Xiaomi Mi A1 (5X) Unboxing Review

Categories Smartphones

Xiaomi Mi A1

$199.99
5.9

Design

7.0/10

Build Quality

8.0/10

Performance and UI

8.0/10

Photos (Day)

8.0/10

Photos (Night)

4.0/10

Video Quality

6.0/10

Battery Life

0.0/10

The Good

  • Solid metal build
  • Great fingerprint reader placement
  • Vibrant and bright screen
  • Fast day-to-day performance
  • Stock Android is fluid and smooth
  • GPS, bluetooth and Wi-Fi all work
  • Real 4K video

The Bad

  • Tons of regulatory text muck up the design of the back of the phone
  • Backlight bleeds around capacitive buttons
  • No camera stabilisation whatsoever
  • 2x Zoom Lens does not work in low light
  • Single bottom firing speaker is tinny
  • Audio when filming videos is garbled by aggressive noise reduction

The Xiaomi Mi A1 (5X) is a mid-tier smartphone with decent specifications and a metal build. At a budget price of $200, the phone offers some features found mostly on advanced smartphones: a secondary back camera for optical zoom, fingerprint unlock and stock Android. There are a few places that Xiaomi can improve for its next iteration: for example, the camera is virtually unusable in low light due to its lack of optical stabilization. Also, the secondary zoom camera lens does not work in low light; the camera app defaults to the main camera with digital zoom (likely so that it is not as blurry from camera shake). The design could also be refined: thinner bezels, less regulatory text on the back of the phone and no backlight bleed from the hardware capacitive buttons would be welcome changes. Overall this is a decent phone from a company who has experience making solid budget devices.

Note: make sure you check compatibility with your local network, otherwise this phone may not function.

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