Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A in for review

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A, aka Redmi Note Y1 in India, is the next phone we have that waits its turn to be thoroughly reviewed. It has modest specs with a Snapdragon 435 chipset and a 5.5” LCD screen with HD resolution, but the selfie camera has an impressive 16 MP sensor with f/2.0 lens. The phone costs around $150, and it doesn’t get any lower than that for a large-screen Xiaomi phone.

The phone might be cheap, but it doesn’t feel that cheap at all. Xiaomi has given a plastic body to the Redmi Note 5A that feels sturdy in hand and pleases the eyes. It has slight design elements like an antenna band through the camera setup and grill speakers on the bottom (only one is an actual speaker).

This version of the phone comes with a fingerprint scanner on the back, unlike the China-exclusive Redmi Note 5A (sold in India as the Redmi Y1 Lite).

The Snapdragon 435 is a 28nm process chipset that supports dual LTE. You can fully take advantage of this due to the extra long tray that has room for two SIM cards and one microSD. While it might not be the ideal SoC for power users, it should get you through the day thanks to the eight low-power Cortex-A53 CPU cores.

The user interface is latest MIUI 9.1 that comes with plenty of neat modes like picture-in-picture, dual screen mode and Smart Assistant, available with a left swipe from the home screen.

The selfie camera is the most prominent feature in the Redmi Note 5A. It is coupled with an LED flash for glamorous pictures of yourself. The user interface is stripped down to the basics, so getting the perfect selfie is quite easy.

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A is a splendid value-for-price phone. Its full review is already underway, so stay around.

Special thanks to HonorBuy for providing the review unit.