Xiaomi Redmi 5A Review

Xiaomi's Redmi 4 and Redmi 4A have been a big shot in the arm for the Chinese brand in India. Both devices have done very well and it came as no surprise when the huge success of the Xiaomi Redmi 4A compelled the company to launch Redmi 5A. The company claimed that it sold about eight million units of the smartphone and in order to oblige its customers the company will be giving a discount of Rs 1,000 on first five million units of Redmi 5A. So, at the price of Rs 4,999, the smartphone becomes quite a good deal. The device offers a metal body design and comes with three card slots which are not found in many smartphones. We played around with the entry-level smartphone for a few days, and here's the rest of our review.
Design and Display

There is nothing extraordinary about the looks of Xiaomi Redmi 5A. The smartphone comes with a metallic design unlike its predecessor the Redmi 4A which came with a plastic body. The smartphone looks like any other entry level device. The matte finished metallic rear panel consists of the 13MP rear camera with LED flash and a Xiaomi branding. The bottom of the back panel also has the speaker grille. The smartphone doesn't come with a fingerprint sensor just like the Redmi 4A, which can be a turn off for many as brands are slowly integrating it in lesser-priced device as well. Other than this, like all Xiaomi smartphones this one also comes with an infrared sensor located on the top along with the 3.5mm audio jack. The other interesting feature of the device is the card slots. The smartphone comes with three card slots, this means that the users can use two SIM card and one microSD card at the same time. All the card slots are placed on the right side of the device. The left side offers the volume rockers and the power buttons. The front of the device is dominated by a 5-inch HD display, 5MP selfie camera and three capacitive keys placed on the bottom.

Coming to the display, the Xiaomi Redmi 5A sports a 5-inch HD display with 720x1280 pixel resolution. We had no problems with the display and it is pretty good considering that it is an entry level smartphone. During our time with the smartphone, we found the display to be good and it also offered decent colour reproduction. The viewing angles were also fine and we also have no issues with its visibility under direct sunlight. Like other Xiaomi smartphones, this one also offers a reading mode, which reduces the blue light emission of the display. Users can adjust that manually or can also set a timer to activate the mode.
All-in-all, we liked the design of Redmi 5A and an upgrade from plastic to metal is also impressive.

Performance and camera

The Xiaomi Redmi 5A is powered by a 1.4GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 processor paired with Adreno 308 GPU. The company has launched two variants of the smartphone - 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage and 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage. Our review unit was the 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage. Users can also add more storage to the device by adding a microSD card of up to 128GB.

During our testing, we found the performance to be reasonably good for an entry level smartphone. We were able to play basic games with ease and there was no lag there. Multi-tasking was also fine and device also didn't heat up after continuous usage. It offers everything in terms of performance that you would expect from a budget smartphone.

We also ran Antutu and GeekBench 4 tests on our device. While the phone scored 30,498 in Antutu Benchmarks, the single-core and multi-core scores on GeekBench 4 were 654 and 1722 respectively.

The audio experience was also nice but we also had a little problem when we played music on loudspeaker. The speaker is located on the rear panel so when the device is placed on a flat surface the audio gets blocked and the audio experience is hampered. The battery backup was sufficient and it lasted for about 12 hours on a single charge. The call quality and signal reception was satisfactory, however, the call were disconnected when we used it from basements or subways.

On the software front, the Xiaomi Redmi 5A runs Android 7.1 Nougat operating system topped with MIUI 9 UI layer of the company. This is the first smartphone of the company to come with MIUI 9 out-of-the box. The new UI layer brings some interesting features to the smartphone such as India specific theme, Indian holidays and festivals card under the calendar app, IRCTC Cards in Messaging App, Easy Ola cab and Paytm integration in App Vault feature and others. The device also comes with the second space found in other Xiaomi phones as well. With the help of second space, users can use two profiles under the same smartphone. Other than this, the device has all the standard Xiaomi apps.

The phone also comes pre-loaded with third-party apps such as Amazon Kindle, Facebook, MakeMyTrip and others.

The Xiaomi Redmi 5A boasts of a 13MP rear camera with LED flash and a 5MP front camera like the Redmi 4A. The camera app is quite basic and easy to use. The center has the shutter button and the photo and video buttons are located on the either sides of the shutter. Users can also use live filters and various shooting modes to capture the perfect shot.

Talking about the image quality, the Redmi 5A offers competent images. The images captured during daylight packs good amount of detailing and colour reproduction. However, the images captured indoor turned out to be grainy and saturated. On the other hand, the front camera was acceptable and you can further beautify your selfies with the help of the face beauty mode. The camera is capable of recording videos at both 1080p and 720p videos at 30fps.

Verdict

The Xiaomi Redmi 5A comes with a price tag of Rs 4,999, which makes it a good offering for those first-timers looking for a smartphone. The Redmi 5A has a lot going for it -- the device is powered by Qualcomm processor, offers 13MP camera and 3,120 mAh battery. The only missing point is the absence of fingerprint sensor. For those looking for alternative can consider buying the Nokia 2.