Xiaomi has brought its latest budget smartphone to the country – the Redmi A1+. It’s one of the most affordable smartphones in the company’s lineup.
Before we get into it, here’s what you get in the box. The package contains the phone, the 10W charging adapter, the USB cable, sim ejector tool, a warranty card, a safety information card and a quick start guide.
DESIGN
Our unit comes in black with a textured feel to it. You can get yours in Light Green and Light Blue colours. The lower back showcases the Redmi logo while the top left has the camera island with the dual setup which we’ll discuss later. Right under the camera module is the fingerprint scanner.
At the bottom is the microphone micro USB port and headphone jack while at the top sits the speaker.
On the right are the volume rocker buttons and power buttons.
Coming to the front is the 6.52″ screen boasting a resolution of 1600 x 720 pixels.
At the top sist the notch that houses the 5MP front-facing camera.
Overall, it’s a light phone and I loved using the display for consuming multimedia content. sadly, it lacks a high refresh rate. It was still functional for scrolling social media and browsing the web.
PERFORMANCE
Coming to the underhood, Redmi A1+ is powered by MediaTek’s Helio A22 chipset paired with 2GB RAM and 64GB of onboard storage. It comes running Android 12 GO which is a lightweight version of Google’s latest mobile OS. It also runs on MIUI 12.
With Android 12 Go, you get the sweetness of Material You design which extracts its colours from your wallpaper and applies it across the phone’s components to personalize your phone.
It’s a handy phone and will let you play light games and light multitasking.
CAMERAS
For cameras, we have a dual setup that includes an 8MP camera and an additional 0.3MP camera.
Camera modes include photo, video, portrait and more to play around with.
It has a decent camera performance as you’ll see in these sample shots:
Selfies and Portraits
Regular Shots
Lowlight Shots
BATTERY
Keeping the lights on is a 5000mAh battery that charges with a 10W adapter. It’s a slow charger so you’ll have to give it time to fully charge.
Redmi A1+ has impressive battery life and will push up to two days on moderate use and a day on heavy use. I was getting between seven and eight hours of screen on time.
VERDICT
Xiaomi’s latest offering brings a nice design, impressive battery life, and dependable performance thanks to Android 12 Go and is worth considering if you’re in the market for an affordable smartphone.
PRICING
Xiaomi Redmi A1+ goes for Ksh 8,999 and is available at Xiaomi’s official experience stores and online on platforms like Jumia.
