Xiaomi's Redmi 4A may be cheap and light but scores high on features and performance - Economic Times

Xiaomi has the Indian online market figured out. Case in point are the devices that sell in the lakhs and go out of stock in just a few minutes. The phones are literally selling faster than they can make them, despite the addition of a new manufacturing plant and a capacity that boasts of a speed of 1 phone per second. And you shouldn't forget about the rave reviews their phones are getting from the media and consumers. The reasons for this are simple and we can break it down to three pillars: consistent quality & attention to detail, a focus on the experience of using the product rather than pure specs and finally, disruptive pricing.

The Redmi 4A is the latest in the series of budget smartphones and another clear ex ample of how the company will take no prisoners when it comes to the competition. The price of this phone will have you believe that it is a 'budget' smartphone when it is, in fact, what many pass off as a mid-range device these days. Sure, it has a polycarbonate body — one of the couple of cost-saving measures — but it doesn't feel cheap or tacky. The unibody matte finish looks and feels nice plus the smaller size makes it easy to hold. There is a similarity with other Redmi phones and there are features you will not find at this price point. For instance, it has offscreen Android buttons, a customizable notification light, double tap to wake, reading mode, dual apps and even an infrared emitter for universal remote functions. It does have a lowerend processor so you will face a hiccup from time to time but it can still play many 3D games, record/playback 1080p video, photo editing and multi-task with ease. The camera is also a real surprise because that's where you expect a real compromise, especially at this price. We were blown away with the quality of images taken outdoors: there's some great detail, natural colour and depth of field happening here. Obviously you can't expect too much in tricky situations or low light. The front camera is a little soft on detail but still better than many at this price.

No complaints with the display either: it's a 720p HD display with a very respectable pixel density. It also gets very bright, shows off some good colour and is readable in sunlight. Finally, battery life is a very decent day and a half. The only couple of areas to nitpick: absence of Android button backlight, camera app and autofocus is sometimes laggy and the plastic shell (Redmi 3s with metal unibody is just `1,000 more, though admittedly, this is a large gap at this price point).

Redmi 4A is undoubtedly going to be another s uccess story, especially when you consider that other brands are selling similar spec phones for double the price! The Redmi 4A proves that you don't need to make extensive compromises just because you can only spend `6k on a smartphone.