Xiaomi Mi A3 review: More than the sum of its parts

Xiaomi followed a similar pattern regarding Android One. The Mi A1 was a well-known 5X Mi for the global Android markets, and last year's Mi A2 was a reissue of the Mi 6X series. Basically, Xiaomi takes an existing product sold in China, replaces MIUI for Android One and markets it worldwide.

This formula is unchanged for 2019. The Mi A3 is the global version of the Mi CC9e but with Android One. That said, the Mi A3 has a glass bottom – thus avoiding the metal design of its predecessors – and Xiaomi switched to a Super AMOLED display. The design of the glass is a welcome change, and although Xiaomi offers an AMOLED display, the fact that it's a 720p panel is a little disappointing.

For what it is worth, Xiaomi has corrected many of the problems of the Mi A2: the 3.5mm jack is a welcome return, there is a bigger battery of 4030mAh and a camera of 48 MPa at the same time. back. The Mi A3 certainly has a lot to offer, especially if it's sold for less than $ 300. Here's what you need to know about Xiaomi's Android One 2019 phone.

About this review

I write this review after using the Mi A3 for a little over a week in Hyderabad, India. The device was connected to the Jio 4G network and received a single update containing the July 2019 security patch.

The Mi A3 does not look like its predecessors and that's a good thing. Xiaomi has fully embraced the metal-glass design this year. As a result, the A3 seems much more upscale than its $ 250 asking price. The front and back glass panels are protected by a layer of Gorilla Glass 5. The back has a fascinating gradient pattern if you choose blue or white color options.

The blue variant has a swirling texture that appears under the light, while the white model has a pearly luster with subtle color changes under the light. Both colors are very distinctive and immediately bring out the Mi A3. If you do not care much about a gradient finish, the standard gray model has a much more subdued design. Oh, and Xiaomi decided with a very pixel-esque naming convention for colors: More than white, not just blue, and the kind of gray.

The camera has a hump at the back, the sensor slightly protruding from the body. This causes oscillations when using the device on a flat surface, which tends to be annoying. There is a AI 48MP camera brand under the lens image, the Xiaomi brand lower and the Android One label on the other side. The global variant, meanwhile, has regulatory labels next to the Android One brand, and it ends up looking very busy.

The back bends at the edges to join the middle of the image, which facilitates the maintenance of the phone. The power and volume buttons are located on the right – the power button is ideally positioned – and the SIM card tray is on the left. The Mi A3 has a hybrid slot, which means you can use two SIM cards or a single SIM card with a MicroSD card.

Even if you get an AMOLED panel, 720p resolution is simply not enough for a device in this segment.

A single speaker is located in the lower part, next to the USB-C charging port, and the grid on the left is purely aesthetic. There is another grid above the camera cutout for the earpiece, but it is not duplicated as a secondary speaker. That said, the single speaker is powerful enough and the sound quality is surprisingly good – I did not notice any distortion because the volume was at its maximum. Xiaomi's got rid of the 3.5mm jack of the Mi A2, but the analog plug is making its way back into the A3 Mi. It's a welcome change and you also get an IR blaster at the top.

Now, on the screen: the A3 Mi is equipped with a 6.08-inch Super AMOLED display with a teardrop-shaped cutout at the top. The screen size is slightly larger than the 5.99-inch panel that we saw last year on the Mi A2, but the thin risers and the front camera cutout allowed Xiaomi to reduce the size. The Mi A3 is both shorter and narrower than its predecessor, and in general, it's good to use it with one hand. It's a bit far-fetched to access the notification panel when you use the phone with one hand, but other than that, its size is excellent.

Regarding the display, Xiaomi opted for an AMOLED panel but lowered the resolution to 720p. You get a pixel density of 286 PPP and, although the panel itself is manufactured by Samsung, it is clear that it does not belong to a device of this segment. You will sometimes notice rasterization and the screen is not bright enough for outdoor use. In some cases, I had trouble distinguishing the screen content under intense sunlight, and conversely, the panel is brighter than most devices at night. Even after lowering the brightness slider to the maximum, the screen was uncomfortably bright at night.

The built-in fingerprint reader is slow, unreliable and not worth it.

The on-screen fingerprint reader is another area in which the Mi A3 is lacking. It's the first time I've been using an Android One device with a built-in player, and it's one of the slowest modules I've encountered. The sensor is painfully slow in the best case, and the recognition rate is also catastrophic. I can not help but think that Xiaomi would have done better to use a traditional fingerprint sensor instead of following the road to the screen. It's just not worth it, and I've used a PIN as the primary means of authentication.

In terms of hardware, the Mi A3 runs the Snapdragon 665 with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The basic storage capacity is now 64 GB – against 32 GB of the Mi A2 – and you also get a variant with 128 GB of storage, which also has 4 GB of RAM. The phone includes a UFS 2.1 storage module and a dual channel LPDDR4X RAM module.

