Xiaomi Mi A2 First Impressions: Xiaomi’s New Android One Champ

Mi A2 Hands-on

Today, Xiaomi launched its new smartphone Xiaomi Mi A2 in India. It is the successor of last year’s Mi A1 and comes with better design, bigger display and better camera. It also adopted USB Type-C audio and dropped headphone jack.

Xiaomi has done major changes in design from last year’s Android One device. It has metal unibody design with curved at back to give you proper grip over the phone. The vertical dual camera setup is located on the top left of the back panel. The fingerprint sensor is also on the back. The front is dominated by 5.99 inch display with 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 5 cover on top. The volume and power keys are located at the right. All these keys offer good tactile feel. The SIM card slot is placed on the left. It has microphone, USB Type-C, and speaker grille. On the base side. The top side just gets infrared sensor.

The build quality of the phone looks good. It is just 7.3 mm thick and weighs 168 gram.

The phone has 5.99-inch Full-HD+ (1080×2160 pixels) display with 18:9 aspect ratio. It looks same that we saw on Redmi Note 5 Pro and perform similar. It has good outdoor visibility and nice color reproduction.

Mi A2 runs on Android 8.1 Oreo. As the phone is the part of Android One, it will get updates directly from Google. At the launch event, Google’s executive confirmed that the phone will get Android 9 Pie update by the end of this year.

It packs octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor with 4GB RAM and Adreno 512 GPU. So, the performance of the phone should be good in class. This chipset is known for its good performance, image processing and AI abilities. So, I am hoping for something. But I have not yet tested the performance to comment on that. There will also be a 6GB RAM variant but we have no information about its availability.

Mi A2

It comes with 64GB of storage and you cannot expand the storage. But 64GB of storage is enough and you are also getting the unlimited Google Photo storage to keep your photos safe on cloud.

Xiaomi has improved the camera of this phone a lot. It features a dual camera setup with 12 megapixels primary sensor and 20 megapixels secondary sensor. Both the sensors feature f/1.75 aperture. You can even select the sensor you want to use for capturing a photo manually. Smart lens selection is also there to select the best for the scene to give you good shots. I tested the camera and I really liked it. It captures good detailed shots. But I have not yet tested it in the low light and that is the main thing I want to check in its camera. The 20 megapixels front camera with Sony IMX376 sensor also captures good selfies with proper details. It also has front LED flash for low light shots. The good thing is that the rear camera features EIS. So, your videos will be better.

Mi A2 hands-on

Connectivity features include Dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4GHz / 5GHz), Bluetooth 5 LE, GPS + GLONASS and USB Type-C. It has single speaker unit on the base side.

The phone packs 3080 mAh battery and supports Quick Charge 4+. The only disappointment is that the bundled charger is standard 5V/2A unit. So, you will have to buy the fast charger separately. If you are buying the phone, I recommend to buy the fast charger.

Considering the price of the phone, it really impresses. If you were planning to buy the Redmi Note 5 Pro, now you have a better option.  The new Mi A2 is a huge upgrade over Mi A1. Although Xiaomi’s primary focus was camera, but it didn’t ignore other things. It has powerful processor, nice display and good build. While battery capacity is not as good as in Redmi Note 5 Pro, but you are also getting support for Quick Charge 4+. So, you can charge is faster. If you prefer stock Android, this phone is surely the one you need to look for.

At Rs. 16999, this phone will be competing with Honor Play, Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1 and Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro. Let me know what phone would you prefer? Share your selection in comments.

Share this article
Shareable URL
Prev Post

Samsung Galaxy Tab A (2018) with 10.5-inch display, 7300mAh battery, 4G launched in India for Rs. 29990

Next Post

Amazon Freedom Sale: Best deals on smartphones, laptops and other electronics items

Leave a Reply
Read next
Subscribe to our newsletter
Get notified of the best deals on our WordPress themes.
1
Share