Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A unboxing and first impression.

If you need a phone but on a pretty low budget, you should click this link right away so you can take advantage of price slash at the on-going Jumia Mobile week. Oh yeah!! So I assume you already clicked those links but before you get carried away by those seemingly attractive deals, you need to check out what detail to expect from this smartphone from Xiaomi.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A is an addition to the Xiaomi portfolio of inexpensive smartphones. Now don’t be tricked with the name, it bears a “Note” but it doesn’t come with the Note features like full HD display, finger print sensor except for the 5.5-inch display.

Now straight to what to get in the box: For those familiar with Xiaomi packaging, the company prefers to keep it simple. The phone is packed in a colourful orange box with a brief detail of the specs on the back.

Apart from the phone, you find the power adapter, a micro USB cable, a SIM tray pin and a user manual all enclosed in the box.

Here is a quick rundown of the specs of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A

5-inch, HD display with Corning Gorilla glass
1280 X 720 display resolution.
13MP rear camera with LED flash, capable of recording 1080p videos
5MP front camera
16GB on-board storage expandable up to 128GB via MicroSD
4GHz quad-core Snapdragon 425 processor
Android 7.0 Nougat OS
3,080mAh battery

What is my first impression?

The phone looks brazenly simple, well-polished and solid. It has a slim design at 7.6mm thickness, weighs 150g, making it light and handy. It’s got a plastic build with a nice metallic finish which makes the back of the phone look like it’s made of aluminium.

Placed at the top of the display is the 5MP camera and proximity sensor. At the chin of the phone are three capacitive buttons: home, back and menu buttons. These buttons are not backlit so one my just need to get used to the positions for ease of use at night.

At the back, you have the 13MP camera and the LED flash. Adding to the beauty of the metallic polished, plastic back panel is the chrome accent at the top and at the bottom.

The volume rocker and power button are placed on the right while the SIM tray is on the left. The SIM tray can take two nano-SIM cards and a microSD card at the same time….

I need not have the headache of either using two SIM cards with no SD card or sticking to a single SIM card if I decide to expand the memory of the device.

At the top is the headphone jack and an Infrared blaster. At the bottom is the charging port and two grills, one for the speaker and the other for microphone.

The display is not a huge bright one when you compare with the high end devices with full-HD display but you really won’t have a problem with multimedia consumption, gaming or use under the sun. The brightness and sharpness offered by this device is just enough to satisfy the user’s need.

The phone runs on Android 7.0 with an overlay of Xiaomi’s MIUI 8. The phone was released at the time when MIUI 9 was released but it wasn’t pre-loaded here, not to worry, the MIUI will easily get an update within a short while.

The phone sells for a decent price of N34,000 on Jumia but you can buy it at a discounted price of N29,000 during at the Jumia mobile week. To take advantage of the price offer, click here

I have used the Xiaomi Mi5 and I can tell that the Xiaomi experience is great. So if I am provided with an option to choose any smartphone currently available within the 30k price range, I will choose the Redmi Note 5A.