Mi A1: Xiaomi’s midrange champ

Xiaomi surely offers some of the best smartphones within the affordable range. The latest entrant to their lineup is the Mi A1 with a dual camera and stock Android by ditching MIUI — an Android One. The Mi A1 definitely has an aesthetic appeal that will attract eyeballs — it looks different from most designs out there. The smooth and smudgeresistant rear coating now makes the work of griping and flaunting the phone an absolute pleasure to behold.

The Mi A1 sports a 5.5inch LCD display with wide viewing angles and adequate brightness, though colour reproduction could have been better. Xiaomi has used the tried-and-tested Snapdragon 625 SoC as it is one of the most efficient midrange chipsets with a balanced battery life and optimal performance. This brain is aided by 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage as a standard. With a near stock Android Nougat 7.1.2 on this setup and some clever optimisation, you could be in for almost flagship-class performance. Xiaomi promises an Oreo update before the year-end along with timely security updates (we received the August security patch during our time with the A1). A good overall performance is aided by a 3080mAh battery that manages to drive last a day under casual usage scenarios. We feel that the A1 is on par with the flagship Google Pixel as far as UI experience is concerned.

The A1’s USP is its 12MP + 12MP camera setup that takes decent photos in portrait mode. Under broad daylight conditions, the camera performs well; but the same cannot be said for low light conditions — the pictures start picking up noise as usual with most cameras out there. If you have a fair budget of around `14,999 and are looking for a phone that can satisfy you as an daily driver, we would definitely suggest you add the Mi A1 to your shopping list.