Good phone in our view is that one which gives performance, quality and satisfaction at reasonable price. Xiaomi Mi A2 is one of those breed and this is due to many reasons. We have tested Mi A2 since its official launch in Nepal. This new mobile is replacing the last year’s champion Mi A1. Mi A1 was very popular in this same price range. So this is our Xiaomi Mi A2 full review, benchmarks, impressions package article.
Build and Design
Compared to last year’s A1, Mi A2 is very slim this time. It now houses a 5.99″ IPS LCD screen with Gorilla Glass 5 protection. The body is very slim with arc shaped design at back and the thickness is nominal at the edges. It also packs the 3000 mAh battery inside. The body is thin so the camera modules protrudes out. We suggest you to get a thicker case and install tempered glass to be safe.
Xiaomi Mi A2 is a very beautiful phone to look and hold. The metallic body is sturdy and solid while the placements of buttons and fingerprint scanners are all perfect. It is a phone with big screen so you will need to maneuver the phone just as other big mobiles. There are no compromise in the build quality of this phone and the display also looks great. We give it a big thumbs up for that Gorilla Glass as well because most mid range phones don’t have that commodity. As always, our favorite one is the black color variant.
Specs
Before starting into the indepth review, lets have a look at the hardware specs of the Mi A2.
- 5.99″ IPS LCD Display with 1080×2160 resolution
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 Chipset
- 4 GB RAM and 64 GB internal storage
- 3000 mAh battery
- (12+20 MP) f/1.8 Rear Cameras
- 20 MP f/2.2 Front Primary camera
- Android Oreo 8.1 (Android One Stock)
Display
Mi A2 comes with a big 5.99″ IPS LCD screen with tall aspect ratio. Thus the resolution is 1080×2160 which is a FHD+ resolution. It has a pixel density of 403 ppi which is great in terms of quality. The picture quality, colors and brightness are all on point for a phone of this price. This screen is great for movie watching, YouTube video playback, web browsing and flipping though social media feed. The screen is top notch sharp and has good color reproduction. There are other features such as Night Light which is blue light filter and this also works fine. We always expect a mobile to have 1080p screen at this price point and Xiaomi has also got this point.
Processing Power and Performance
Internal hardware of this new smartphone is also pretty great. Xiaomi Mi A2 is running with new 14 nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 chipset. It is very popular in mid range phones these days. This board comes with octa core processor that consists of two quad core chips. One is 2.2 GHz and next is 1.8 Ghz Kyro 260 chip. In Nepal, we are just getting 4 GB RAM model with 64 GB storage. This is quite enough for mid range work load. We did many benchmarks to get some data and clearly used it extensively for checking day to day usage. Everything holds up really good. The phone is very fast and the RAM is sufficient for almost all multitasking jobs. It is running with famous and most lovely Android One OS which gives advantage over other.
Mi A2 has stock Android so there are less bloatware and it get updates directly from Google. It is pretty similar to Pixel 2 mobile. The processor is also very good and it can be seen in camera because it supports 4K video recording as well. Xiaomi Mi A2 runs very smoothly because of both the Android One software and well crafted hardware.
Camera
Mid range phones are famous for being well balanced but Xiaomi Mi A2 is more than that. It has a very interesting camera. At the back side, there is dual cameras setup which includes 12 MP and 20 MP f/1.8 sensors. The 12 MP sensor size is 1.25µm while the 20 MP sensor size is 1.0µm. These both play equally in photography according to day and night time. There is a switching mechanism through which the camera app switches between these sensors during day and night. In Day time, one sensor is used for detail and next works for depth sensing but at night the role reverses. At the front there is 20 MP f/2.2 camera which also gives absolutely high resolution selfies.
The best feature we like is having 4K video recording in a mid range phone and next is manual mode. Mi A2 has both of them and its really good. We took a lot of photos in different modes and they amazed us. It took photos better than our expectation and they are included in our review video. The details, HDR quality, background blur on Portrait and low light were absolutely amazing. Day light shots are mind blowing sharp, crispy and vivid and even the night shots are very good for phone of this price. Most budget and mid range phones give up at low light but Mi A2 held its head high.
Features, Battery and Experience
The most important and attractive thing of this phone is Android One. Many of us tech enthusiasts love Stock Android. Xiaomi Mi A2 get guaranteed update for 2 years from Google and it is stock. The experience is super fluid and everything is super clean and snappy. Very less phone have such good software and Mi A2 is one of then.
On features side, Mi A2 has almost all the sensors such as fingerprint scanner, gyrosensor, compass and as a good Xiaomi phone there is IR Blaster. We always love this feature on a smartphone because it makes a one stop device. There is USB Type C and also fast charge support. It has all the best things we can ask but we do miss the headphone jack and micro SD card support. Company does pack a USB Type-C to 3.5 mm adapter but a separate one is always more appreciated. Other than that everything in the phone shines and performs really well.
We tested many games, multitasking, switching different apps, long hours of social media and internet browsing and everything was very good. The battery is just 3000 mAh so that is a bit small. It does last for quite a good time and provides more than hours of screen on time. But with fast charging support, we are happy.
Xiaomi Mi A2 Final Impressions and Verdict
In our test Mi A2 passed our expectation. It encompasses solid build, new processor, sufficient RAM and storage, good battery and amazing camera all governed by a clean software. Every aspect of the phone is to the standard according to the price. There are just few messing edges but it doesn’t affect that much for many people.
For most part, we liked its Android One software experience and the camera. Xiaomi Mi A2 is a great mid range option for anyone at this budget. We hope they make this series more amazing next time as well.
