Redmi A4 5G Review: Stylish Way of Making 5G Accessible

Xiaomi unveiled the Redmi A4, a 5G-enabled budget phone, on 20th November. The brand’s vision behind launching the A4 was to democratise the 5G network among value-oriented masses. It is truly a commendable move from them.

Redmi A4 5G

Rs 8,499

7.7

Design & Build

8.5/10

Display

8.0/10

Performance

7.5/10

Battery Life

8.5/10

Camera Quality

7.0/10

UI Experience

6.5/10

Audio

6.5/10

Day To Day Usage

8.0/10

Value for Money

9.0/10

What Is Good?

• Stylish and modern looks
• Headphone jack
• Good daylight camera performance
• Smooth 120Hz refresh rate
• Reliable battery life
• Consistent performance

What Is Bad?

• Underwhelming low-light camera performance
• Sluggish UI and bloatware apps
• Unsatisfactory speaker quality
• 5G doesn't work on Airtel's network

See more specs

However, over the years, there have been multiple instances where certain brands compromise on basic features to keep their 5G smartphones’ prices down. Hence, it begs the question of whether Xiaomi partook in such activity, jumpstarting the trend again or did they strive to keep important features intact while maintaining the same price? Read my review to find the answer.

Pricing and Availability in India

The Redmi A4 is available via Amazon and the brand’s website. You can grab it from the brand’s retail store as well. Here’s a look at the pricing:

Design and Build Quality

Lately, the tech community has been voicing that brands mostly design their budget phones as unfashionable, unlike their premium offerings. And rightly so. Seeing this as an opportunity, Xiaomi has stepped in to challenge this thought by unveiling the Redmi A4.

When picked up from the rear, one can easily mistake the A4 for a relatively premium phone for a few reasons. The camera island at the rear has been crafted beautifully, and when combined with the A4’s boxy structure, you will instantly be captivated. Besides, this is my personal opinion but the Sparkle Purple colour embellishes the phone even more. The Starry Black variant also looks gorgeous, though, it doesn’t scale the former colour in my eyes.

That said, flipping the A4 to the front may make you reminisce about the older days, due to its thick bezels and water-drop notch. Another contributing factor is its bulky frame since the phone packs a 5,160 mAh battery.

Speaking of its build quality, the A4 will compel you to think that it will accompany you in the memories you create in years to come. Also, handing the phone to kids won’t keep you on your toes much. Its IP52 rating ensures you can use it during rain without worrying too much about its survivability, however, taking it for a swim will cost you.

Display and Audio

The Redmi A4 has a 6.88-inch LCD panel at the front. During my usage, I have felt that the screen can serve you well in your binge-watch sessions with great picture quality for the price and good colour consistency.

While scrolling through the Shorts and Reels feed indoors, I usually kept the brightness around 55 per cent so that I could consume videos comfortably without a stinging sensation in my eyes. Outdoors, I had to look for shade since I had difficulty determining whether I had clicked the photo correctly under direct sunlight.

Keeping everything aside, the highlight of the A4’s display is easily the inclusion of a 120Hz refresh rate as every task you perform on the screen appears smoothly. It is outstanding that Xiaomi offered this feature at a price hardly seen on other smartphones. I hope the rest of the brands follow in Xiaomi’s footsteps.

The Redmi A4 has a single bottom-firing speaker. It gets fairly loud, but its unsatisfactory audio quality made me reach for my earbuds more when I watched YouTube videos.

Performance and Software

The Redmi A4 is the first phone in India to be powered by the new Snapdragon 4s Gen 2. When you become the first adopter of any technology, people watch you closely. Your take on it gives them a general idea of how it will perform in other upcoming devices.

Considering this point, Xiaomi kept the new chipset’s reputation intact. The phone handled my routine tasks pretty well while hardly encountering hiccups. To give you a context, my routine tasks comprise social media surfing, calling, texting and binge-watching.

Before going further, this must be highlighted: The A4 doesn’t support NSA (non-standalone) 5G bands out of the box, meaning Airtel users won’t reap the benefit of their 5G sim. That said, users on the Jio network will not face any issues.

Aside from my usual errands, I played BGMI and Call of Duty: Mobile on the A4. During the gameplay, I discovered that the phone can run games at a low graphical setting without major frame drops but falters a bit in giving you a constant smooth gaming experience in a medium graphical setting. The A4 isn’t geared for gamers, but if you indulge in a few casual rounds, this thing can keep up.

The Redmi A4 runs on Xiaomi HyperOS based on Android 14. My experience with the OS was slightly lacklustre. It felt sluggish in some instances, and I had run-ins with stutters at places I didn’t anticipate. Apart from these traits, the software is filled with bloatware and preloaded apps. But the saving grace is stacked lists of customisation options you get from the software.

Camera

The Redmi A4’s camera island may appear to house four cameras from a distance, but it accommodates only two. A flash and a label occupy the rest of the spaces. Another interesting bit is that out of the two cameras, one takes images, while the other is a depth sensor.

Redmi A4 Daylight Camera Samples

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The primary camera is adept at taking pleasing shots during daylight with nearly accurate colours, while the HDR is done adequately. Beyond this, it captures most of the details it sees.

Redmi A4 Low-light Camera Samples

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That being said, once you start clicking low-light photos, the camera struggles to retain details from the subject in dimly lit situations. Moreover, it regularly requires you to drop everything from your mind and enter a zen-like state since its slow shutter speed causes images to be blurry due to slight hand movement. But once you do, you are rewarded with photos with close-to-natural colours.

Redmi A4 Portrait and Selfie Camera Samples

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The camera can capture decent portrait shots with an almost natural skin tone and good edge detection. Similarly, its front camera produces satisfactory selfies but instantly smoothens skin with a dip in lighting.

Battery

The Redmi A4’s entire workload is fueled by its massive 5,160 mAh battery. This battery can easily last a day of binge-watching series, clicking pictures for social media, and casual gaming, with some capacity remaining for the next day.

During our PCMark Battery Test, the phone lasted for 20 hours and 55 minutes outmatching almost every phone we tested except the Vivo T3 Pro, which takes the lead by 41 minutes.

The A4 comes with a 33W charger in the box. However, since it supports 18W charging, it takes 1 hour and 51 minutes to charge the phone fully.

Verdict

At Rs 8,499, the Redmi A4 is ideal if you want a combination of a big display and supreme battery life for your nonstop movie marathon with reliable performance. Furthermore, its primary camera lets you capture good daylight photos and selfies. The cherry on top is its attractive design and terrific build quality making the phone even more appealing.

Nonetheless, it has a few drawbacks: The software feels sluggish at times and may annoy you with spammy notifications. Its bottom-firing speaker doesn’t match the display’s quality, giving you an underwhelming multimedia experience. Above all, the A4 doesn’t support NSA (non-standalone) 5G bands so Airtel users can’t access the 5G network.

If you are ready to shell out Rs 1,500 more, the Infinix Hot 5G can be another option if you want a clean software experience in a budget offering.

Overall, if you want a phone for college-goers and elderly folks, the Redmi A4 can be the perfect phone.