Xiaomi Redmi 5A review

After using redmi 5A for couple of weeks, now it is time for me to do the review, so here's xiaomi redmi 5A full review, i hope this review can help you decided whether redmi 5A is good or not.

Built Quality

Let's talk about built quality first, honestly i was surprised with the built quality of xiaomi redmi 5A, for a budget oriented smartphone the redmi 5A built quality is actually very good. The phone feels solid in the hand even though made out of plastic material. 

Compared with the previous model, the redmi 5A built quality is a lot better, redmi 4A built quality is not as good as redmi 5A in my opinion, despite having the same hardware specs.

The Display

Just like redmi 4A, the redmi 5A still uses the same 5 inch display with HD 720p resolution, i would say the display is okay for budget oriented smartphone, it's not terrible but it's not great either. If you have a flagship smartphone and then take a look at redmi 5A display, you can see that the difference between flagship vs budget oriented is like night and day.

The Performance

The performance of redmi 5A is quite good considering the price, i do experience slow down and even crash but this probably software issue. Gaming experience is decent, most of the popular game are playable on redmi 5A, but there are some games that won't run at all on redmi 5A.

The snapdragon 425 chipset is performing very well for daily use and the battery life is also great, even though redmi 5A have less battery capacity than the previous model redmi 4A.

There are two variant of redmi 5A, the 2GB RAM + 16 GB storage version and the 3GB RAM + 32 GB storage. I highly recommend the 3GB RAM + 32 GB storage version, but the price might be slightly higher.

One thing that missing on redmi 5A (and the previous model as well) is the lack of fingerprint sensor, but it's alright, this is a low budget phone after all. If you want fingerprint sensor then go for the standard redmi 5 or redmi 5 plus.

The Camera

Xiaomi claims that the camera on redmi 5A is equal or even better than their flagship model xiaomi mi6, of course this is not true, a budget phone can't beat flagship model. The photo coming out of redmi 5A rear camera is not bad, under good light condition it can produce excellent images, but like most budget smartphone, the camera produce a lot of noise under low light situation.

For movie recording, xiaomi redmi 5A can record full HD 1080p video, the quality is not very good though, like most xiaomi phones the video has focus hunting issue when using continues auto focus. So i recommend to just use tap to focus all the time, the auto focus is not reliable on redmi 5A.

Conclusion

Xiaomi redmi 5A is an excellent budget oriented smartphone with $130 USD you get a nice 5 inch 720p display, snapdragon 425 with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, great battery life, great built quality for the price and overall great value for money. I highly recommend xiaomi redmi 5A if you are looking for budget friendly smartphone.

Xiaomi redmi 5A pros

• affordable price
• excellent build quality for the price
• great battery life
• good photo quality (main camera)
• global rom available
• real dual SIM slot (not hybrid SIM)
• micro SD slot

Xiaomi redmi 5A cons

• no fingerprint sensor
• lower battery capacity than the previous model (redmi 4A)
• focus hunting issue when recording video (CAF focus mode)
• standard micro USB (not USB type C)