Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A (Y1) review

A 13MP main camera with PDAF

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A's main camera has a 13MP sensor sitting behind f/2.2 lens. Phase-detection autofocus is available, and there is a single LED flash.

The camera interface features toggles for HDR, and flash on the left.

There are 17 filters available with live previews. The camera also offers quite a few different shooting modes - Panorama, Timer, Audio, Straighten, Manual, Beautify, Group Shot, Tilt Shift, and Night (HHT) as well as the camera settings. Unfortunately, the Manual mode lets you tweak only ISO (100-3200), and white balance, but not shutter speed or focus.

The camera app

The image quality is good - photos are sharp and with enough detailed. The colors are true to life, though sometimes a bit muted. There is noise, but considering the f/2.2 aperture, the levels are just fine for the class. The dynamic range is nothing to talk about, although it did manage to surprise us in more demanding scenes where the regular samples turned out better than the overexposed HDR ones.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A 13MP camera samples

The Redmi Note 5A low-light shots came out soft in a variety of scenes. You can see what's in the picture, just don't expect much detail when you zoom in. There is a lot of noise, sometimes we also got blurry images due to the lack of stabilization, but those still would do for the social networks.

If you leave the automatic HHT mode enabled (in Settings) - it enhances the low-light samples - you will get slightly less noise in the images but most of the samples won't benefit from much more detail or higher contrast. But the improvement is far from the striking results on other Redmis and considering the high risk of a blurry image, we'd suggest this time around to leave the auto low-light enhancement off.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A 13MP low-light samples

And here is a quick comparison between regular and auto-enhanced images.

Regular • HHT • Regular • HHT

You can capture only portrait panoramic photos with a 180-degree field of view. Shooting is easy and the resolution about 5MP (up 1,200px tall). The image quality is OK - there is enough resolved detail, accurate colors, and no signs of bad stitching. The dynamic range and the contrast are quite good.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A panorama

You should check how the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A does against the Redmi 5 and Redmi Note 4 in our Photo Compare Tool. We've pre-selected these two, but you are free to pick any other phone to compare it against.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A vs. Redmi 5 vs. Redmi Note 4 in our photo compare tool

Selfies

The 16MP selfie camera is probably one of the highlights of the Redmi Note 5A a.k.a. Redmi Y1. The selfie samples came out with enough detail, though a little bit noisy, but with high contrast, and pleasant colors. The dynamic range is about average.

We noticed that there is a specific distance at which your face will be in full focus and this distance is rather close to the phone. If you miss the sweet spot, your face will not be tack sharp.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A 16MP selfie samples

Video recording

The Redmi Note 5A's video recording maxes out at 1080p@30fps mode. Those are captured at a bitrate of 31Mbps and have rock solid 30fps. The audio is stereo captured at 96KBps bitrate.

The video quality is rather good - the resolved detail is enough, the dynamic range is about the average, the colors and contrast are very good. The noise is kept quite low, too. The sound is pretty bad - first, if the subjects aren't close to you, the sound won't be captured at all. Then, there are traces of compression, and you'll notice that it gets even worse with loud sound sources (loud music, crowds, cars honking, etc.).

You can also download the 1080p@30fps (9s, 24MB) video sample taken straight off the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A.

Finally, you can use our Video Compare Tool to see how the Redmi Note 5A tacks against the Redmi 5 and Redmi Note 4 when it comes to video capturing.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A vs. Redmi 5 vs. Redmi Note 4 in our 1080p video compare tool