Xiaomi Mi A3 review: Back to basics

Apple said it took courage to remove the headphone jack on the iPhone 7. The move did raise a few eyebrows, but hey, nobody panicked per se. But when Xiaomi, a company often called the Apple of China, tried something very similar with the Mi A2, everyone – literally, everyone – lost their minds. While Apple hasn’t looked back ever since, Xiaomi has done just the opposite - bringing the headphone jack back in the Mi A3. Not many tech companies have the courage to admit a mistake, let alone fix it. I don’t know about you, but that’s real courage. 

The lack of a headphone jack wasn’t the only problem with the Mi A2. It did not support expandable storage. Its screen and battery life also left a lot to be desired. You can say that people in India have grown accustomed to Xiaomi maintaining a consistency in pricing across its device portfolios – year-on-year. And the Mi A2 was more expensive than the Mi A1 at launch – which meant justifying all the tradeoffs wasn’t easy, even though the thing had good all-round performance and stellar cameras. 

Not only does the Mi A3 bring back the jack, it adds a slot for micro-SD. It has a Samsung-made AMOLED screen and a ginormous 4,030mAh battery – the largest in any Xiaomi Mi A-series phone. And, with a starting price of Rs 12,999, the Mi A3 is also the most affordable Mi A-series phone to date – undercutting the Mi A1 which was launched at a price of Rs 14,999. Clearly, the Mi A3 is all about going back to the basics. Question is, will that be enough? Let’s find out. 

Design 

The Mi A1 looked and felt way ahead of its time and even though the Mi A3 is coming at a time when there’s no dearth of premium-looking budget phones (including at least a couple from Xiaomi itself), it still manages to look and feel special. Like the Redmi Note 7 Pro, the Mi A3 also has a glass sandwich design – with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and the back, and a plastic frame in the middle. The Mi A3 is a lot curvier in comparison though which entails in a much more comfortable grip. And because it’s a smaller phone, the Mi A3 is also a lot more pocketable. I’ll go so far as to say that the Mi A3 strikes just the right balance of size and ergonomics.  

The Mi A3 has a gradient finish on the back, but it’s a lot more subdued when you compare it with Xiaomi’s aura design seen in the Redmi Note 7 Pro. This is also true about the colors. The Mi A3 will be available in three options loosely inspired by the Google Pixel - Kind of Grey, Not just Blue and More than White. The Not just Blue variant I have for review is the most striking, if you’re someone who likes to flaunt it – this one sees distinct ‘S’ patterns dancing across the whole surface when light hits the panel at specific angles. The More than White variant should appeal to those who like to work hard and party harder, while the Kind of Grey variant is specifically meant for those looking for a no-nonsense device. Xiaomi has also color-coated the sides accordingly, which I feel is a nice touch. 

Not only is it a good-looking phone, the Mi A3 is also built rock solid. Xiaomi has gone a step further and put Corning glass protection on top of the camera module as well which is a nice thing to have considering that it protrudes out quite a bit. There’s no waterproofing as such but Xiaomi is using its tried and tested P2i hydrophobic coating in the Mi A3 which makes it resistant to accidental splashes of water or rain. 

Display 

The Mi A3 takes a couple of steps forward here, but also a step back. Let me explain. Both its predecessors came with IPS LCD screens – the Mi A3 has an AMOLED display. The IPS LCD screens of both its predecessors left a lot to be desired when it came to all-round quality – the AMOLED display of the Mi A3 is a big step up when it comes to all-round quality, with deep blacks and generally punchier – if a little inaccurate – colors. It can get adequately bright too, although we’ve surely seen better in this price segment.  

So, what’s the catch, you ask. The Mi A3 is a 6.01-inch phone with an HD+ or 720p+ (720x1560, 286ppi) resolution display. That's both a good and bad thing. Good that there are much fewer pixels to drive (as opposed to a phone like the Redmi Note 7 Pro that has a 1080p+ resolution display) so that should bode well for performance and battery life, and bad that it’s based on a PenTile Super AMOLED. One can argue that that’s the same technology that Samsung uses in all its high-end flagships, and that’s right, but also, it’s not suitable for low-resolution screens. This is because the setup has fewer subpixels than conventional RGB, and while it does have its advantages, there’s a visible pattern – read, pixelization and jagged texts - when you look at it closely.   

While your eyes may not be able to notice the pattern in high-end Samsung phones with pixel dense screens, there’s no escaping it in a phone like the Mi A3. The effect is particularly accentuated while watching video with scenes with solid background, or while reading. I am not even sure why Xiaomi decided to go with AMOLED when it brings no real-world benefit – the IPS LCD-toting Redmi Y3 with 720p+ resolution looks way better in comparison. Surely you get punchier colors, but at what cost? 

That AMOLED panel also allows Xiaomi to offer an in-display fingerprint reader in the Mi A3. But while it’s also seventh generation like the one on the Redmi K20 Pro, it’s nowhere close in actual usage. It’s inconsistent and slower. 

Software 

The biggest difference between the Mi A3 and other Xiaomi phones is the software. While other Xiaomi phones run MIUI, the Mi A3 runs stock Android Pie our-of-the-box - because it’s an Android One phone. Because it’s an Android One phone, the Mi A3 is also expected to get faster software updates and should theoretically receive Android 10 - which is the next version of Android - before other Xiaomi phones. That’s essentially what you buy into when you buy a Mi A-series phone – you must absolutely be into pure, unadulterated Android, the way that Google designed it, and even though Xiaomi sneaks in a few useful additions, what you get is second only to a Pixel. Those into MIUI’s hefty customization options wouldn’t even care about the Mi A3. 

