Xiaomi’s Y series focuses on selfie phones. With this series, It wants to take on Oppo and Vivo like brands who just launch selfie phones and still seeing good success in India. Xiaomi recently launched Redmi Y2 with improved specs over its predecessor. Is is worth to buy this selfie phone? Let’s find out in this review.
Xiaomi Redmi Y2 looks like Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro with few slight changes. The body of the is made of plastic. The phone has 5.99-inch 18:9 display with rounded corners. Above the display, it has front camera, earpiece and selfie light. It has volume rocker and power button the right. Buttons are at positioned properly. So, you can easily reach to it. It has SIM card slot on the left that includes two SIM slots and a microSD card slot. The top side has 3.5mm audio port, IR blaster and secondary mic.
The base side has Micro-USB and speaker grilles. The phone has dual camera setup and a fingerprint scanner on the back. This setup is same as in Redmi Note 5 Pro. It also has antenna lines that run along the top and the bottom of the phone.
It measures 8.1mm in thickness and weighs 170g. Rounded curves at edges offer better grip. The phone looks good in terms of design. You also get a silicon back cover for additional protection.
Also see: Best cases, covers for Redmi Y2
The phone has 5.99-inch HD+ display with 18:9 aspect ratio. The screen offers good colors and nice viewing angles. It is just fine on outdoors due to reflective nature. The display also lacks any kind of glass protection. So, you need a good tempered glass for protection Redmi Y2. The display comes with few options to tweak colors and enable reading mode in night. You also get double tap to wake up screen gesture.
Display is the primary thing where you will have to compromise. Redmi Note 5 that comes for the same price offers Full HD+ Display with Gorilla Glass.
The phone runs on MIUI 9.5 based on Android 8.1 Oreo. It will also get MIUI 10 as soon as the stable version is available for the device. The MIUI offers several notable features like customisation, App lock, Dual Apps, Second space and more.
The UI offers on-screen navigation options. But you can switch to gestures for getting more usable space. Once enabled, swipe up from the bottom of the screen to go to home screen. swipe up from the bottom of the screen and pause there to open app switcher. Swipe left or right from edge to go back.
MIUI works well and we didn’t find any performance related issue in this.
The phone is powered by 2.0 GHz octa-core Snapdragon 625 processor that we have tested in several Xiaomi devices in past. The same performance we found in this device. The phone offers lag-free experience and manages multitasking quite well. It has 3GB RAM for good multitasking and Adreno 506 to handle graphics. Not just regular performance, the phone even offers good gaming performance. I tested several games like Asphalt, Dead Trigger, Traffic rider and more. All these games were fine with good experience. Even I could play PUBG on the phone.
I tested the 32GB storage variant of the phone. You can expand the storage up to 256GB microSD card. The phone has dedicated microSD card slot, so no compromise with dual SIM function.
The phone’s camera is the primary thing company wants you to notice. I have already written a dedicated camera review of Redmi Y2. So, you need to read that and see the camera samples. In short, I will say that the camera of Redmi Y2 justifies the claims and offer good experience. You get decent camera performance in both day light and low light.
The phone has fingerprint sensor on the back and it performs well. It is fast and quickly opens the phone. It also features face unlock option that work well. It also features an IR blaster. So, you can use this phone as a remote control for several home appliances.
Multimedia experience on this phone is fine. Loudspeaker is loud enough. In call sound is also well. It comes with 4G VoLTE connectivity and both slots support VoLTE. Other connectivity options include Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi, micro USB and GPS.
The phone packs 3080 mAh battery that offers a day usage easily easily, but it also depends on your usage. If you capture lots of selfies or play games a lot, it will drain faster. The battery takes over 2 hours in fully charging on 0 to 100% with charger provided within the box.
Final Words
The phone is for selfies and it offers good selfie experience in most lighting conditions. Not just camera, the phone’s performance is also impressive but with compromise in display. So, it is a good budget selfie phones for those who just look at camera while buying a phone.
Now you may be confused in choosing between Redmi Y2 and Redmi Note 5. Redmi Y2 is for camera while Redmi note 5 is for overall good performance.
