Xiaomi Redmi 4a review: Economy Basic

Performance

We'll be frank here - it's more or less impossible for us to say anything positive about the Snapdragon 425 and Adreno 308 setup inside the Redmi 4a. The MIUI 8 ROM might be working overtime to smooth things over, but four 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 cores are simply not enough to drive a fluent and satisfactory Android experience in 2017.

The lack of performance is probably the biggest beef we have with the Redmi 4a. Long-time readers might remember our customary review comments on UI fluidity and smoothness from a few years ago. We really thought we had left these in the past for good, but we simply can't gloss over the fact that the Redmi 4a stutters and slows down from time to time.

GeekBench 4 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  4456
• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  3016
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  3011
• Meizu M5 Note
  2690
• Meizu M5s
  2480
• Meizu M5
  2428
• Lenovo K6 Power
  1698
• Xiaomi Redmi 4a
  1670

GeekBench 4 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  1546
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  832
• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  819
• Meizu M5 Note
  683
• Xiaomi Redmi 4a
  658
• Meizu M5s
  610
• Lenovo K6 Power
  610
• Meizu M5
  592

On a slightly more positive note, 2GB of RAM appears to be more than adequate for MIUI to stretch its legs. If you are patient enough with loading times, multitasking, as in keeping a few apps open in memory, isn't really an issue. Looking at some compound benchmarks, like AnTuTu and Basemark OS II, we can get a better look at the overall experience the Redmi 4a provides, or in this case, doesn't.

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  85162
• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  62316
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  61616
• ZUK Z1
  54884
• Huawei Honor 5c
  51220
• Meizu M5 Note
  47806
• Lenovo K6 Power
  44115
• Meizu M5
  40831
• Meizu M5s
  39166
• Xiaomi Redmi 4a
  36110
• Samsung Galaxy On7 Pro
  28025
• Samsung Galaxy On5 Pro
  26462
• Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016)
  24884

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  1464
• Xiaomi Mi 4
  1324
• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  1296
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  1290
• ZUK Z1
  1285
• Meizu M5 Note
  944
• Meizu M5
  846
• Meizu M5s
  842
• Xiaomi Redmi 4a
  801
• Asus Zenfone Selfie ZD551KL
  774
• Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016)
  399

As for the Adreno 308 GPU, it is arguably even less impressive than the four Cortex-A53 CPU cores. Despite being a pretty new chip, announced around the beginning of 2016, it lacks most modern mobile GPU features, like Open CL 2.0 or any newer OpenGL ES, beyond 3.0. The latter almost certainly rules out a future update to Android 7 Nougat or beyond.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  13666
• ZUK Z1
  13596
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  12096
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  10446
• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  10424
• Huawei Honor 5c
  7735
• Lenovo K6 Power
  7475
• Meizu M5 Note
  5276
• Asus Zenfone Selfie ZD551KL
  4915
• Meizu M5
  4767
• Meizu M5s
  4646
• Xiaomi Redmi 4a
  3335
• Samsung Galaxy On7 Pro
  2162
• Samsung Galaxy On5 Pro
  2059
• Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016)
  1424

Basemark X (medium)

Higher is better

• ZUK Z1
  25398
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  23300
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  21078
• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  20921
• Huawei Honor 5c
  16171
• Lenovo K6 Power
  15286
• Meizu M5 Note
  11983
• Meizu M5
  11303
• Meizu M5s
  8915
• Xiaomi Redmi 4a
  6251
• Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016)
  4605
• Samsung Galaxy On7 Pro
  4014
• Samsung Galaxy On5 Pro
  3973

The Redmi 4a struggles quite badly with most modern games. It's GPU is clearly not meant for any advanced graphics work beyond running a UI. Even the 720p resolution of the phone's panel doesn't really help with on-screen frame rates all that much. 5.7 frames is hardly an achievement, nor "playable", as the term goes, by any stretch of the imagination.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• ZUK Z1
  28
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  15
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  15
• Xiaomi Mi 4
  11.6
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  9.9
• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  9.8
• Huawei Honor 5c
  7.8
• Lenovo K6 Power
  7.1
• Meizu M5 Note
  5.5
• Asus Zenfone Selfie ZD551KL
  5.3
• Meizu M5
  5.2
• Meizu M5s
  4.5
• Xiaomi Redmi 4a
  2.8
• Samsung Galaxy On7 Pro
  1.8
• Samsung Galaxy On5 Pro
  1.7

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• ZUK Z1
  28
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  15
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  15
• Xiaomi Mi 4
  11.3
• Meizu M5
  10
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  9.7
• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  9.6
• Meizu M5s
  9.2
• Huawei Honor 5c
  8.3
• Lenovo K6 Power
  7.1
• Xiaomi Redmi 4a
  5.7
• Meizu M5 Note
  5.5
• Asus Zenfone Selfie ZD551KL
  5.3
• Samsung Galaxy On5 Pro
  4
• Samsung Galaxy On7 Pro
  3.8

Circling back to our original point, cost argument aside, we really can't think of anything good to say about the Redmi 4a performance-wise. So, we'll just leave it at that.

Audio output is surprisingly good

The Xiaomi Redmi 4a demonstrated perfectly clean output when hooked up to an active external amplifier. Its loudness was above average too, adding up to a performance better than the price tag suggests.

We were even more impressed to find out that headphones do next to no damage to the clarity or the loudness of the output. In fact, the humble Redmi 4a has better output with headphones than most of the handsets we've tested recently and none of them are even close to matching its cost.

Xiaomi Redmi 4a frequency response

You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.