Redmi Y2 review: Line Juice!

You can't do much with smart phone design. You can make devices in different colours. The position of the camera module can change a bit and the buttons on the side can be interchanged. The basic thin brick format of the new-age smart phone will pretty much remain the same in the near future. So how does a brand differentiate itself from the crowd of other similar looking devices?

While most manufacturers prefer to innovate with colours, Xiaomi has found a small but useful design element that completely changes the look of a smart phone -- Separation lines. Aesthetically designed separation lines in a smart phone can make the device look premium by a few thousand rupees. Separation lines are simply the lines that separate the back panel of your phone from the top portion, that houses the camera, and often the speakers. A lot of devices come with extremely smooth and rounded off edges and back, but Xiaomi had made a pretty boring design element into a statement of sorts -- Two symmetrically placed lines that accentuate the back and side of the device. If the recently launched Redmi Y2 is anything to go by, the unnoticed separation lines could become a trademark feature for the brand.

The core feature of the Redmi Y2 is its AI-based camera capabilities. The 16MP front camera is tailored for better low light photography. As soon as the camera sensor recognizes low-light, it automatically switches over to operate in the pixel binning mode that combines data from 4 pixels and making them into one large pixel. Larger the pixel size, sharper the image. The selfie light on the Y2 is almost identical to natural light and the device also comes with an AI-powered Bokeh mode that smartly calculates the distance between the subject and the point at which the Bokeh effect kicks off. This makes your face stand out and blurs the background. The 12MP + 5MP dual camera is used for increased brightness and depth perception respectively, and Xiaomi's Beautify mode has been customized for Indian needs by having in-built intelligence that retains the bindi, the nose ring and male facial hair, without erasing it as part of standard clean-up protocol!

The 5.99 inches device comes with an 18:9 aspect ratio and is powered by the Snapdragon 625 chipset. With face and fingerprint unlock, the Y2 is powered by a 3080 mAh battery. It is priced at Rs 9,999 for the 3 GB + 32 GB variant and Rs 12,999 for the 4GB + 64GB variant-- We believe this is a good price to pay for its mix of specs and camera capabilities.

—IndiaTechOnline