GHz.

The scores of the Dimensity 1200 on each running platform are close to the Snapdragon 870, which is at the level of the quasi-flagship in the current Android camp.

However, the actual game experience is the most important. It has been officially revealed that the Dimensity 1200 on the Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version is a “stable version”, and Redmi and MediaTek polished it together, plus Redmi’s own GAME TURBO, which further improves the game performance. As for how stable it is, let’s run a few games to see.

First is the Honor of Kings. Under the extreme image quality + ultra-high resolution + ultra-high frame rate image settings, the Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version basically runs along the 90Hz full frame line all the way.

Then comes “Peace Elite” with smooth picture quality + 90Hz. The average frame rate in the game was 89.3Hz.

And in the “Performance Bottomless Hole”, the Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version is really “stable”. In the field scene of the first 10 minutes, the average frame rate of the Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version was 54.9Hz, and occasionally there was a freeze. Next, the average frame rate was 59.2Hz, and there were very few jams. In the last 6 minutes, we played a boss battle with the Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version. The average frame rate was 56.7Hz.

This result is even better than some Snapdragon 870 models. So it can be called excellent in terms of frame rate and stability.

Gaming

In addition, the Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version also has a built-in three-dimensional heat dissipation system, which covers multiple component areas with multiple graphite and large VC soaking plates. There is a space-grade heat dissipation material-hexagonal boron nitride, which provides excellent heat dissipation performance while reducing the impact on the antenna.

Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version

From the actual experience, when the Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version is running less loaded games like “Honor of Kings” and “Peace Elite”, the body heat is only about 38°C, which is a low temperature but not hot state.

When running high-load games, the temperature of the Redmi K40 Game Enhanced Edition went straight to 43°C. And this kind of heating is uneven. The temperature on the side of the camera is much higher than that on the chin side of the fuselage, which also makes the left hand quite uncomfortable when holding the horizontal screen.

In terms of vibration, the Redmi K40 Gaming phone is the first to support the “high-quality vibration” of “Peace Elite” on the basis of the X-axis linear motor. It can provide different vibration feedback according to different weapons and vehicles, which makes the game quite enjoyable.

Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version

In addition, Redmi has also cooperated with Razer to launch a customized “mechanical keyboard” input method. Every tap will simulate the sound effects and physical feedback vibration of the Razer keyboard.

The phone comes with a 5065mAh large-capacity battery that supports 67W extremely fast charging. In the actual test, the charging time from 1% to 100% took 48 minutes.

In addition, Redmi also customized and optimized the charger and data cable. A full set of bright yellow color matching has more e-sports style. One end of the data cable is also made into an L-shaped interface. It is convenient for users to charge while playing games.

Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version

Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version Camera

Although for gaming phones, camera is a ‘secondary’ feature, this is not the case of our protagonist.

Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version

The Redmi K40 Gaming Version has a rear three-camera module, which includes a 64-megapixel main camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens, and a 2-megapixel macro lens.

The main camera uses a glass-plastic hybrid lens, which can have excellent focusing speed and stronger light transmittance. During daytime shooting, the main camera of the Redmi K40 Game Enhanced Edition can clearly show every detail in the picture.

64MP mode, the right is the zoom effect of 5 times

Turning on the 64-megapixel mode further highlights the lens’s high resolution advantage. The image quality is quite impressive, with the distant logo clearly visible even at several times magnification.

The main camera of the Redmi K40 Game Enhanced Edition relies on the glass-plastic hybrid lens. So it can easily obtain more light information.

Super wide-angle proofs

Macro samples

The ultra-wide-angle lens and macro lens are also at a level that can meet the needs of daily shooting. The imaging is not outstanding, but there are not too many grooves.

Video depth of field

Video

In addition, the Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version also supports the video shooting blur function. The main camera records the picture information and the ultra-wide-angle records depth information. The two work together to achieve a more realistic picture blur effect.

Of course, the Redmi K40 Gaming model still has many regrets in terms of images. We mean the lack of a telephoto lens and a relatively flat color palette.

Verdict

For most people, gaming phones are nothing new. However, the design of gaming phones in the past was too domineering, causing many people to buy them and only use them as backup phones.

Redmi K40 Gaming Enhanced Version

The unreasonable heating layout makes the Redmi K40 Gaming Variant really unstoppable when running heavy games.

However, the stable performance release coupled with an excellent gaming experience makes this machine handy in the hands of mobile game players.

We will be happy to hear your thoughts

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