Xiaomi announced their latest budget offering the Redmi 4A in India. The Redmi 4a is the most affordable smartphone from the company and is priced Rs 5999. It is also a Made in India device and comes with a 5 inch HD display and is powered by Snapdragon 425 Quad core processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB storage.
The device also packs a 13MP rear camera and 5MP front camera along with Android 6.0 with MIUI 8 and a 3120mAh battery. For the price it is being offered at, the device definitely looks a good package, but how does it perform? Let’s find out in this detailed review.
Here is the video review.
Design and Build:
The Redmi 4A has a refined design when compared to Redmi 3S. While the dimensions of the two devices are almost the same, Xiaomi has made the curved edges on the Redmi 3S a bit more flat on the Redmi 4A. But the major difference here is the material quality. While the 3S featured a metallic construction, the 4A is polycarbonate material. The fit and finish looks good and the plastic body makes the device slightly lighter as well. The phone also comes in Rose gold color, the one which we tested. The phone feels great to use and is better in terms of design when compared to Redmi 3S prime. The overall fit and finish also feels good for the price it is offered at.
On the right side, you get power and volume key, while the left side houses the SIM tray. At the bottom, there is micro USB charging slot and a speaker unit. Up top, you have the 3.5mm audio jack and IR blaster. The rear panel comes with the 13MP camera, LED flash and Mi logo. The front panel has 5.0 inches HD display and three capacitive touch buttons which are not backlit. A 5MP front camera is positioned on the top of the display along with the sensors. Overall, the Redmi 4A feels great considering the price segment.
Display:
Xiaomi Redmi 4A comes with a 5 inch HD display with 1280 X 720p resolution and an IPS LCD panel. The display is quite vibrant and sharp and feels good for a budget device. Unfortunately, similar to other budget devices from Xiaomi, the 4A also does not offer any protection on the display.
The touch response is quite good and so is the viewing angles. You can also adjust the color temperature of the display from the settings. One of the useful features of MIUI is the reading mode and this is available on Redmi 4A as well and this aids in reading during the night and decreases the strain on eyes.
Software:
Xiaomi Redmi 4A comes with MIUI8 on top of Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. If you have used a Xiaomi device previously you might be knowing that MIUI is a heavily skinned UI provide tons of customization and it does not have any resemblance with stock UI. It comes with multiple home screens and a custom notification center along with settings panel.
The phone comes with a plethora of options to customize, be it in the form of themes, icon packs, lock screen, boot animations, sounds and more. All of these can be downloaded from the Themes app.
The phone also comes with Child mode which was announced with MIUI (more details on Child mode available here) and also the regular Lite mode. The phone also features the security app which comes with cleaner, virus scan, block list, data usage and more.
There are a couple of useful changes to the UI in terms of features and it comes with dual apps and Second space which are new in MIUI 8. The Second space allows you to create a different space on your phone which does not share anything with the first space. You can use the second space as a completely different phone with apps, security and all features included. This means if you want two profiles on your phone like home and work, second space helps in that. Dual apps, as the name indicates, allows users to concurrently run two instances of the app. You can run two WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger etc on the device. MIUI provides option to lock apps using the fingerprint scanner and this provides additional security to your personal apps.
Xiaomi has also added lots of useful apps like FM radio, recorder, Compass, torch and much more. Xiaomi’s attention to smaller details is simply amazing and the UI looks very much polished with no lags or crashes. The phone also comes with IR blaster which means you can use the phone as a remote for your TV, A/C, set top box and other devices. There is a Mi Remote app which you can configure with Indian brands and this comes handy.
Performance:
Xiaomi Redmi 4A comes with Snapdragon 425 Quad Core processor clocked at 1.4Ghz and coupled 2GB of RAM along with 16GB of storage. The Snapdragon 425 is a budget chipset offering decent performance in this segment although it is not as powerful as the SD430 on the Redmi 3S. The phone performs very well in day to day activities and there are no slow down or lags in the device in normal usage. But when you push the device to heavy multitasking and gaming, this is where you can see sluggish performance from the device. We played high graphic rich games and it was lagging and also the device heats up considerably to 45 degrees. While heavy gaming is not expected from a phone in the sub 6k price segment, you can play some casual games on the device.
The phone also packs an IR blaster similar to Note 4 and you can configure it to use with brands in India which come really handy. The phone does not feature any fingerprint scanner. The call quality and the speaker performance of the device is also really good.
The phone has dual SIM and micro SD hybrid slot. The phone comes with 16GB of storage and out of which close to 9GB is available to user in first boot which is a bit on the lower side considering it has hybrid SIM.
Camera:
Xiaomi Redmi 4A sports a 13MP rear camera with LED flash and a front facing 5MP camera for selfies. The camera interface of Redmi 4 Prime is typical MIUI and packs a lot of additional features including manual mode and filters. The phone also offers 1080p recording.
The 13MP rear camera of the Redmi 4A can snap decent captures in daylight condition with good color quality, but the sharpness levels could have been better. But considering the price segment, the daylight performance of the camera is good. The macro or close up images are also quite good and it is not as saturated as the Redmi 3S. But when it low light, the performance is not great. You can clearly see noise creeping in the photos and extreme low light images are noisy. The front facing selfie camera can snap some decent selfies. The 1080p video recording is also quite decent. Here are some of the samples taken with the device.
Battery:
Redmi 4A comes with a smaller capacity battery when compared to 3S. The device has 3120mAh battery and the performance is quite good. We tested the device with social networking apps, browsing, calls, gaming, camera and more and we could easily get slightly more than a day of battery life. If you are a heavy user, you still get 1 day on the device.
Verdict:
If you are looking for an affordable smartphone, Xiaomi Redmi 4A is definitely one of those entry level Android smartphones to buy. It has good design and build, decent display, a customizable software and decent performance for the price segment and a good camera. Price at Rs 5999, Xiaomi Redmi 4A is definitely worth the money.
