Once Xiaomi had already started the pure Android series, which lasted from 2017 until 2019. The first was the Xiaomi Mi A1 phone, the global sibling of the Chinese Xiaomi Mi 5X. The "Mi A" series was created in the spirit of pure Android, which was a pillar of the Android ONE family back in the day. The series has survived up to 4 instances, the last one being the Xiaomi Mi A3, released in July 2019. Although the new phone is not a member of the Android ONE series, the Redmi A1 uses the same pure Android system without the MIUI interface and features.
The Redmi A1 could even be described as the cheapest Redmi phone currently available. Its cheapness is due to the weak hardware. But let's see what it is about weak hardware that brings the price down so much.
First of all, the processor is the MediaTek Helio A22.With a 2 GHz frequency, 16 nm manufacturing technology and four Cortex A53 cores, it's not a particularly fancy processor. Just to get you up to speed quickly, AnTuTu score is 79.125, which let's face it, even a gateway phone can deliver that kind of performance these days. The screen lives up to this, though it's quite large, 6.52″ in diameter, HD+ resolution (1600 x 720), LCD technology.
It's not short on memory and storage either, with 2 GB of the former and 32 GB of the latter. The latter can be supplemented with a MicroSD card up to 512 GB. Of course, this won't be at the expense of the SIM slot, as 2 Nano SIMs and a MicroSD can fit in the SIM tray.
It doesn't have a camera either, with a total of two on the back. The main camera has 8 MP resolution and only this one can be used for everything, as the other is a 2 MP depth sensor. And for selfies on the front, it's a 5 MP sensor, which I think is just enough. Although I can't say anything bad about the main camera either, as you can't put a better one in a lowbudget phone like this. It's plenty enough for what it's intended for.
And then let's talk about the positive features. The battery has a massive 5,000 mAh capacity, but you can only power it with a 10 W charge. This takes several hours. On the other hand, the immersion is undeniably slow. According to the factory, it has a 30-day standby time, 171 hours of music, 30 hours of video and 31.5 hours of 4G calling. That's not bad.
But I think the design makes up for it. It looks quite good, similar to the Xiaomi 12 series and has the now increasingly popular leather pattern back. Although the material is plain plastic, it does give it a premium feel.
The software it runs, as I mentioned above, is pure Android, the latest version 12 of which is also on it. The Redmi A1 eschews everything you've come to know about MIUI, I mean, the feature set. It has only Google stuff on it, nothing superfluous, nothing fancy. Almost like the Redmi GO, which used the even more puritanical Android GO system. It was a big flop.
Talking so much about price. The Redmi A1 is currently only Available in India, at a price of 6.499 Indian rupees, which is around 32.000 HUF. But why did I write about an Indian phone? Because the Redmi A1 is going to be released in Europe, but we don't know at what price yet. But we can expect a price below 50,000 HUF. As soon as I have updated info, I'll come with the details.
