Xiaomi Redmi 6A Review
Design of Xiaomi Redmi 6A
Your eyes will go to the screen first. This time Xiaomi has made the 18:9 screen a part of the initial budget. The front panel of the phone is giving a plain and simple look. The edges of the screen are slightly curved, which looks nice. The display is not completely bezel-less. There are still plenty of bezels on the top, bottom and sides. But the overlock look is quite sleek. The body of Redmi 6A is plastic. There is nothing shocking in this. Redmi 6A will be available in Black, Blue, Gold and Rose Gold colors. The black unit we received for review looks good. But during use, fingerprints definitely appeared on its back.
The camera is slightly raised on the back panel. The weight of Xiaomi Redmi 6A is 145 grams. The power and volume up and down buttons are on the right side, fingers can easily reach the buttons. There is a 3.5 mm headphone jack on the upper part of the phone and a micro-USB port on the lower part. The speaker is at the bottom on the back. This means that ringtones or alerts will not sound clearly when placed on a bed or any other surface. You will not find a fingerprint sensor on the back panel of this phone. However, in this budget, in smartphones of other companies, you have been given fingerprint sensor for security. There are two separate trays on the left. One is for a single nano SIM card and the other has a slot for a nano-SIM and a separate microSD card.
Specifications and software of Xiaomi Redmi 6A
Xiaomi has not used Qualcomm 400 series chipset in this phone but has used the new Helio A22 processor of MediaTek brand. This is the first chipset of MediaTek’s new Helio A series. It is made with 12nm process. That means better battery life is expected. It is possible to use 4G data from any SIM in Redmi 6A. But only one SIM will support VoLTE HD at a time, no matter which slot it is in. Based on storage, Redmi 6A has two variants – 16 GB and 32 GB. Both variants come with 2 GB RAM. Our review unit had 16GB of storage. We have the 16 GB RAM variant available for review. We found that after pre-installed apps, only 10 GB was available for use on the phone. The phone has support for microSD card up to 256 GB. The 18:9 screen is 5.45 inches. Its resolution is 720×1440 pixels. A 3,000 mAh battery is provided for power backup.
You will already get UC Browser, Chrome and Xiaomi’s default browser, Facebook, Amazon, PhonePe, Netflix, Opera and other third party apps in the phone. The phone has a Facemoji keyboard which is equipped with emoji, stickers, GIF, themes and more. Apart from this, you will get Microsoft apps in the phone. Mi Music and Mi Video are packed with promotional content. Spam is also present in the Gallery app, after playing the recorded video, we saw a screen suggesting Hungama videos. You will see full screen advertisements in Theme apps, Storage Cleaner function in Settings app and Security app. After seeing so many advertisements, we were definitely a little disappointed. It would be wrong to say that the MIUI interface is not good. Features like UI customization option, clone apps, display color range adjustment, gestures etc. will be available in it.
Performance, battery life and camera of Xiaomi Redmi 6A
This budget smartphone of Xiaomi will not disappoint you if you use it. The phone becomes a little slow after switching from one app to another and closing the app. You can use messages and other apps a second or two after they load. Sometimes one or two apps took some time to start. If you want, you can hide the onscreen Android navigation buttons and use gestures instead. But according to us these are very slow. The keyboard also bothered me at times. But Google’s Gboard is already installed. Only 2 GB RAM is not enough for Android.
The screen size is good enough for playing videos and games. We did not face any problem in the viewing angle of Xiaomi Redmi 6A. The sound of the speaker on the back panel is not very good. Redmi 6A has got a score of 61,053 in AnTuTu, 765 in single-core test of Geekbench and 2,306 in multi-core test. It got a score of 20fps in the GFXBench T-Rex test, although 3D games do not run well on the phone. It scored 5,451 in the 3D Mark Ice Storm Extreme test and 453 in the Longshot test.
A 3,000 mAh battery is provided for power backup. Redmi 6A lasted for 13 hours 22 minutes. The credit for this will go to processor and MIUI optimization. In normal use, its battery will support you throughout the day. If you do not use the phone a lot then the battery will last for about one and a half days. On the other hand, it takes about 3 hours for the battery to be charged from zero to full. For connectivity, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth version 4.2 and GPS. Redmi 6A runs on MIUI 9.6 which is based on Android 8.1 Oreo. Our review unit had received the August 2018 security patch. At present, no information is available regarding Android 9.0 Pie update. In use, Redmi 6A did not disappoint most of the time. Lag was felt at times. But there is nothing very troublesome in this. It takes approximately 3 hours for the phone to charge from 0 to full.
The camera quality of low cost phones is not that great. If you want to capture great photos then this phone is not the best for you. This phone is perfect for those who just need to click and share the original photo on social media and messaging apps. There is a 13 megapixel camera on the rear. It is equipped with F/2.2 aperture and PDAF. Our sample shots came out fine. Details were satisfactory and focus was sharp. There were some shots in which it was clearly visible that the focus was not locked at the perfect spot. Small bright objects or parts of the frame appeared blurry. Generally the colors were bright and vibrant.
At night, we had to take special care of things like remaining steady while taking photos and preventing the phone from shaking. The pictures came out fine when there was a source of light nearby. In low light areas the photos became completely black. We found that the Redmi 6A takes about a second or two to save photos, no matter the conditions. You will be able to record videos up to 1080 pixel resolution. But these are shakey and slightly jerky records. Photos taken in bright sunlight came out unnatural and overly sharp. The performance of the 5 megapixel front camera is satisfactory. The pictures are of entry level quality only. The camera app has features like time lapse and panorama mode.
our decision
If seen, Redmi 6A is a good update of Redmi 5A. Redmi 6A has a longer screen and better processor. The price tag of Rs 5,999 is also tempting, especially considering the weakening rupee. But the Redmi 5A’s price of Rs 4,999 was more attractive. This is also the “introductory” price of Redmi 6A. We don’t know how long the price will remain like this. In Redmi 6A, you will not get 3 GB RAM and 32 GB variant but 2 GB RAM and 16 GB storage. If you are willing to spend a little more money, you will get the 3 GB RAM and 32 GB storage variant of Redmi 6 with a better processor and fingerprint sensor. As far as challenges are concerned, Redmi 6A is much better than other phones of its price. Be it Coolpad Mega 5A or the more expensive Honor 7S. We would say that even if the price of this phone is Rs 1,000 more, it is still a better option.
