Xiaomi has added an affordable smartphone to its arsenal by introducing the Redmi 4A in India. The device comes with an affordable price tag of Rs 5,999 and will be available from company’s e-com store MI.com and Amazon India starting from March 26, 2017. With this, the company is eyeing to give some great specifications at the most affordable price tag. So, will it be able to dominate the market, just like it did with Redmi 1s, and make a long lasting impact? We got our hands on the device and here are our initial impressions.
Design and Display
Back in 2014, Xiaomi introduced Redmi 1s, which become an instant hit all thanks to its value for money specifications and features. The device proved to be a milestone for the company and same is the expectation withRedmi 4A. It clicks most of the checkbox when it comes to design. To start with, the device comes with a unibody design and is built from a polycarbonate. The material used in the device does not give a cheap look, which we have seen in many smartphones in this price range. We liked the built quality of the device, especially, if you consider the price tag of Rs 5,999. However, it is not a sleek device, with 8mm thickness, but it is definitely one of the lightest with weighing just 131.5 grams.
The front boasts a 5-inch screen coupled with three physical navigation buttons at the base and front-facing camera along with earpiece and sensor on the top. There is also a notification light sitting just beneath the home button, which is a clever move. On the right, there is a volume control and power on/off button, while the left houses a hybrid SIM slot, which means you either use one SIM and microSD card or two SIMs. On the top, there is a 3.5mm Audio Jack along with an Infrared blaster through which one can control various home appliances. At the base, you find the speaker grille coupled with a microUSB port. At the back, there is a primary camera with single LED flash and company’s logo sitting at the bottom. Overall, the smartphone is compact enough to fit in hand, although some might feel a bit uncomfortable due to sheer thickness of the device.
On the display department, the Redmi 4A features a 5-inch HD display with 720 x 1280 pixels resolution. During our initial testing, the display did have good viewing angles and colours seem to be bright enough, but we will reserve our judgment till the fully test the device.
Hardware and Software
On the hardware front, the smartphone powered by a 1.4GHz Snapdragon 425 Processor coupled with Adreno 308 GPU. It comes with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, which is expandable up to 128GB via microSD. On the connectivity front, the device sports Besides the smartphone offers Hybrid Dual SIM, 4G with VoLTE, Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n), Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, and a microUSB port. That said, the company is offering some of the best specifications at this price point. To give you a better perspective, Vivo Y55s is powered by a similar processor, has 3GB RAM, 16GB internal storage which is priced at Rs 12,490. What makes it stand out of the crowd is the price point, as its own Redmi 3 is priced at 6,999, which comes loaded with a better Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor and has a better built quality.
On the software front, the smartphone runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow with company’s own MIUI 8 running on top of it. The MIUI 8 comes loaded with some interesting feature and the company will soon roll out a new feature in the Messaging app, which will showcase the message about the train reservation from IRCTC in a ticket format, which makes it visually appealing for the customer to see the timing, coach number and PNR status in an organized manner. One could also check the PNR status right from the messaging app.
Camera and Battery
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On the camera front, the Redmi 4A sports a 13-megapixel rear camera with PDAF, LED Flash, a f/2.2 Aperture on its back, and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera for selfies. The camera UI is particularly neat and simple to use. There are different modes including Panorama, Timer, Audio, Manual, Straighten, Beautify, HHT and scene. The camera was quick to focus and the front camera comes equipped with Beauty mode, which in turn has an advance pro mode through which one can adjust beautifications according to their needs. So hold your horses and wait until we are out with a detailed review.
The Redmi 4A gets its stamina from decent 3,120 mAh battery, which the company boasts can give up to 7 days of standby time. It would be interesting to see how well does the battery perform during our testing period.