KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 26 — Xiaomi’s been good at the nice-to-price ratio when it comes to smartphones. Its phones have offered a lot of value across the price range board and the Xiaomi Note 5A Prime is no exception.
With the Redmi line, you can expect no frills or attempt at being fancy. The specs aren’t groundbreaking but they’re packaged at a price point that will appeal to those not looking for a flagship grade phone.
First impressions
Build-wise, the phone does come off fairly plasticky but for RM699, expecting a full metal body is a bit much. As for the display, the 5.5in HD screen is adequate and colour reproduction and brightness is decent, but not spectacular.
Setup was fairly average, not as fast as a flagship but not sluggish either. Bear in mind the phone does run a Snapdragon 435 process, which is a lower-end, cheaper processor.
However, having 32GB storage and 3GB of RAM does make the lower-end processor less of a drag on the system.
The fingerprint sensor at the back is responsive enough with no hiccups logging in and out.
As for the UI, the Xiaomi MIUI is an acquired taste but it’s fairly clean and easy enough to figure out. There’s not too much vapourware and you don’t get 1,001 notifications from apps you don’t need to do things you don’t want.
Despite the larger screen, it sits fairly well in the hand and the plastic build wasn’t too slippery. You can tell it’s not an expensive phone but the finishing is decent enough you can’t fault it.
Picture perfect
The Note 5A Prime is called "Prime" because it’s the higher-end alternative to the Redmi Note 5A basic model — one key difference being it has a better camera.
How is the camera? Well the 13MP f/2.2 rear camera isn’t particularly spectacular though selfie lovers might like the 16MP f/2.0 front camera. It’s a trend these days for the front camera to have more megapixels due to people often liking to take selfies and wefies more these days.
While I liked the brightness and can’t fault the colour accuracy too much, the pictures do tend to be on the soft side especially on the rear camera.
Final thoughts
It isn’t a terrible phone by all accounts and the period I had it, it ran adequately without buggy moments or annoyances.
The Note 5A Prime can handle most tasks adequately and here’s the thing about the phone — it’s not spectacular. Or amazing. It is however, very adequate for most needs except for the most demanding games.
For the same price though, the older Redmi Note 4 offers a faster processor and better performance. So value-wise, the Redmi Note 5A is a tougher sell.
If you fancy the Redmi Note 5A Prime, you can give it a test drive at the nearest Xiaomi Mi Store or purchase it online on Lazada. It currently is available in both grey and gold at an RRP of RM699.
