Xiaomi had recently announced the 5X in China which was their first budget device to come with dual cameras. Today, on 4th September, Xiaomi held a global event in India where they launched the A1 which is the same 5X but with stock Android or precisely Android One. This is the first device from Xiaomi to be launched with Stock UI and in partnership with Google's Android One project.
Specifications:
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| Mi A1 in Black |
Specifications:
- 5.5 inch 1080p (1920 × 1080) IPS LCD display and 403 ppi with Corning Gorilla Glass protection
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 SOC with 8 Cortex A53 cores clocked at 2.0gHz and based on 14nm process
- Adreno 506 GPU with 650MHz frequency and 130 GFlops
- 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage
- Dual 12MP rear cameras with dual LED flash. One sensor has f/2.2 aperture with 1.25 micron pixel size and the other with f/2.6 aperture and 1.0 micron pixel size. The second sensor is a telephoto lens
- Rear camera capable of 4K video recording at 30FPS
- 5MP front camera
- 3080 / 3000 mAh battery with fast charging at 5V and 2A
- Bluetooth 4.2, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac and supports dual band i.e 2.4 and 5gHz.
- GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS
- 3.5mm headphone jack, USB type-C port
- 7.3 mm thickness and weighs 165g
- Rear mounted fingerprint sensor and IR blaster
- Hybrid SIM slot with either 2 Nano SIM or single SIM and an sdcard
- Android 7.1.2 with Stock UI
The MiA1 as said earlier is based on Android One running stock UI. The MiUi has had loyal fans and Xiaomi is still pertaining to it. With the A1, Xiaomi has also catered to those who prefer vanilla Android with no bloat and faster updates. The main advantage lies in the faster monthly Security patches and the update to Android O which Xiaomi has promised will be available soon.
On the design front, it comes with metal unibody design and comes in 3 colours i.e Black, Gold and Rose Gold. The fingerprint sensor is located at the rear and the dual camera setup seems quite similar to the OnePlus 5. Infact the combination of dual cameras also remain the same with the second sensor consisting of a telephoto lens to provide 2X optical zoom (lossless zoom). Xiaomi has focussed a lot on camera and have been highlighting them a lot. The Practical usage does seem promising however more testing needs to be done. It also comes with a Portrait Mode and based on sample shots from Xiaomi, they do a great job considering the segment and pricing. The front facing sensor is of 5MP.
The Mi A1 being sleak at 7.3mm, battery capacity had to be sacrificed to 3080 from the regular 4000 mAh provided by Xiaomi in most other devices. Although, 3080mAh is not less and considering stock UI with highly efficient Snapdragon 625 SOC, it should be able to suffice a full working day depending on your usage. Performance wise, the 625 was great on the Redmi Note 4 and with the added combo of Stock Android and 625 SOC, there has to be no issues even with heavy usage.
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| Availability in different countries |
With the A1 Xiaomi has decided to launch it in many other matkets in the Middle East, Europe, South East Asia and so on therby expanding their markets.
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| Offline retailers in India |
Also, in India Xiaomi has partnered with many offline retailers like Croma, Vijay Sales, etc. to sell the Mi A1 indicating aggressive nature from Xiaomi to take on the offline markets too apart from being online only. This time Xiaomi has partnered with Flipkart for the online sale apart from being available via Mi.com.
The first sale will be on September 12th and the Mi A1 retails for Rs. 14999.
With this pricing and features, Xiaomi has upscaled the level of competition in the budget segment and with the recently launched Motorola G5s Plus, the A1 is a perfect contender.
Image source: Mi India Twitter profile