The company’s words may prove to be true, because Redmi 2 (and Redmi 2 Prime) of 2015 and Redmi 3S (Redmi 3S Prime) of 2016 were also successful phones. These smartphones have consistently been included in our list of best smartphones under Rs 10,000.
2017 has been a successful year for Xiaomi, with the company claiming to have sold more than 1 million units of the Redmi Note 4 within 15 days of its launch. The Chinese company is expected to maintain this growth with the new Redmi 4A. This phone has features like VoLTE and 13 megapixel rear camera. Will the new Redmi 4A be able to write a new story of success for the company? Let us know in the review.
xiaomi redmi 4a design
When you hold Xiaomi Redmi 4A in your hand for the first time, it will appear to be made of metal body. Whereas its body is of polycarbonate. The rear panel has a separate segment at the top and antenna bands at the bottom like the metal body Redmi models.
The new smartphone has also been designed much like the previous Redmi phones. And customers in this price segment will not be disappointed. With a 5-inch screen, the Redmi 4A is a compact phone and is easy to use with one hand. The volume rocker and power button are on the right side while the hybrid SIM slot is on the left. There is a charging point at the bottom and a 3.5 mm radio jack and infrared ammeter at the top.
When seen from the rear, the phone looks like Redmi 3S. There is Mi branding and speaker grill on the rear, which are similar to Redmi 3S. Redmi 4A does not have a fingerprint sensor and at this price, its absence is not surprising.
The phone has slightly curved edges, although we would have liked the overall shape of the Redmi 3S as in our experience it is more curved and fits better in the hand. The Redmi 4A has only slightly curved edges. However, the rear panel of the phone comes with matte finish and its grip is good.
Weighing in at 132 grams, the Redmi 4A smartphone is lighter than the Redmi 3S which weighs 144 grams. At the time of its launch in India, Xiaomi had announced that the Redmi 4A is the ‘lightest Redmi ever’. It is worth noting that both models come with 8.5 mm thickness. Redmi 4A comes in Dark Grey, Gold and Rose Gold color variants. We received a dark gray unit for review.
Xiaomi Redmi 4A comes with a charger, Micro-USB cable, warranty card, user guide, and a SIM ejector tool. Like other Xiaomi products, the Redmi 4A will not come with a headset in the retail box, which may disappoint some users. The retail box comes with a ‘Made in India’ tag. At the launch event, the company said that 95 percent of Xiaomi phones are now made in India.
Xiaomi Redmi 4A Specifications and Software
Redmi 4A has a 5-inch HD (720×1280 pixels) display and 296 ppi pixel density. The display is fine and color reproduction is also good. We did not face any problem in using the phone in sunlight. Text and photos look sharp while videos look good. The Redmi 4A comes with a reading mode that makes colors better for the eyes and the color temperature can also be adjusted in the Settings app.
This smartphone has a quad-core Snapdragon 425 processor which runs at 1.4 GHz. Adreno 308 is integrated for graphics. It has 2 GB RAM and 16 GB inbuilt storage which can be expanded up to 128 GB via microSD card. This handset has a non-removable battery of 3120 mAh. The company has claimed to get standby time of up to seven days. Apart from 4G VoLTE, the Redmi 4S smartphone has features like Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, GPS/ A-GPS, and GLONASS.
With a hybrid SIM slot, users can use a micro SIM and a nano SIM or a microSD card at the same time. If two SIM cards are used, the first slot supports 4G calls and data while the second SIM will support 2G network support. Gyroscope, accelerometer, proximity sensor and ambient light sensor are present in the phone.
Redmi 4A runs on MIUI 8 based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The company stressed during the launch that many features in the phone have been designed especially keeping Indian users in mind. MIUI supports 13 Indic languages which include Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Marathi, Assamese and Bengali.
Talking about software, the phone has many features seen in previous Redmi phones. These also include a dual app feature that lets users sign in to one app on the device with two different accounts (like WhatsApp, Facebook). Through Second Space, users can keep business and personal data separate on one phone. Through the Second Space feature, users can also sign in with two different Google accounts.
In Redmi 4A, users can take screenshots by scrolling, for example you can even save a web page that does not fit on the screen. Apart from this, there are some other MIUI features like Child Mode to lock apps, Quick Ball button for faster shortcuts and One-Handed Mode to shrink the screen to one corner.
