The Redmi series positioned Xiaomi in the sub-150-dollar segment. The company launched the first smartphone of the line in 2013, and it was well received. According to Xiaomi, Redmi 1 “was a phone ahead of its time, and the same is true for Redmi 4A.”
Perhaps this is true, since other phones in the series consistently left a good impression, constantly appearing in the lists of the best smartphones for less than $ 150. In 2017, Xiaomi has already achieved great success by selling more than 1 million units of Redmi Note 4 within 45 days after the launch of the model. The Chinese manufacturer hopes to maintain this figure with the Redmi 4A, which brought such features as a VoLTE and 13-megapixel camera to the budget segment. Will the model be another hit of the company?
Design
One of the first things users notice when holding the Redmi 4A is the body material. Despite its resemblance to metal, it is actually made of polycarbonate. On the rear panel above and below are segments that simulate antenna bands of the metal models of the line.
The smartphone clearly follows the style of its predecessors, and buyers will not be disappointed. The relatively small 5-inch screen provides Redmi 4A compactness, so the phone is easy to use with one hand. The volume control and power button are easily accessible on the right side, while the hybrid SIM card slot is located on the left. The charger port is at the bottom, and on top are the 3.5mm headset jack and infrared emitter.
According to reviews, the specifications of Xiaomi Redmi 4A 16GB and Redmi 3S are strikingly similar. The Mi logo and speaker grill are identical. The smartphone is not equipped with a fingerprint scanner, which is not surprising, given the price. The phone has slightly curved edges, although the 3S design would be more suitable, more rounded and more comfortable for the hands. The edges of the front panel are only slightly curved to the side surfaces of the smartphone. But the back of the phone has a matte finish and better grip. Weighing about 132 g 4A is lighter than 144-g 3S. Xiaomi, introducing the model, said that it is “the easiest Redmi.” It is noteworthy that both models have a thickness of 8.5 mm. The smartphone is available in three colors: dark gray, golden and pink gold.
The phone is powered by a non-removable battery, which, according to the company, can provide 7 days of standby time.
Equipment
The smartphone comes with a 1-amp charger, a standard microUSB cable, a warranty card, a user manual and a SIM card eject tool. As with other Xiaomi products, there is no headset in the retail box, which may disappoint some users.
Screen
The smartphone is equipped with a 5 ”display with a resolution of 720 x 1280, which corresponds to a pixel density of 296 dpi. The company claims that the screen can reproduce 72% of the NTSC color gamut. The display is bright and the color rendering is adequate. According to user reviews, the screen of the smartphone Xiaomi Redmi 4A 16GB Gold is not inferior in characteristics to the competitors' models and provides a normal perception of content even in direct sunlight. Text and images appear sharp, and the video looks good. The smartphone also offers a reading mode that makes the image more pleasing to the eye, and also allows you to adjust the color temperature through the Settings app.
What really surprised was the color accuracy. Even the standard mode right out of the box provides an average ΔE 4.5 with a maximum of 7.8. White is too strong, which makes the screen slightly cold, but nonetheless quite accurate. Fine-tuning of some display parameters leads to even more impressive results. Using the warm color mode leads to the fact that the average ΔE is only 2.8 at a maximum of 6, which is mainly due to the dispersion of white and gray. Decreasing the brightness from a maximum of 475 nits to 200 nits significantly corrects white and provides a very impressive average value of ΔE = 2.4 and a maximum of 4.8.
In general, the display quality is inferior to higher-end models. Compared to 4A, the characteristics of Redmi Note 4 with a 5.5 ”screen with a resolution of 1080 x 1920 and a pixel density of 401 dpi look more attractive.
Connectivity options
In addition to 4G with VoLTE, the smartphone supports Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi 801.11 b / g / n, GPS / AGPS and GLONASS.
A hybrid slot with two SIM cards can simultaneously accept one micro-SIM card and a nano-SIM or micro-SD card. When 2 SIM cards are used, the main one supports 4G calls and data processing, and the second one can only work in 2G networks. Of the sensors there is a gyroscope, accelerometer, proximity sensors and ambient light.
Software
Redmi 4A works with the MIUI 8 graphical interface on the Android 6.0 platform. The model has inherited many of the features of previous phones in the line. For example, Double Apps allows users to create two copies of any application (for example, WhatsApp, Facebook, etc.), and Second Space provides separate storage of business and personal data. The Second Space feature also provides the ability to have two Google accounts.
The smartphone is capable of taking screen shots, such as web pages, completely, even if partially it is not visible. Other functions of the MIUI interface are the children's mode, which allows you to block programs, a soaring quick access button and one-handed mode, which compresses the size of the display.
The phone application in MIUI 8 has also been improved and by default displays the caller ID. Worth mentioning is Mi Mover, used to move data from another Mi device. In Themes you can choose wallpapers, ringtones and fonts. However, users would like to see less useless software, since the smartphone has only 16 GB of memory. These include Scanner, Mi Community and Mi Picks. The phone also comes with more useful Facebook, Amazon Kindle, WPS Office, Makemytrip and Flipkart apps.