Performance and battery life 

The Snapdragon 665 processor inside the Mi A3 is like the Snapdragon 660 inside last year’s Mi A2 – or this year’s Redmi Note 7S/Redmi Note 7 – in many ways, except that the former is based on the more efficient 11nm manufacturing process while the latter’s based on 14nm. The core architecture remains nearly the same, so unsurprisingly, all-round performance is also on very similar lines. The SD665 in the Mi A3 is paired with up to 6GB LPDDR4x RAM and up to 128GB UFS 2.1 flash storage which is also expandable by up to 256GB via a hybrid micro-SD card slot.  

Basic day-to-day tasks are handled well by the Mi A3, so is multi-tasking – better than its predecessor phone. Of course, near stock Android helps, but it also helps that Xiaomi has been able to well optimize the hardware with the software, so overall the phone feels faster than the Redmi Note 7S/Redmi Note 7 – phones that felt slower with competing hardware. Basic games are handled well as well – so are graphical games like PUBG at low and sometimes even at medium settings. 

While I really like the whole user experience and how seamlessly everything works here, you must also know that there are more powerful phones in and around the Mi A3’s price point – should you be looking for more power and graphical performance.   

The same is true about the Mi A3’s battery life. The 4,030mAh battery inside the Mi A3 will easily last you a day with moderate usage, but this is one area where I really missed MIUI’s more sophisticated battery saving algorithms. Plus, even though the Mi A3 supports 18W fast charging, Xiaomi bundles a paltry 10W charger in the box. It doesn’t help that the Realme 3 Pro offers a bigger battery and a 20W fast charger in the box at similar pricing.  

Cameras 

The Snapdragon 665 may not necessarily offer a next-generation performance jump, but it does bring support for a 48MP camera – that's all the rage in the world of budget and mid-tier smartphones these days. Xiaomi spearheaded the phenomenon by launching the most affordable 48MP camera phone in India earlier this year – the Redmi Note 7 Pro. Which was then followed by an even more affordable Redmi Note 7S. The Mi A3, even though it sits in the middle, is now the most affordable phone with a flagship Sony IMX586 sensor. After software, that’s its second biggest highlight.  

The Mi A3, in fact, has three cameras in all – a 48MP Sony IMX586 sensor behind f/1.79 26mm lens, an 8MP ultra-wide sensor behind an f/2.2 13mm lens, and a 2MP sensor behind an f/2.4 lens for portrait shots. On the front, the Mi A3 has a 32MP camera. 

The 48MP main camera (that shoots 12MP photos by default) can capture some crisp photos with good detail, good dynamic range, and little or no metering issues in well-lit situations. More importantly, colors look true to source mostly, which is a stark departure from Xiaomi’s notorious saturation boosting ways. Low-light photos are a different story though. In low-light, Xiaomi’s highly aggressive noise reduction algorithm entails in softer-looking photos. Xiaomi’s long-exposure night mode helps shoot brighter, more detailed photos in such cases, but we’ve surely seen better from rivals. 

The 8MP wide-angle camera offers a wider perspective (with 118-degree field-of-view) so you can capture a lot more of your subject. The quality may not be as good as the primary camera – Xiaomi’s distortion correction works well mostly but there’s noticeable softness towards the corners – but at least you get the option. The quality of wide-angle photos is nothing to write home about in tricky and low light. 

Portraits have always been a strong suit of Xiaomi’s Mi A-series phones and the Mi A3 is also no different.  

All said and done, the Mi A3 is not the fastest Xiaomi camera phone at autofocusing. It’s rather slow actually. So that’s that. 

The Mi A3 can shoot 4K videos at 30fps and 1080p videos at 60fps and at 30fps (with EIS). Videos shot with the Mi A3 have the same plus and minus points as shooting stills – across the board.   

The 32MP front camera of the Mi A3 can capture some good-looking selfies with good amount of detail and colours that are mostly true to source – although the beauty algorithm does tend to soften details a bit. Dynamic range is quite good too, with little or no metering issues. In low light, this camera can capture brighter exposures with higher ISO – brighter, cleaner and more detailed selfies with little or no noise.  

Should you buy the Xiaomi Mi A3? 

So, let's start with the pros. The Mi A3 looks attractive and it is also built well. It is a capable performer and runs stock Android. It has outstanding battery life. It has stellar cameras. It is priced very aggressively too. 

And now the cons. Come to think of it, there’s just one actually – its low-resolution display. But I’ll still be willing to bet my money on it for all the other things – the pros that far outnumber the cons. That’s not my main concern though. What really concerns me is a phone called the Redmi Note 7 Pro, that offers more value for money at just 1,000 rupees more. Or even the Redmi Note 7S, that’s even cheaper. There’s also the very competitive Realme 3 Pro that costs as much as the Mi A3. In which case, it will all narrow down to just one thing – how bad do you want a phone with stock Android. 

There’s no denying that Xiaomi has tried to correct many of the mistakes that it made with the Mi A2 here, and there’s also no denying that the Mi A3 is able to fix most of them, but be that as it may, is it as compelling as the Mi A1? Not really. But that has got little to do with the Mi A3 as a product, and more to do with the competition. Survival of the fittest is clearly the new norm and the Mi A3 has a long way to go. 

(Photos by Saurabh Singh)

Also Read:  Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro Review: Rewriting The Flagship Phone Rulebook, circa 2019

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