FEATURE
- Little beast in budget Anroid Smartphone,
- Redmi 4A is not a successor to the Redmi 3s
- The Xiaomi Redmi 4A has been priced at Rs, 5999
Perfect for Entry Level Smartphone Buyers.
The Redmi 3S impressed buyers in the budget segment last year and to up the game this time, the Redmi 4A offers a new design in this segment while retaining the similar user experience. In other words, the Redmi 4A can be seen as an affordable Redmi 3S facelift.
The quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 processor does what is expected from and caters well to demands of average users. If you are looking for a robust smartphone within a tight budget of under Rs 6,000 then the Xiaomi Redmi 4A is great choice.
The Android Marshmallow-based MIUI 8 offers a comfortable overall experience with nifty features, however, you will still have to wait for Google Assistant to arrive. The IR blaster is retained in the Redmi 4A and it surely adds more value.
Specifications:
- 5-inch HD LCD IPS display
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 quad-core processor at 1.4Ghz, Adreno 308 GPU
- |2GB RAM + 16GB storage (expandable to 128GB)|
- 13MP rear camera + 5MP front camera
- 3120 mAh battery
- Android 6.0 with MIUI 8
Design:
The Xiaomi Redmi 4A continues the traditional Redmi design language, coming with an all metal body, non removable back in gold and rose gold color options. Redmi 4A’s body is actually a good looking polycarbonate, and follows the design language of the previous Redmi phones, most notably the Redmi 3S. But the Redmi 4A is a bit different from the Redmi 4 in terms of its design. The phone features the non-protruding rear camera on the top left corner accompanied by a single LED flash. Despite its low-end placement, the camera is decent, but more on that later.the MI logo etched at the back along with speakers below it. Buttons are tactile and are made out of metal. On the left, you have the hybrid SIM tray while at the bottom there’s a regular MicroUSB port. Since the front of the phone is white, the bezels on the side look a bit thick. But it doesn’t really come in the way of using the phone, thanks to its vibrant display. It weighs just around 132 grams and is super easy to carry around. It’s compact and thin as well, measuring 139.5 x 70.4 x 8.5 mm.
Display:
The 5-inch display which helps keep the 4A down to manageable dimensions for single-handed use is expectedly an HD (720x1280-pixel) panel, which is characteristically Xiaomi vivid and bright enough to be used outdoors in fairly strong sunlight. There is no fingerprint sensor, but that’s not surprising at this price point. There is an IR-blaster though, which can be used along with the Mi Remote app to control TVs and smart home devices. There isn’t a lot of colour shift when seeing the display from different angles either. The panel does struggle a bit under the sun, but it isn’t unusable, of course one needs to bump up the brightness to maximum.
Camera:
It has a 13 megapixel rear camera with LED flash and f/2.2 aperture and a 5 megapixel front facing camera with f/2.2 aperture.The camera UI is familiar with other Xiaomi smartphones with flash and HDR toggles on the left side, front camera toggle, option to select modes (Panorama, Timer (3 to 10 seconds), Audio trigger, manual mode to adjust white balance and ISO (100 to 3200), Straighten, Beautify, HHT (Hand held twilight) and Scene. It has image preview window, camera and video buttons on the right side. For the front camera, it has beautify mode and smart mode that guesses your age using facing recognition algorithm.
Coming to the image quality, daylight shots are good, HDR shots better, macro shots are surprisingly good. Low-light shots have noise as usual. Images with flash are good and the flash is not overpowering. Front-facing camera is good for selfies and video chats. Overall the phone has a decent camera for the price. The 13 megapixel rear camera is concerned, but the 4A surprised me with pretty good shots, with good colours and detail, as long as there was enough light around.
Pros:
- Compact and light form factor
- Decent screen, battery life
- VoLTE support
- IR-blaster
- Feature rich MIUI
Cons:
- Middling low light performance
- Hybrid dual SIM slot
Performance:
Disk Speed : 144 MB/s read / 77 MB/s write
The 4A is powered by Snapdragon 425 64 bit quad core processor clocked at 1.4GHz with Adreno 308 GPU. Performance is smooth, but when it comes to gaming, performance is not that smooth in high quality mode. Also handset heats up less max battery temperature I encountered was 38 degrees. Even so, there are no lags during multitasking or switching between apps but ever so often things slowed down for that brief bit, say when we were loading a heavy game like Asphalt 8, as MIUI busied itself switching stuff out of memory. The 4A’s highlights is that it supports Voice over LTE, which makes it compatible with Reliance Jio’s network for calls and data, and call quality was decent over the Jio network in my week’s worth of use. The primary SIM can support 4G calls and data but the secondary SIM falls back to 2G only. Xiaomi usually updates all of its devices at the same time so this comes with the same OS that was seen on the Redmi Note 4. For those who are unaware, that’s Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow with MIUI 8.1 layered on top. In the few minutes of my usage, the experience seemed to be smooth. Of course only after using and testing it further can I say more about the the software experience. You get all the MIUI features baked in and a new feature was announced which is coming soon for Indian users. The messaging app will be updated to show IRCTC ticket SMS in an actual ticket format to make it more intuitive. I really hope that Xiaomi improves the software further as it isn’t the best when it comes to experiencing Android.
Battery:
The 3,120mA battery does a good job, the battery life is less when compared to mammoth 4,100mAh battery of the older Redmi 3S. With the Redmi 4A, power users can expect of slightly over 24 hours. Mixed usage battery time for average users is around 30 hours.he battery life on the 4A’s 3120 mAh battery was completely acceptable and lasted a full day of moderate use browsing, WhatsApp, some music, emails all on 4G. As for connectivity features, the handset offers 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi, GPS/ A-GPS, infrared, microUSB 2.0 and Bluetooth v4.1. It is a dual-SIM smartphone but comes with a hybrid SIM tray.
Box contents:
- Xiaomi Redmi 4A smartphone in Dark Grey color
- 2-pin charger (5V-1A)
- Micro USB Cable
- SIM ejector tool
- User guide and warranty information
Verdict:
The tricky bot about the Redmi 4A is that it is so close to the Redmi 3S in terms of price which would make things confusing. However, that kept aside, this phone is an absolute keeper and this chubby little beast is a pocket rocket representing an affordable Android on steroids. If you are looking for your first smartphone, then perhaps, this should be your first one. This is probably going to be the handset to get if you want an affordable 4G smartphone. Just like last year, Xiaomi has done its best to cram in the best of what it can, in an affordable package. I am a little skeptical if the handset is indeed better than last year’s model, but seems like a really good smartphone.
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