Redmi A4 Review: A4 in name, Redmi Note in soul

There was a time when the budget segment of the Indian smartphone market was all about Redmi phones, especially the Redmi Notes. The Notes delivered dependability and specs that were reasonably competitive at around the Rs 10,000 mark. But recent years have seen the Redmi Notes climb up the price-spec/ features ladder, leaving a gaping Note-shaped hole in the budget segment.

Redmi has tried to fill it time and again with other devices but nothing really stuck… until now. Redmi has recently launched the Redmi A4 5G, which comes with a starting price of Rs 8,499 for its 4 GB/ 64 GB variant, and while it has a new name, this one has the soul of the old Redmi Note.

Redmi A4 5G Design: Budget price tag, premium looks

The old Redmi Notes were budget offerings but always came with designs that helped them stand out from the usual crowd. The Redmi A4 is no different. The phone comes with a design that can easily place it in a price segment that is much higher than where it actually stands. And it is all because of its back. The phone comes with a glass back, which is a very rare sighting in this segment. We received the Starry Black color variant, which stands quite true to its name.

The seemingly plain, glossy glass back has almost invisible sparkles that reveal themselves when you move the phone a bit in light. Apart from this, the back also carries a huge, slightly protruding circular camera unit that has four smaller circles inside. One of these circles is a 50-megapixel main sensor, one is an auxiliary lens, one is an LED flash, and the last one just comes with ‘50 MP AI camera’ branding.

This setup gives the impression that the phone has multiple cameras, making it seem more premium than it actually is. The back is glossy and attracts smudges and fingerprints quite easily, which means you either have to keep wiping it or slap a case on it (you do not get one in the box). The frame is plastic, but it is black and matte, and the sides are flat, keeping with the trend of today’s smartphone design, all of which make it look very nice indeed.

The right side houses the volume rocker and the power/lock button that doubles up as the fingerprint scanner too. The left side has a dual SIM card tray with a dedicated microSD card slot, while the top carries the 3.5 mm audio jack (no IR blaster here), and the base is home to a speaker grille and a USB Type C port. The front is the only ordinary bit about its design – a typical tall display, with bezels thicker than what most people are used to seeing nowadays, and a water drop notch that carries the front camera and also betrays the price segment of the phone.

The Redmi A4 5G is no compact, lightweight kid either. It measures 171.88 x 77.80 x 8.22 mm and weighs 212.35 grams which means you would feel its presence in your palm and your pocket. It comes with an IP52 rating, which will protect the device from dust and splashes and is a welcome addition at this price point too.

Redmi A4 5G performance: Powerful chip, dependable performance

Even at this price, the Redmi A4 brings a big display to the table. It has a 6.88-inch HD+ LCD display. In terms of color reproduction and brightness, the display of the Redmi A4 is decent. The colors could have been a little more vibrant, and the text is a bit hard to read under harsh sunlight, but scrolling is super smooth thanks to the 120 Hz refresh rate that it comes with. Just remember to activate it by diving into display settings (it is set to the ordinary 60 Hz by default) – once you do, scrolling becomes a very pleasant experience on the device.

Another area where the A4 punches above its weight is that of the processor. The phone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 processor, which is paired with 4GB RAM and 64/ 128 GB storage, which can be expanded up to 1 TB using a microSD card. This is a processor we are accustomed to seeing at higher price points, and it is hardly surprising that the phone churns out performance that is quite smooth in day-to-day operations. You can move from one app to another without feeling like the phone is holding you back. Web browsing, social media scrolls, texting, and calls all work quite seamlessly on the phone, and so do casual titles.

Games like Subway Surfer, The Spearman, and Candy Crush work very smoothly, although they can take a few seconds to load. The phone is not meant for high-end gaming, and we would advise you to steer clear of heavy titles to avoid disappointment. We would be lying if we told you the phone never lagged – we did see a few lags here and there and an occasional app crash, but it never got too frequent. The phone did not heat up either.

The mono speaker on the Redmi A4 is loud enough, but with the 3.5 mm audio jack, you can actually enjoy some music on the phone with wired earphones. The fingerprint scanner works swiftly and accurately, too. The phone comes with support for 5G but does not come with NSA band support, which means the phone will work fine with Jio’s networks but will not support Airtel 5G at the time of writing. This could be a deal breaker for some.

Redmi A4 5G Cameras: A main sensor show

The Redmi A4’s 50-megapixel main sensor is one of the USPs of the phone. The phone takes impressive daylight photos and packs them with a decent amount of details. The pictures seem a little washed out at first, but we blame it on the display because they looked slightly better color-wise on our computer screen.

Zooming in on photos on the phone often surprised us, as after a split second of processing, we saw stunning details that were not apparent at first glance. The quality obviously dipped in low light, but even there, we think the camera used very good colors in low light. They were on the warmer side but seemed more pleasant. You can capture 1080p video at 30 fps, which is a decent price. We also like the fact that there is a dedicated 50-megapixel mode in the camera UI. Something you otherwise have to fish out from settings.

There is a 5-megapixel sensor on the front for selfies and video calls. This one is quite underwhelming. It smoothens out skin and produces washed-out selfies. There are plenty of beauty modes and filters that you can play around with, but do not expect a lot of detail here. All said and done; we think that the Redmi A4 5G’s main sensor is a star performer, which makes it one of the best (if not the best) cameras on a phone in its segment.

Battery and software: Long battery life, but with slow charging

Another major strength of the Redmi A4 is its battery life. The phone comes with a 5,160 mAh battery that can easily see you through a day and a half of some intense usage. You can even push it to two days if you are careful enough. It comes with 18W charging support, which means that the phone takes around an hour and 45 minutes to charge, which is slow in today’s fast charging times. That said, you get a 33W charger in the box, which gets a big thumbs up in our book.

In terms of software, you get Android 14 on the device out of the box with Xiaomi’s HyperOS on top. Now Android 14 is a bit of a disappointment, but HyperOS comes with a number of handy features, and while it does have a lot of third-party apps pre-installed on it, they are organized well and neatly in folders that keep the skin from feeling overwhelming. You can also delete these apps if you wish. Xiaomi promises two years of OS and four years of security updates, ensuring the device keeps working smoothly for years to come.

Redmi A4 Review Verdict: A Redmi that captures the true essence of the old Notes

With a starting price of Rs 8,499, the Redmi A4 5G delivers quite a lot of value for money. The phone comes with a tall display, a dependable processor, an impressive main camera, and a long battery life. The premium looks and IP52 rating are the cherries on top of this Redmi cake. The phone does face some competition from the likes of the Moto G35, which also boasts a very eye-catching design, but its Unisoc chip cannot match the one of the Redmi A4 5G, and its 50-megapixel camera is also not in the same class in terms of detail. Its lack of support for Airtel’s 5G at the time of writing is a bit of a bummer, but all said and done, the Redmi A4 is, quite frankly, one of the best devices you can get at its price. There finally is a Redmi phone that has managed to capture the true essence of what the Redmi Note used to be.

Buy Redmi A4 5G