After a month full of leaks and interesting speculations on social media, Xiaomi has finally unveiled its first smartphone with stock Android. Called the Xiaomi Mi A1, this smartphone adheres to Google’s Android One program and will be available in India from September 12 on Flipkart.
As the leaks suggested, the Mi A1 is essentially the Mi 5X from China (read here) that will run stock Android instead of Xiaomi’s Android-based MIUI OS. Xiaomi said that the Mi A1 will launch with Android 7.1.1 Nougat and will get the Oreo update (read what's new in Oreo for the Mi A1) once Google makes it available for the world. Although Xioami will release the updates for the Mi A1, you know one thing for sure — faster Android updates within months of a new Android launch.
Since the Mi A1 is based on the Mi 5x, it sports a 5.5-inch full HD display with 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass protection. The phone is 7mm thick, in line with the dimensions of mid-range smartphones of today. The smartphone has a metallic body and will come in black, pink and gold colours with the Android One branding at the back. The black version comes with anti-fingerprint coating for hiding the smudges.
The Mi A1 will be globally available with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset. The Indian variant will come with 4GB RAM and 64GB of storage, which can be expanded externally up to 128GB of storage. However, the Mi A1’s party piece is its dual camera that Xiaomi claims to be flagship dual camera. There are a 12MP telephoto lens and a 12MP wide-angle lens, each with 1.25-micron pixels. The rear camera will able to achieve 2X optical zoom with the telephoto lens. There’s also a beautify mode for the portrait mode for touching up the portrait pictures.
The Mi A1 also has a 10V power amplifier and stand-alone audio amplifier with DHS audio calibration for enhanced audio experience. Xiaomi has put in a 3080mAh battery that can be charged from its USB Type-C port. The Mi A1 uses a pyrolytic graphite sheet that Xiaomi claims to decrease the temperature by 2 degrees. The company will bundle a 380V charger for the Indian markets.The phone also comes with a fingerprints sensor at back for biometric verification.
