Xiaomi’s New Budget Phone Has a Flagship Look

Only the looks. The specs are still curtailed to budget phones.

Xiaomi launched the Redmi A3 in India. Unlike the A2, the Redmi A3 is crafted to be more premium. The big trendy circular camera hump is present here as well as that leather-like finish (and glass for Midnight Black and Lake Blue). The A3 is definitely the “Xiaomi 12 Ultra” at home. It is premium… if you ignore the waterdrop notch.

Its design is where the premiumness stops. Although to an extent, the phone does feel like a massive upgrade from the A2. Massive, as in, Xiaomi has something to say about it instead of just “Fingerprint Scanner” which, by today’s standard is already part of a phone. Massive as in it went from 4GB RAM straight to 6GB. The phone also has 90Hz refresh rate which is slowly becoming the standard even on ultrabudget phones.

If you just look at the overview screen, you can tell Xiaomi is hiding its “cheapness”. The overview does not mention of a chipset, just the large RAM and storage, it also does not mention the display resolution. This is why you should always look at the specs sheet. It’s much more detailed (unless you’re Transsion). Going into detail, the Redmi A3 features a MediaTek Helio G36 chipset, a 6.71″ HD+ display, a 5000mAh battery with 10W charging (USB-C port), a single speaker, and a side-mounted fingerprint scanner.

Although the camera hump suggests a large camera, take note the A3 is still a budget phone, and there are only two cameras, although barely two. The main camera is 8MP and the other is an auxiliary depth sensor. The front camera, sitting on a waterdrop notch, has 5MP resolution.

It is not yet available in the Philippines but we’re confident that Xiaomi will be bringing this budget phone here. We kinda do miss the Mi A series though, the Android One phones of Xiaomi.

Source: Xiaomi India