Xiaomi Redmi 4A: Is it poised to be a good, affordable Android phone?

Xiaomi has another new budget Android smartphone lined up for Indian consumers. The new phone is likely to be the Redmi 4A, which was released in China in November last year at CNY 599 (approximately Rs5,679). It is the successor to the Redmi 3S and 3S Prime smartphones which are selling in the Indian market at Rs6,999 and Rs8,999, respectively.

Considering the Redmi 4A's lower configuration we expect it to cost less than the Redmi 3S. At that price, there are very few smartphones that can compete with it on paper. Additionally,an Amazon.in advertisement hints that the new phone will be available only on Amazon.in, initially.

Small screen

The Redmi 4A is a small screen phone with a 5-inch IPS LCD display. It has a screen resolution of 1,280x720p and pixel density of 294ppi. The phone's display size and configuration are exactly the same as the Redmi 3S.

Android with MIUI

Xiaomi is at times slow down when it comes to adopting the latest version of Android, because they wrap the MIUI interface over it, and optimizing it sometimes takes more time. The Redmi 4A is no different. It runs on a slightly older Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) with Xiaomi's proprietary MIUI 8.

Lighter and thinner

The new smartphone is not going to be a battery powerhouse like the Redmi 3S which offers a 4,100mAh battery. The Redmi 4A runs on a smaller 3,120mAh battery, and is one of the reasons for the phone's lighter form factor. It weighs just 131g, and has a thickness of 8.5mm. The Redmi 3S weighs 142g.

Touch of metal

The Redmi 4A has a similar unibody metal clad exterior as most Xiaomi smartphones we have across in the last few months. It comes in three colour options—gold, rose gold and dark grey. The battery is packed inside the metal chassis. The dual SIM (micro/nano) tray is placed on the side panel. One of the SIM slots also doubles up as microSD card slot. The speaker grille is on the back, the micro USB at the base and the 3.5mm audio jack at the top side panel. The phone doesn't have a finger-print sensor.

The interior

It is rare to see a phonemaker switch to an inferior processor in a newer phone. The Redmi 4A is driven by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 quad-core processor with 2GB RAM. The Nokia 3 is the other new smartphone that runs on this processor. The Redmi 3S and 3S Prime are powered by a slightly superior Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 octa-core processor.

First Published: Mon, Mar 20 2017. 11 59 AM IST

Source: Xiaomi Redmi 4A: Is it poised to be a good, affordable Android phone?