Lately, the smartphone market has seen a massive price hike due to the unstable dollar market.
In the good old days, we would have been able to buy the Snapdragon 680-powered 4GB+64GB version of Redmi 10C at Tk13,999. But those days are long gone.
For some time, there were not many official smartphones one could buy for only Tk10,000 or Tk12,000 that would be able to handle day-to-day tasks.
Thankfully, smartphone manufacturers found a way to offer smartphones within this price range yet again like Xiaomi's Redmi A1 Plus.
The 3GB RAM and 32GB storage version of Redmi A1 Plus costs Tk11,999 in Bangladesh currently.
Aesthetics
Redmi A1 Plus is available in three colours in Bangladesh — Light Blue, Light Green and Black.
With a weight of 192 grams, the 9.1mm thick phone has an 81.0% screen-to-body ratio.
The placement of buttons and the headphone jack seemed ok to me, which came as a shock since Xiaomi is well known for putting the headphone jack on the up side instead of the bottom in budget phones.
However, not all is good. The headphone jack was found at the bottom of the phone along with a micro USB port. Yeah, no Type-C. Only micro USB.
It immediately felt like we were back in 2016. Xiaomi may have their reasons behind putting a micro USB port for charging and data transfer, but it came as a huge bummer to me. I do not expect any decent gadget at this moment that needs to come with anything other than a Type-C port, no matter what price tag it comes with.
On the back of the phone, you will find a dual camera setup, as well as a fingerprint reader.
The textured back gives a comfortable grip and hand feel while holding the phone in hand.
Performance
Redmi A1 Plus comes with a 12nm Mediatek MT6761 Helio A22 chipset, which kind of makes sense considering that the phone is mainly focused on saving money.
However, Realme's C30 smartphone has a Unisoc T612 chipset with a Tk10,000 price tag. Compared to that, Helio A22 barely holds up when it comes to performance. Mainly because it only has four cores while Unisoc T612 has eight.
Then again, Realme 30 came with 2GB of RAM while Redmi A1 Plus comes with 3GB of RAM. I don't mention RAM much in my reviews since most of the phones I review already come with 6GB or 8GB RAM and it doesn't make much of a difference. But when it comes to 2GB vs 3GB RAM, it makes a lot of difference.
Redmi A1 Plus runs MIUI 12, which is based on Android 12 Go Edition. Go edition is basically a lighter version of Android which offers basic services for low-end smartphones. We have previously seen Nokia making mistakes by putting the whole Android system on low-budget phones. But it is good to see that Xiaomi did not make that mistake with Redmi A1 Plus.
When it comes to performance, let me say that you should not expect to play games with this phone. This is only for regular usage. You can, however, play lighter games like Subway Surfers or Temple Run.
When it comes to software, A22 is capable of running full versions of Facebook and Messenger. However, I will recommend using the light versions if possible. You will find a massive improvement in performance if you do.
Even though it is a low-end smartphone, the Helio A22 chipset does support 4G internet.
Display
Redmi A1 Plus comes with a 6.52 inches IPS LCD display that comes with 400 nits of typical brightness.
The smartphone's resolution is locked at 720 x 1600 pixels, and it is a good move. I don't see any reason behind putting a 1080p display in a smartphone like this one and putting extra pressure on the weak chipset.
The colours that the display produces are fairly usable, and that's what one should expect from such a device. Even though it is an HD+ display, and A22 will be able to play 1080p videos, you may not get a satisfactory result by playing such videos. OTT apps such as Netflix or Amazon Prime will lock the highest playback resolution to SD (480p).
Camera
I really did not expect much from the camera. The phone comes with a dual camera setup — the primary one being an 8 MP wide sensor and the secondary camera being a 0.8MP QVGA camera. You don't see these nowadays.
The rear camera performance was decent if we consider the hardware the phone comes with. The 5MP front-facing selfie camera also captures some decent selfies.
Keep in mind that by decent, I mean something you can store and look at. Don't take it the wrong way and expect the selfies or the photos to be crisp or social media-ready.
When it comes to video, both the rear and front camera supports 1080p video recording at 30fps. There is a time-lapse feature within the camera app, but no slow-mo. I didn't expect slow-mo at this price point, to be honest.
Battery
Even though it is a low-end smartphone, it comes with a massive 5,000 mAh battery. So, even though you may need to sacrifice in other sections, you will get the most out of the battery department.
With an Android 12 Go edition running in the back, you can easily expect eight to ten hours of screen time with this battery capacity.
However, the charging speed is very slow. With a 10Watt charger, this phone will take hours before it fully charges.
Verdict
So, who is this phone for? In one word, for elderlies.
This phone will be an ideal choice for the target audiences who use their smartphone mainly for calling. It can be a Facebook Messenger call or a regular phone call.
Redmi A1 Plus will be able to give proper support during occasional multimedia consumption, such as watching videos on YouTube or scrolling through Facebook's home page.
If you are a heavy smartphone user, you may consider buying this phone as an alternative device.
If you use an iPhone and need a cheaper Android device, mainly for accessing apps not available on the iOS App Store, you can consider buying this.
No matter what we say in the review, Xiaomi will be able to sell lots of units of this phone. Mainly because in the “new normal” economy after the Covid with inflation and price hikes everywhere, this is a phone which will be able to provide everything a regular user needs and more without breaking the bank.