Xiaomi Mi A2 Review

Design, build and controls

Xiaomi Mi A2 has quite a classic appearance for a full-screen smartphone that could be valid even a year ago. The body is made of a single slab of aluminium alloy that has been carefully treated to a fine matte finish that ensures a comfortable and steady grip. The back has a very mild curve along the vertical to improve ergonomics as well as curved edges on all sides. The antenna bands are made by using nano-injection and are almost invisible. The "willow waist" design adopted by the Redmi S2, Redmi 6, Redmi 6A and Mi 6X, of course, has found its way into the Mi A2, too. It ensures an impressively slim profile of the handset, visually. Especially on the black units. The frame does not reach the top of the display but finishes halfway the plastic frame of the panel, which is covered with a 2.5D curved Corning Gorilla Glass 5. The tactile experience is great, so is the handling. Unlike the Mi 6X, which gets quite a number of colour variants, Mi A2 arrives in lake blue, black, and gold. We are reviewing a black unit. Xiaomi Mi A2 is quite an average handset in terms of dimensions when compared to other smartphones with 5.99-inch displays. It is 75.4 mm wide and 158.7 mm high. It is also average in terms of width and height if you narrow down the choice among smartphones with 5.99-inch displays and 3000 mAh batteries. However, it is the slimmest model among those devices with a waistline of 7.3 mm. The next size up is 7.8 mm. The weight of 168 grammes is typical for handsets with displays and batteries of the corresponding size/capacity class. The front of Xiaomi Mi A2 is protected by a 2.5D curved Corning Gorilla Glass 5. The display takes up 77.63% of the total front surface of the device and is surrounded by generous side bezels, forehead and chin. The forehead houses the front camera, earpiece, light/proximity sensor, front LED flash and a single-colour LED notification light (white). The chin is bare and the navigation bar is software only. On Mi A2 you can neither customize it nor hide it. The dual camera module on the back of the device protrudes quite a bit. It has a vertical alignment in the top left corner of the handset's rear and includes a dual-LED flash placed in between the two shooters. The fingerprint sensor has a round shape and is conveniently placed for comfortable usage with the index fingers. It is also very fast. At the bottom, the Xiaomi and Android One brand names are imprinted. On the top frame, there are a microphone hole and an infrared port. The bottom frame houses two six-hole speaker grilles and a USB Type-C 2.0 port in the middle. The left grille covers a microphone, while the right one covers a single bottom-firing speaker. On the left frame, you will see the dual-SIM tray. It allows you to use two Nano-SIM cards only. There's no option to expand your available built-in memory via a microSD slot. The right frame is where the Volume and Power buttons are positioned. Both are made of metal and are comfortable to operate.