The dialer app in MIUI 8 has also been improved and it shows caller ID by default. Also worth mentioning is the Mi Cover app, which lets you transfer data to another Mi phone. The phone has a theme app that lets you use a large collection of wallpapers, ringtones and fonts. The phone includes many apps like Scanner, Mi Community and Mi Pix. Apps like Facebook, Amazon Kindle, WPS Office, MakeMyTrip and Flipkart come pre-installed in Redmi 4A.
During the launch in India, Xiaomi also previewed a redesigned messaging app that will make IRCTC train tickets look different on the screen. That means, when you get a confirmation message from IRCTC, Xiaomi MIUI 8 will recognize it and show it like a genuine ticket.
xiaomi redmi 4a camera performance
Redmi 4A has a 13-megapixel rear camera with a 5-element lens and aperture F/2.2. It has LED flash and also modes like HDR, Panorama, Burst Mode and Face Recognition. Apart from this there are also many real-time filters. The phone has a 5 megapixel front camera with aperture F/2.2. The phone has the option of 1080 pixel and 720 pixel video recording at 30 frames per second.
The main camera of the phone takes good pictures and the colors are excellent in good lighting. Photos taken in daylight come with better detailing. We were able to focus on the object easily, but we noticed that the camera struggled in taking close-up shots. There was a lot of noise in some of the photos we took with the Redmi 4A.
The rear camera of Xiaomi Redmi 4A does not work well in artificial light. And noise is visible in the pictures. Photos taken in low light come with good detail, although they appear scattered. Selfies from the front camera come out sharp and with detailing which can be shared on social platforms. The quality is a bit poor in low light. The phone can record 1080 pixel video and the quality is also good. The camera app is easy to use and we liked accessing modes with a single tap.
xiaomi redmi 4a performance
The overall performance of the Redmi 4A impressed us. There was no problem during multitasking and we could easily switch between multiple apps. We enjoyed streaming videos and watching movies on the Redmi 4A. But we admit that being used to using big phones makes the 5 inch screen seem small.
Playing games on the Redmi 4A was also a good experience and we played games like Asphalt 8 and Dead Effect 2 with ease. Initially the game hung when launching the game because there were too many apps running in the background. During our review, we noticed around 900 MB of memory being free at all times and we feel that more RAM could have been better.
Redmi 4A has 16 GB storage, out of which 10 GB is for user use. And this means that you will have to rely on expandable storage. Many appliances like TV and set-top box can be controlled in home and office with the infrared ammeter provided in Redmi 4A.
The sound coming from the handset’s loudspeaker is good for a small room. And at this price, you cannot expect more sound than this. The unit doesn’t come with earphones, so we tested the audio quality with our earphones, which were excellent. Xiaomi has given many audio options in the Settings app.
This phone has many popular audio formats like HEVC and MPEG4. Apart from these there are also PCM, AAC/EAAC+, MP3, FLAC and WAV.
Xiaomi Redmi 4A supports VoLTE and we did not face any network problems even in areas with weak signals. Call quality was excellent. We did not notice any overheating issues during our review.
The Redmi 4A scored respectably in benchmark tests. The phone has a 3120 mAh battery, which lasted 12 hours and 35 minutes in our video loop test. During normal usage, the Redmi 4A proved to be a powerhouse and lasted a whole day. It is worth noting that this happened without using power saver mode.
We used Power Saver mode when the battery of Redmi 4A was 20 percent. And after this we got up to 8 hours of battery life. Fast charging support is not available in the phone and this is not an issue for those buying smartphones at this price.
our decision
The new Redmi 4A has definitely set new benchmarks in this price segment. And it is expected that this will prove to be a very popular phone. Priced at Rs 5,999, the Redmi 4A comes with useful features like VoLTE. The camera performance is excellent and the polycarbonate body, 3120 mAh battery and software are also satisfactory.
It will be interesting to see how the Redmi 4A smartphone performs compared to the Redmi 3S priced at Rs 6,999. By paying Rs 1,000 more, users can get a metal body, a better Snapdragon 430 processor and more battery power if they buy the Redmi 3S.
It seems that the Redmi 4A smartphone has been designed for first-time smartphone users. And this can be a great option for such users.