There's no denying the fact that Indian consumers are budget conscious and they will retort to a brand that offers cheaper smartphones. There's no better brand than Xiaomi who understands the Indian market so well in the smartphone space. The company made India its second home due to the reception it received from Indian audience.
Xiaomi entered the country with the Mi 3 flagship phone in partnership with Flipkart in 2014. Back then, the firm underestimated the e-commerce market in India and discontinued the product after few days and launched the affordable Redmi 1s at Rs. 5,999. After having a poor outing in 2015, the company bounced back very well in 2016 with the Redmi Note 3 and couple of other Redmi smartphones.
Xiaomi is looking to cover all the budget segments in India, starting from entry-level to mid-range segment. Xiaomi launched the Redmi 4A in March 2017 at Rs. 5,999 for basic smartphone buyers. A couple of days ago, the firm announced the Redmi 4; a beefed up variant of the Redmi 4A and the successor to best online selling smartphone- Redmi 3s.
The Redmi 4 starts at a price point of Rs. 6,999, one grand more than the Redmi 4A. As mentioned earlier, Xiaomi is looking to make the budget segment its own, but for the end users, the company has made it tough to choose between the Redmi 4 and Redmi 4A. In this article, we will compare on which budget smartphone should you purchase between the two. Let's find out.
Design and display
The straight forward noticeable thing in the Redmi 4 is the metal construction, and it looks more like a smaller Redmi Note 4 will same chamfered edges. On the flip side, the Redmi 4 houses plastic body and it doesn't feel as premium as the Redmi 4.
Coming to the display, both the smartphones feature a 5-inch HD display, but the Redmi 4 has 2.5D curved glass on top, whereas the Redmi 4A lacks it. Design wise, the Redmi 4 looks better than the latter and also offers great in-hand feel.
Hardware
Under the hood, the Redmi 4 has an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 chip, while the Redmi 4A has a quad-core Snapdragon 425 SoC. We're considering the base variant of the Redmi 4 here which comes with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage. The Redmi 4A also features the same amount of RAM and storage. Nevertheless, the additional four cores in the Redmi 4 will result in better performance.
The Redmi 4 also comes with a fingerprint sensor at the back, and both the phones support storage expansion via hybrid microSD card slot. The Redmi 4 also comes in two more variants- 3GB RAM/32GB storage and 4GB RAM/64GB storage. Both the phones have support for 4G LTE, VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and USB OTG.
The Redmi 4 clearly wins the race in hardware and performance section.
Camera, software, and battery
The camera setup is more or less similar on both the phones with 13MP rear camera and 5MP front-facing unit. So, expect them to capture similar shots.
Software front, both the Redmi 4 and Redmi 4A boots Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow based MIUI 8, which is one of the heavily customised Android skin. The difference in the software department is: Xiaomi announced the Android Nougat preview for the Redmi 4, but no words for Redmi 4A.
The Xiaomi Redmi 4 features a larger 4100mAh battery, whereas the Redmi 4A comes with a smaller 3120mAh battery, that's almost 1000mAh less than the Redmi 4. Undoubtedly, the Redmi 4 will offer better battery life.
Conclusion
On paper, the Redmi 4 and Redmi 4A have a lot of similarities, but you get a premium design, bigger battery, and snappy processor in the Redmi 4 for just Rs. 1000 bucks more. And it also houses a fingerprint sensor for additional security. That said if you can afford the Redmi 4, get it without any further thinking. If you're on a tight budget and can't afford it, the Redmi 4A should fit your bill.
