Xiaomi has been launching Android One-powered smartphones under its Mi A-series and the company recently launched the third-generation smartphone under the same — Xiaomi Mi A3. The smartphone is now available for purchase in India for a starting price of ₹12,999.
It comes with several improvements compared to the Mi A2 in terms of battery life and camera but also has a few shortcomings, like the low-resolution display. Let’s find out if the overall experience makes it a good buy at this price point.
In the box
- Xiaomi Mi A3
- Silicone Cover
- Charger
- Data Cable
- User Manual
Design and Display
The smartphone comes with a glass sandwich design which is protected by Gorilla Glass 5 on the front as well as back. This makes the smartphone look premium compared to the other offerings in this price segment. The phone is also quite handy, thanks to the slimmer bezels, curved edges on the back and ergonomic design.
Because of the slimmer design of the phone, the rear camera module juts out. At the bottom, the phone has a USB Type-C port as well as the mono speaker. There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack at the top, along with the IR blaster.
The Mi A3 flaunts a 6.08-inch Super AMOLED HD+ display with a waterdrop notch and 1560 x 720 pixels screen resolution. Thanks to the AMOLED display, the colors on the device are vivid and it offers deeper blacks. However, the overall experience could have been much better if the company had opted for the Full HD+ display instead of the 720p.
The screen’s brightness is good for the indoor use but you may not have as good experience under direct sunlight. Because of the HD+ display, you’ll experience pixelation as well as jagged edges on text. We don’t see any reason for Xiaomi deciding to go with 720p display when its competition as well as the company’s own phones in this price segment offers Full HD+ display.
It also comes with an in-display fingerprint sensor, which seems slow in working but we didn’t experience much issues when it comes to recognition.
Performance and Software
The Xiaomi Mi A3 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 octa-core processor, which is an upgrade compared to the SD660 SoC on the Mi A2. The chipset is coupled with 4 GB of LPDDR4X RAM.
It’s performance is good and you won’t be having any issues in your day to day usage. However, don’t expect anything more than that. Playing games, which are not heavy, is smooth but the experience dwindles because of the low-resolution display.
However, playing heavy games such as Fortnite is not possible on this smartphone. Surprisingly, playing PUBG Mobile on this device was a smooth experience, even at the maximum settings that the smartphone supports.
What sets the Mi A3 smartphone from the rest of Xiaomi smartphones is the Android One for the Mi A-series instead of the company’s own MIUI custom user interface. The phone comes with almost stock Android 9 Pie operating system out-of-the-box with some apps from Xiaomi pre-installed.
Because of stock Android, the phone misses out on many features that are present in the MIUI, such as Dual Apps and Second Space among others. However, it’s a good that the company avoided the heavy MIUI skin on this one given as it could have slowed down the phone’s performance.
Since the smartphone is a part of Android One program, we expect it to receive the latest Android updates, including the all-new Android 10, pretty soon. The stock Android version also seems a pretty good choice if you are looking for a phone that doesn’t slow down over time.
Camera
The Mi A3 comes with a triple camera setup on the back, which consists of a 48 MP Sony IMX586 primary sensor with f/1.79 aperture, an 8 MP wide-angle lens with f/2.2 aperture and a 2 MP depth sensor having f/2.4 aperture.
The primary camera sensor uses the extra pixels to produce sharp and detail-filled 12 MP images that has an impressive clarity. During daylight, the camera’s performance is impressive but you’ll have to tweak the settings to get good shots during low-light conditions.
Also, the phone takes its time to capture the image in the low-light scenario. Further, we also faced the issue of noise and the loss of clarity and sharpness during night-time shooting.
The wide-angle lens is a neat addition and can capture some impressive shots and is quite handy for tight spots. You can also capture a 48 MP image with the Pro mode, but the result is not that impressive. The camera result for the same is impressive for the price you are paying but don’t expect mind-blowing image quality.
There’s a Portrait Mode, which is quite average as the edge detection is not reliable. There are various camera modes, including Panorama for the front-facing camera which can be useful is capturing group photos. With AI, the phone can intelligently select the scene.
Camera Samples
Battery and Others
Thanks to the low-resolution display, the Xiaomi Mi A3 offers great battery life with its 4030 mAh capacity battery. It easily provides day and a half of heavy of battery life on regular usage. Also, it comes with an 18W fast charging support, but you’ll need to buy the fast charger separately as the company only offers 10W charger in the box.
The audio output from the 3.5mm headphone jack is quite impressive with clear and crisp sound as well as the output from the bottom speaker is also loud and offers good experience watching videos without the headphones.
Verdict
The Xiaomi Mi A3 is quite good when it comes to performance and camera but falls short in the display department. It offers just HD+ display whereas the competition offers Full HD+ display. Further, the A3 offers amazing battery life and the stock Android experience is quite smooth.
If you want a stock Android experience instead of the custom user interface and can tolerate the low-resolution display, you can opt for this one. But if you are okay with a custom UI and can spend a little more, you can go for the Redmi Note 7 Pro which would also be good buy.
Strength
- Build Quality
- Good Camera
- Impressive Battery Life
Weakness
- Low-resolution display
- Slow fingerprint sensor
