Xiaomi Redmi 5A review after 1 month of usage

It is almost a month now that I am using Redmi 5A, by Xiaomi, India’s number one smartphone brand. Don’t accuse me of promoting Xiaomi, as it is the company, which claims so. After using the device for almost 1 month, it is the time that I can give the Redmi 5A review to my beloved users, such that you can take your decision of purchasing it. Redmi 5A is not a high-end smartphone, but a low budget smartphone, which fulfills the requirement of the majority of Indian smartphone users. Don’t expect too much from the device, as it is not meant for that.

Looking at the price range, the Redmi 5A is meant for everyday usage, taking some shots, playing some small games, and for the purpose of communication. And trust me, it does its job quite well. I won’t complain. But it is worth knowing the features, the pros and cons of the device before you actually pay the money to Xiaomi for this product. The verdict might vary, but after all, you can get the pros and cons, which is valuable. So why further discussions! Let’s move on to our Redmi 5A review.

Xiaomi Redmi 5A review

Box contents

First, let us have a look at the box contents.

• The Redmi 5A smartphone
• 1 regular power brick for charging.
• 1 USB cable, for charging and data syncing.
• 1 SIM ejector tool.
• Manual and warranty information.

That’s almost available on almost all the smartphones available within this budget. No, there isn’t any earphone. You have to purchase it separately.

Features

Though the Redmi 5A aka. Mi 5A is aggressively priced, it comes with almost all the features which you will probably need at this price segment. The handset comes with 5 inches IPS LCD display, along with the 720×1280 pixels resolution. The screen to body ratio is roughly 69%. The device comes with an aluminum body with glass in front. The handset weighs about 137 grams, which is pretty good and won’t be for your pocket.

It comes with two storage variants viz. the 3GB RAM and 32 GB internal memory, and 2 GB RAM and 16 GB internal memory variant. I am using the 2 GB RAM and 16 GB internal memory variant. In both the cases, you can expand the storage up to 256 GB with the help of a dedicated external SD card.

It comes with Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 chipset, which is pretty good at the price it is offered and comes with Android 7.1.2 Nougat, and MIUI 9.0 running on top of it. Moving on to the camera it has a 13-megapixel rear-facing the camera, with LED flash, and the secondary or front camera has a 5-megapixel shooter. The rear camera is capable of recording videos at 1080p with 30 frames per second. One thing I like about the device is that it comes with a noise cancellation microphone at the top of it.

Moving on to the communication part, it supports for 4G on both the SIM slots, but you cannot use 4G on both the SIM slots at the same time. The other SIM has to be set to 2G, EDGE or 3G. It comes with Wi-Fi b/g/n, and do not have support for dual-band Wi-Fi. That is quite expected from a device at this price range. The device has a 3,000 mAh battery, and sadly not support fast charging. The port for data syncing and charging is actually a MicroUSB one and is not a type C port. One of the unique features of Redmi smartphones is the presence of IR, and Redmi 5A is not an exception to that.

The stock power adapter has an output of 5 Volt 1 Ampere, which means, it is just a normal charger, without any kind of support for fast charging.

 

Pros

Now that you have come to know the features of the device let’s have a look at its pros.

• The visibility of the screen is quite good, and you won’t have to struggle to have a look at your screen even under direct sunlight. Yes, it also comes with auto brightness to save battery whenever necessary.
• The 3000 mAh battery isn’t too good, but it can easily last you for a day if you do not do a lot of heavy tasks with it. I can easily cope with the battery for a single day by doing WhatsApp, Facebook and calls all the day long.
• The user interface or the MIUI comes with a lot of features, and a few of them are really handy for me. I’m sure it will be handy for most users out there.
• The infrared module works pretty well along with the Mi Remote. But if you need more functionalities, you can always choose a third-party remote control app, like ZaZa remote, if you need to.
• The device does not have support for fast charging, but the charging takes almost 2-2.5 hours, while I am using the stock power brick. That’s not a very large duration though.
• The Redmi 5A comes with a pretty good camera, and you cannot expect anything better than this at this price point. I will really not complain about the camera quality if looked at the price. The 5-megapixel rear-facing camera performs really great, and you can see some sample shots here.

Front Artificial Lighting

Front Natural Lighting

Rear Natural Lighting

 

Rear Artificial Lighting With Flash

Rear Artificial Lighting Without Flash

Redmi 5A rear outdoor light camera samples

 

• Signal reception is always an important niche for smartphones. Trust me the signal reception is really good. Even I can get signals on the most congested areas on my Jio SIM when most other users on the same network face some network issues.
• The mono speaker is placed at the back, and the sound is pretty loud, and you can even hear it from a distance. Make sure you set a high-frequency ringtone for the best results while receiving a call.
• The USB OTG functionality works pretty well. I attached my flash drive, external hard drive, and other input devices. They simply worked like a charm.

Cons

Now let’s have a look at the cons. All the electronics come with some cons, and Redmi 5A is not from the moon. It also has its own cons.

• The first one which I noticed was with the MIUI. It lags, though not a lot, when there are multiple apps installed on it. But the problem is resolved partially, as I have switched to a new launcher. The Microsoft launcher, as I’m quite comfortable with it. After that though, there aren’t any such issues.
• Most people love listening to music on their smartphones, which they use for their everyday purposes. The Redmi 5A comes with a really good stock sound equalizer. But due to improper RAM management, the sound quality becomes ridiculous suddenly, once the equalizer is cleared from the RAM for loading a new app.
• There isn’t any inbuilt battery saver mode, which is available on most smartphones nowadays which come with a medium battery. 3,000 mAh battery is pretty good, but I wish there was a dedicated power saving mode.
• The speaker is placed at the back blocks the sound, when the device is placed on the bed, or any other similar surface. It might not be a con for all, as it is normal with most smartphones with the speaker at the back.
• There is likely a bug in the MI account, which might not integrate the email ID and phone number for registration to a single account. I don’t know whether every user faces this issue or not. But I will literally screw up when I was unable to log in even with the correct credentials after a factory reset. But using the mobile number for getting the password reset link, solved the issue.

They were pretty much the cons.

My verdict

There isn’t any doubt, you cannot get a full set of functionalities with a smartphone which is priced at around Rs. 6,000. So I kept gaming or other heavy tasks out of the picture. Though you can always play some small games like Angry Birds, Pocket Tanks, Temple Run, Subway Surfers, 8 Ball Pool on Redmi 5A smoothly. You can even keep one big game, as the internal memory is limited. Do not expect too much from any high-end game, as it is almost impossible to handle by the Snapdragon 425 Chipset which is really an entry-level SoC, not meant for gaming. If you are planning to get a smartphone for everyday usage, go for it. But do not go for some high-end activities, and it is even not meant for the power users.

What do you think about the Redmi 5A? How happy are you with the device? Let me know about it in the comment section down below.

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