Xiaomi Mi A1 Smartphone Review
The Xiaomi Mi A1 is a smartphone created by the Xiaomi brand and powered by Google; the two of them did a wonderful job together. In this collaboration, Google rebooted the Android One program; it is clear that this program is not just for entry-level smartphones.
Design & Display
At first look, the design looks a little like the Xiaomi Mi Max, but the body of this smartphone feels like a premium metallic finish with a solid construction. The device is quite slim; it has just 7.3mm, and it weighs just 165g.
The device is slightly wider; it feels great in the hand and fits nicely in the palm. It has round edges and a sleek side profile.
On its back, the dual cameras are a little unusual for Xiaomi devices but surely are not a deal-breaker. Under the cameras, positioned in the center of the phone, we can find the fingerprint reader.
The smartphone has a 5.5-inch IPS display with a 2.5D curved glass at the top. The Full HD display offers an excellent contrast and also delivers crisp visuals; all these with 403 ppi pixel density.
The display of the Mi A1 is vivid and bright and its graphics look great while the text is sharp. The reproduction of the colors could be more accurate, but we could notice this just when we will put it side-by-side with a device with a better panel.
Performance
Once with the new model – Mi A1, Xiaomi goes back to its trusted octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, which can be found on other models too like Redmi Note 4 or Mi Max 2 and offers a good balance between performance and efficiency.
It has 4GB RAM and 64GB of storage. In the case of the Mi A1, the performance is particularly good in everyday usage. It also remains one of the best performing smartphones in this segment.
Its 64 GB of internal storage should be enough for most of the users, though there is a microSD card slot, you can expand its capacity with a memory card up to 128 GB.
The Mi A1 runs the Android 7.1.2 Nougat. Apps load and switch faster, multitasking is a breeze for basic things like social media or browsing. We can have up to 25 apps open at the same time and the phone will not get warm or start misbehaving. It seems that the Mi A1 is resisting any software freezes.
Having a look at the daily tasks can be a competitor to other models and we can say it makes a better job. Regarding the heavy-duty tasks, especially gaming, the phone can handle high-resolution games with no problem. While running the games the phone won’t heat up. You won’t see any major crippling frame rate drops in the gaming experience.
The Mi A1 has a 3,080 mAh battery, smaller than on other devices from the same manufacturer. The battery life is still very good, not far above the average. The standby time is especially impressive, thanks to the various optimizations of the Android OS. The bad thing about this smartphone is that it does not come with a fast charge option. This is not the end of the world; at least this device takes up to 15 hours of runtime, so it will easily face the daily tasks.
Camera
The Xiaomi Mi A1 has a dual-camera setup which is an extra feature for a mid-range smartphone. It is the first brand that offers a 2x lossless optical zoom in its segment.
The camera is made of a 12 MP wide-angle lens and another one of 12 MP telephoto lens; they are also accompanied by a dual-tone LED flash.
In ideal lighting conditions, the camera takes superb portraits, with natural-looking colors. Most photos had clearly defined edges, and the perfect optimized blurring. The landscape mode helps you to take impressive and accurate color reproduction photos with good sharpness.
On the other hand, in low light conditions, the photos are not capturing all the details and have some excessive noise creeps. Unlike the daylight taken photos, the night mode photos won’t capture the colors well.
The portrait mode is not the same in the two lighting situations. If it is almost useless in low-light conditions, in the excellent light condition it makes amazing portraits. Unfortunately, there is a lack regarding the optical image stabilization. The photos taken with flash came out better, although many users prefer to take photos without.
The Mi A1 has phase detection auto-focus (PDAF), it sometimes takes a moment before locking the focus on the subject. Once focused on the subject it is accurate even in hard lighting conditions.
The front camera has 5MP and takes impressively good selfies. The face detection locks on to your face in a snap. The details are impressive in optimal lighting conditions, but it can’t be compared with other smartphone cameras. But if you do it in the right way, you will manage some incredible portraits and bokeh shots
The device offers intuitive controls and also includes different modes like manual, panorama, beautify, or group selfies.
Overall, leaving aside the low-light performance, the results of the dual camera on this device won’t disappoint you.
Conclusions
The Xiaomi Mi A1 feels like a premium device and is pretty solid. The smartphone has an elegant metallic design, is thin and lightweight, and it fits perfectly in the palm.
We can easily say that this smartphone is one of the best-looking devices from Xiaomi.
The Mi A1 gave impressive affordability, which makes it difficult to criticize.
Android One or not, we can say that the Mi A1 is an accomplished device. This smartphone is a device on which you can count on, especially if you like the design, thanks to the guaranteed updates of the operating system.
This phone has positive and negative traits, like the infrared that works easily with a lot of home appliances via the Mi Remote app, but unfortunately has no reading mode and the NFC. This device shows that we can’t have everything at once. We have the single mono loudspeaker which is loud and clear even with the headphones plugged in and the call quality on this phone is above average.
These being said, you can buy it from Banggood or Gearbest and all I can say is to enjoy it.