Cameras: reviews and specifications
Xiaomi Redmi 4A 16GB is equipped with a 13-megapixel main sensor with a 5-element lens and a f / 2.2 relative aperture. The camera has an LED flash, supports backlight, HDR, panorama, burst shooting and face recognition. The owner in real time can use many filters. The 5MP selfie camera has an f / 2.2 aperture. You can record video with a resolution of 720p and 1080p at a speed of 30 fps. The cameras of the 4A and Xiaomi Redmi Pro models are almost identical in characteristics. Only the latest model has a rear sensor paired with another 5MP image sensor.
The main camera of the phone in sufficient light allows you to take good pictures with decent colors. Shots taken during the day have more detail. According to user reviews, focusing on objects is done quickly enough, but from time to time does not cope with close-ups. Some photos contain a lot of noise.
The rear camera of the smartphone Xiaomi Redmi 4A 32 GB according to the characteristics is not quite suitable for shooting in artificial light: the images are too noisy. Photographs taken in low light conditions display a large number of details, although they are rather grainy. The front-facing sensor is capable of capturing clear and detailed selfies that can be used on social platforms, although weak light is not very suitable for this. The camera application is simple, and the owners liked the fact that access to the modes and other settings is within one touch.
Performance
The specifications of Redmi 4A are due to the 4-core 1.4-GHz Snapdragon 425 chipset and Adreno 308 GPU.
According to the reviews of the owners, they are pleasantly surprised by the characteristics of the Xiaomi Redmi 4A 16 GB. Multitasking does not cause delays, and the phone easily coped with switching between multiple applications. Although the smartphone allows you to enjoy streaming video and movies, the 5-inch screen seems too small, because today users are used to large sizes.
Games are difficult, but you can have a good time in Asphalt 8 and Dead Effect 2. They can freeze at startup if other applications are running in the background. According to user reviews, about 900 MB of free memory remains available, so more RAM could improve the performance of the device. GPU is not designed for anything other than a graphical interface. Even low resolution does not save the low frame rate. 5.7 fps in the GFX 3.0 Manhattan test is simply unplayable.
The internal data storage capacity is 16 GB, of which approximately 10 GB of usable space remains for installing applications and data. This means that you will have to use a memory expansion slot and microSD card up to 128 GB.
Testing the performance of the smartphone showed decent results for its price range. The Xiaomi Redmi 4A 16 GB specifications provide him with 36110 points in AnTuTu 6, 16693 in Quadrant, 3684 in 3DMark Ice Storm Extreme and 13 fps in the GFXBench T-Rex test. In GeekBench 4, the phone scores 1670 points in the multi-core test and 658 in the single-core.
Compared to 4A, the specifications of Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 look more convincing. In the AnTuTu 6 test, a higher-end model scores 61,616 points, which is due to the use of a more powerful 2-GHz Snapdragon 625 processor.
Functionality
The infrared emitter of the smartphone allows you to control various household appliances and is compatible with various television consoles and televisions.
The phone supports all kinds of video formats, including HEVC and MPEG4, as well as popular audio formats AAC / eAAC +, PCM, FLAC, MP3 and WAV.
One of the main advantages of the smartphone is VoLTE support (and the ability to connect to mobile networks in areas with weak signals. The call quality is decent, users can talk comfortably for a long time due to the small size and weight of the device. Overheating does not occur.
Audio
The speaker is loud enough for a small room, but you should not expect that Redmi 4A features this element will be better than higher-end phones. Headphones are not supplied with the device, but sound quality testing has shown decent results. Various sound settings are available in the system menu.
The smartphone shows excellent output cleanliness when connected to an active external amplifier. Its volume level is above average, and the quality is better than can be expected at such a price.
Even more impressive is the fact that the headphones have almost no effect on the clarity or volume of the output. In fact, a modest smartphone provides better headphone output than most modern phones, which do not even closely match the cost of Redmi 4A.
Battery specifications
The non-removable battery with a capacity of 3120 mAh in the HD-video test lasts 12 hours and 35 minutes. When used intensively in the real world, Redmi 4A easily lasts more than one day, even without activating the power saving mode. The latter, when the battery charge drops below 20%, provides an additional 8 hours of limited use. In this case, you can free a certain application from restrictions on the use of battery power. A full restoration of the phone’s energy reserve takes less than 2 hours. Fast charging is not supported, but at such a low cost this will not be an obstacle to purchase.
A less efficient processor that maximally uses all its 4 cores to cope with the load, plus a reduced capacity compared to 4100 mAh for Redmi 4 Prime and Note led to a decrease in the average battery life from 119 to 67 hours.
Conclusion
Features Redmi 4A raised the bar for smartphones in this price range, and we should expect its huge popularity. At a cost of about $ 100, the model offers many features, the most important of which is VoLTE support. Decent camera performance, a polycarbonate case, a 3120 mAh battery and software are satisfactory.
Redmi 4A, it seems, is designed for those who buy smartphones for the first time, and for this audience it will be a worthy option.