The Snapdragon 665 is a direct successor to the Snapdragon 660, and although it uses the same set of cores, the big cores are slightly lower at 2.0 GHz, compared to 2.2 GHz on the Snapdragon 660. The chipset has essentially four Kryo 260 Gold cores based on the Cortex A73 clocked at 2.0 GHz and four cores Kryo 260 Silver based on the Cortex A53 clocked at 1.8 GHz.

On the GPU plane, however, the Snapdragon 665 takes a considerable upgrade thanks to an Adreno 610. But the most important change concerns the node itself: the Snapdragon 665 is built on an LPN node of 11 nm, which it allows much better energy efficiency compared to Snapdragon 660 of 14 nm. I saw no slowing or any lag in day-to-day usage, and the Snapdragon 665 is more than enough to improve this 720p screen. On the contrary, the low resolution panel benefits the Mi A3 in this respect.

Xiaomi has put a huge 4030mAh battery in the Mi A3, and the more efficient node, combined with a 720p screen, allows the phone to deliver stellar results in this area. I used to use a full charge day, and there was not a single case where the battery level had fallen below 10% at the end of the day. There is a 10W charger in the box, but the phone is compatible with Quick Charge 3.0, allowing you to charge it at 18W.

Xiaomi Mi A3 Software

The best part of the Mi A3 is undoubtedly the software. Like all other Android One devices, the Mi A3 has a sleek user interface, without any bloatware. This is a stark contrast to what you get with MIUI, which makes Xiaomi's participation in the Android One program all the more exciting.

Android One is the best part of the A3 Mi.

The A3 Mi no longer works with Pie and, the week that I used the device, I received only one update containing the security patch of July 2019. Xiaomi had problems with the update of the Oreo platform on the Mi A1, but the navigation went smoothly thereafter, and updates should not be a problem for the Mi A3.

As for the user interface itself, it is identical to the one you can find on any other Android One phone: notification color, fast flip-flops, view menu, and more. 39, set and the application drawer do not change. Camembert movements with the center pill are enabled by default, but you can return to the traditional navigation bar with the three buttons. Like the previous two iterations, you get the Xiaomi Camera app, which is a good thing. Apart from the FM radio service, you do not have any pre-installed application other than Google.

Overall, the Mi A3 offers the same software experience that you know if you used an Android One device in the past. Two years later, the combination of Xiaomi hardware and pure Android still holds up very well, and we hope that continues.

Xiaomi Mi A3 Camera

Like most Xiaomi phones in 2019, the Mi A3 comes with a 48MP main camera that produces 12MP photos. The main camera is connected to an ultra-wide 8 MP lens and a 2 MP sensor for portraits. The camera interface is identical to that of any other Xiaomi phone, with modes accessible via a left and right scan. Xiaomi makes shooting easier in 48MP mode, and there is also Night mode.

The Mi A3 does a fantastic job in the light of day, with excellent contrast levels, wide dynamic range and precise colors. The wide angle lens does not do such a good job, but the resulting images are good enough to be shared on social media platforms. Photos taken in low light conditions are not detailed enough and there is a lot of noise. The use of dedicated night mode corrects the problem to a certain extent. The camera as a whole is rather decent considering the cost of the Mi A3.

Xiaomi Mi A3 Bottom line

The Mi A3 is a pretty solid phone overall. It is good to see the return of the jack 3.5 mm. The larger 4030mAh battery is also a welcome addition, but the main reason you should consider the phone is for the software. Xiaomi knows how to make stellar material, but MIUI does not suit all tastes. The fact that you get Android One on the Xiaomi hardware is quite special and this pace is not blurred with the Mi A3.

Of course, the 720p display is disappointing and I still do not understand Xiaomi's reasoning to switch to a lower resolution screen. The integrated fingerprint reader is equally troublesome, but if you consider it as a whole, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. If you give importance to the clean software and the on-screen player does not bother you, the Mi A3 is a good choice.

But if you want a good value, the Xiaomi Mi 9 SE is a much better alternative. You are negotiating Android One for MIUI, but you get a much more robust hardware with a 1080p AMOLED display and 6 GB of RAM.

Like all Xiaomi phones, the A3 Mi is not available in the US, but you can choose the global variant on Amazon for just $ 215. The caveat is that it does not have all the groups required for AT & T or T-Mobile. If nothing else, it makes sense to get the device just to see if it works in your area because at $ 215, the Mi A3 exceeds all other devices in this category, Android One Or other.

3.5
out of 5

If you're looking for a cheap Android One device, the Mi A3 is fine, but there are many other phones on the market, at about the same price and with more features. At the end of the day, this is the trade-off you must make: you can get great hardware for less than $ 300, but you'll have to endure awkward software. If you can look beyond the 720p screen, the Mi A3 has a lot to offer.

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