Redmi 4A: Budget Smartphone

• Posted By Amritesh
• On March 27th, 2017
• Comments: 2 responses

Xiaomi recently launched their Budget end smartphone in India, the Redmi 4A. The phone has been priced at Rs 5,999/- and is available exclusively on Amazon and Mi India portal. Xiaomi had launched their their budget end Redmi 3S last year and it did exceedingly well. The new Redmi 4A is cheaper than the Redmi 3S with some changes to the hardware specifications. Redmi 4A as of now is available through flashsale held weekly on the Amazon and Mi Portal. Please refer to the respective portal for more details.

Lets take a close look at the device:

Build and Display: Redmi 4A is a very light device weighing just 132 gms, the build feels compact and comfortable to hold. It uses a polycarbonate body with the battery sealed inside it. The build quality is decent and despite not having a metal finish, it does have a premium feel to it.

It comes with 5 inch display which again is decent for this price range. The image appears sharp with viewing angles being satisfactory. The 720p LCD display again is acceptable for the budget end handset. The home keys are not backlit, placed just below the screen.

Battery Life: The phone comes with 3120 mah battery which is decent and will easily last for a day even under heavy usage. Since it is a budget handset, the fast charging support is not available on this device.

Hardware Specifications: Redmi 4A is powered by the Snapdragon 425 chipset and A53 Quad core processor clocked @ 1.4 ghz, along with 2GB of Ram and Adreno 308 GPU. Casual users will not face any issues with the device. However, heavy users and gamers will experience some lag during extended use, as the chipset is not very powerful and it has got just 2 GB of Ram.

The phone comes with 16 GB internal storage out of which around about 8GB will be available to the end users which is slightly less in my opinion, but SD Card support upto 128 GB does address the issue to an extent.

It has hybrid sim slot, which would support either SD Card or secondary sim. The phone comes with 4G Volte support.

Software and Features: Redmi 4A comes with Android Marshmallow OS, however one may expect the Nougat update sometime in the future. It runs the custom MiUi skin on top of Android OS. The MiUi is a heavy skin which does offer a lot of customization to the users.

The phone comes with most the sensors and features, including the IR Blaster. However, the Finger scanner is not available on this device.

Camera: The rear camera is a 13 mp shooter with f/2.2 aperture which will perform decently under proper daylight condition but will tend to struggle under artificial and low light conditions, as the images captured will be soft and a bit grainy.

The front camera is also pretty average which can take decent selfies under proper lighting conditions, something acceptable for a budget end device.

The HD video recording on this device is also possible and it would do a reasonable job.

Service Support: Xiaomi has grown over the years, they now have their exclusive service centres in most of the top tier cities. Hence, if one has an exclusive service centre at their location, after sales service won’t be a problem. However, Xiaomi can still improve on their service to the end users.

Overall Verdict: The device is decent for the price it is being introduced in the market. Xiaomi has done exceedingly well in the midrange and the budget range segment over the past couple of years. The device will perform reasonably well under normal usage although one cannot expect high end performance from a budget smartphone.

In my opinion, Xiaomi’s Redmi 3S is still a very good device and if one can afford to spend Rs 1,000/- extra then it is completely value for money device. Otherwise, Redmi 4A should be an ideal buy for anybody looking for phone below Rs 6k.