Redmi A2 Plus Review: Best Entry-Level Budget Phone?

Xiaomi has lots of smartphones at varied price tags. However, they are known for making good-budget smartphones. Redmi A2 Plus is one of those budget phones.

Redmi A2 Plus price in Nepal is Rs. 11,499 (2/32GB) and Rs. 11,999 (3/64GB). For this price, A2 Plus packs a decent punch. Moreover, the inclusion of Android Go makes it a smooth operator. So, is Redmi A2 Plus worth the money? Find out in this review of the Redmi A2 Plus.

ALSO READ: Redmi 12C Price in Nepal (September 2024 Updated)

Redmi A2 Plus Review

Design

• 164.9 x 76.75 x 9.09 mm, 192 g
• Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)

Redmi A2 Plus has a unibody design with a plastic body. It looks and feels great for a budget phone. The textured back panel feels good and the flat edge makes it easy to hold.

The rear panel has a dual-camera setup and a fingerprint sensor. The fingerprint sensor is fast and consistent. On the right, it has volume and power buttons. On the left, it houses a dual sim tray slot with a dedicated microSD slot.

Redmi A2 Plus comes in three colors: Aqua Blue, Classic Black, and Sea Green. All of these variants have pleasing pastel shades. Our variant is Sea Green which has a very light shade of green.

This phone doesn’t have a USB Type-C port, a micro USB port is located on the bottom along with a mic and a 3.5mm headphone jack. There’s a speaker grille on the top but the sound outputs from the earpiece as well. Mind you, it is not a stereo speaker setup. The speaker is loud enough but it lacks fidelity, it sounds flat.

On the front, there’s a water drop notch in the middle of the screen. The screen bezels are as thick as we expect from a budget phone, no improvement in this department.

Display

• 6.52 inches IPS LCD
• 720 x 1600 pixels
• 20:9

The 6.52-inch IPS panel is good for the price. It is a 720p panel but feels plenty sharp for its display size.

The display is bright but not super bright. So, you won’t be 100% comfortable using this phone under direct sunlight.

As for content viewing, it is a decent experience. The viewing angles are good and the color output is decent. Let’s say, you won’t be disappointed while watching YouTube videos on this phone.

ALSO READ: Redmi 12C Review: Best Phone Under Rs. 15,000 in Nepal

Performance

• MediaTek Helio G36 (12nm)
• Octa-core (4×2.2 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4×1.7 GHz Cortex-A53)
• PowerVR GE8320
• 32/64GB eMMC 5.1, 2/3GB RAM LPDDR4X RAM

One of the few upgrades on the A2 Plus is the chipset. A1 Plus was fitted with the MediaTek Helio A22 but A2 Plus uses the Helio G36 chipset.

Along with an Octa-core (4×2.2 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4×1.7 GHz Cortex-A53) CPU, it comes with 2GB LPDDR4X RAM and 32GB eMMC 5.1 storage. For GPU, it uses the PowerVR GE8320.

Redmi A2 Plus can do basic tasks like opening apps and UI navigation without major hiccups.

It is not slow but you cannot call it fast either. However, the apps will reload even if you have only 2-3 apps running in the background. This is most likely due to 2GB RAM.

The phone is capable enough to run social media apps, make phone/video calls, and play light games. We tried playing Free Fire and it ran well on the lowest settings.

Camera

• Rear Camera: 8MP, f/2.0 (main)
  • 0.8MP, QVGA (Auxiliary lens)

• Front Camera: 5MP, f/2.2

Redmi A2 Plus has a dual camera on the rear with an 8MP main sensor and a 0.8MP QVGA sensor. On the front, it has a 5MP selfie camera.

Main Camera

The main sensor is impressive for the price. Photos captured in daylight turn out nice with neutral colors and balanced exposure. The photos won’t have good detail and dynamic range but that is what we expect from a budget phone.

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Portrait

It also comes with Portrait mode which does an okayish job. The edge detection is not that good but the portraits look decent. The subject is in focus most of the time and the HDR works well to maintain the highlights in the background.

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Selfie

A2 Plus captures nice selfies with natural skin tones and neutral color profiles. In daylight, the photos have decent detail but you will notice a lot of noise in indoor selfies.

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Videos

The Redmi A2 Plus can capture up to 1080p 30fps with the primary camera. If you capture videos in daylight, the video has nice color and the exposure looks good as well. It won’t be sharp but it captures very good videos for a phone at this price tag.

Battery & OS

• Non-removable Li-Po 5000mAh battery
• MicroUSB 2.0
• 10W charging
• Android 13 (Go Edition)

Redmi A2 Plus has a battery capacity of 5000mAh that can easily last for more than a day. In moderate usage, A2 Plus was providing 7-8 hours of screen time. However, it comes with 10W charging which takes almost 3.5 hours to fully charge the battery.

The OS is well-optimized which helps the A2 Plus to run smoothly even with low specifications.

Redmi A2 Plus runs on Android 12 Go Edition out of the box. Our review unit has been updated to Android 13 and Xiaomi has promised 2 years of security updates. The phone is not entirely bloatware free, apps like Spotify and Netflix were pre-installed.

So, this is my Redmi A2 Plus review. What do you think about the phone? If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments!