Xiaomi Mi A1 Review: An excellent mid-range smartphone

Xiaomi Mi A1 Review

Xiaomi’s Mi A1 was an unexpected move from the company. The company ditched its MIUI and partnered with Google to bring this phone under Android One umbrella. Unlike other Android One phones, this one comes with good specs and dual camera to attract consumers. The phone is now available in Indian market. If you are looking to buy it, spend few minutes on this review to know about this phone in detail.

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Xiaomi Mi A1 Review

Basically, Mi A1 is Xiaomi’s Mi 5X with stock Android experience. The phone has a design very similar to OnePlus 5 or Oppo R11 or iPhone 7 Plus. But trust me, this design makes this phone premium for just Rs. 15000.

The volume rocker and power buttons are placed on the right-hand edge. These buttons offer a tactile response. The left side has SIM card try. At the base side, it has a speaker, USB type C, Primary Mic and headphone jack. The top side has IR blaster and secondary noise-canceling mic.

Build quality of this phone is also very good. The corners are rounded and edges also have a curve for better grip. It has 7.3 mm thick body and it weighs 165 grams.

The phone comes with 5.5-inch Full HD LTPS IPS LCD panel. The display is also protected with 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass. The screen offers good viewing angles. It offers nice colors as well. The display struggles a bit under sunlight but you can still work on most of the things.

As the phone runs on stock Android, you may miss features like Blue light filters or Ambient Display.

Xiaomi Mi A1 Review

With stock Android, you get pure Android experience with zero customization. Just 4 Xiaomi specific apps and no more bloatware. The phone will receive monthly security updates from Google and future Android Updates till Android P. Experience is good with no lag at any point in time.

If you are an existing Xiaomi user, you will be missing interesting features of MIUI and you will have to install third-party apps.

Xiaomi Mi A1 comes with 2.0 GHz octa-core Snapdragon 625 processor with 4GB of RAM. With stock Android, this phone offers solid performance and good multitasking.

It also has Adreno 506 GPU to handle graphics. The gaming experience on this phone is nice. I tested several games and everything was smooth. There were some minor lags but the overall experience was good. The phone also does get warm after long gaming session but it doesn’t overheat.

Benchmark scores are also similar to what we saw in XIaomi Redmi Note 4.

The phone comes with 64 GB of storage and you can also expand the storage up to 256 GB using the microSD card.

You get a dual camera setup in this phone with 2x optical zoom. it also has 5 megapixels front camera. The camera of this phone is good and works well in broad daylight. It struggles a bit in low-light. Considering the price, I still find it a good device for capturing photos. Selfie experience is also fine. I did a separate camera review of Xiaomi Mi A1. You can read that article to know about this phone’s camera.

Xiaomi Mi A1

The phone got a fingerprint scanner on the rear panel. It works with good accuracy rate but it is a bit slow due to the transition effect after the unlocking. It also has IR blaster as an advantage. You can use it as a remote control for several home appliances.

Music experience on this phone is really good and I recommend this phone to those who look for good music experience. The speaker is loud and clear. It also offers good music on earphones. In call sound is also good.

The phone comes with 4G with VoLTE, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and USB Type C connectivity. Network selection is fine and other connectivity options work fine as well.

Xiaomi Mi A1 Review

This phone has just 3080 mAh battery and the reason for the smaller battery was to keep it slim. So battery performance is not as good as it was in Redmi Note 4, but this phone still manages to offer a full day usage as a daily driver. It uses a chipset that consumes less power and stock android also sucks less juice. If you are a power user, you will have to charge is twice a day.

This phone comes with 5V 2A changer and charges quickly. It takes around 1 hour and 40 minutes in fully charging the phone from 0 to 100%.

Final Words

Xiaomi devices have always been criticized for slow software updates, With Android One, the company has fixed that. This phone will be one of those devices that will get Android updates as soon as it will be available. For just Rs. 15000, Xiaomi Mi A1 is an awesome phone to own. This phone offers premium feel, good performance and nice portrait shots with the dual camera.

Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 4 made history and I expect the same from Xiaomi Mi A1. What are your views about Xiaomi Mi A1? Let us know your views in the comments.

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