So, the 2 top selling smartphones from Xiaomi in India are still hard to buy. Being Android stock, Mi A1 is still one of the best buy, while the latest flagship Note 5 Pro is getting out of stocks in mere 3 to 5 seconds in last two flash sales. If you are planning to buy a Xiaomi Phone, let’s do a quick comparison between these smartphones to find out which one is better.
Design:
Both phones sports metal body and are well built but cosmetically there are few differences. Mi A1 has few advantages:
- Like it’s lighter by 15gms
- It’s shorter and slimmer
- Has capacitive keys
- The antenna lines looks cool.
The Redmi Note 5 Pro on other hand is narrower and has a much better screen-to-body ratio with 18:9 aspect ratio which is 16:9 in Mi A1. So not much of a difference but Note 5 pro looks better front the front.
The display size on Mi A1 is 5.5 inch whereas the Note 5 Pro wins this race with 5.99 inch display with Full HD+ (2160 x 1080) instead of 1920 x 1080 on the Mi A1, even the panel is a bit brighter on the Note 5 Pro.
Hardware:
The Mi A1 sports the tried and tested Snapdragon 625 chip which very power efficient and performs amazingly well but still 2 years old. Snapdragon 636 on Note 5 Pro is much powerful chip and is of current generation. The performance on Mi A1 is top notch but the Note 5 Pro wins this one too with its more powerful processor.
Both the phones come with the 64GB onboard storage but the Note 5 Pro is the only one with the 6GB of RAM option. Even the battery department is leaded by the Note 5 Pro with 4000mAH battery versus the 3080mAH battery on Mi A1. The Mi A1 offers great battery life which can get you through a day of moderate usage on a single charge but the huge battery on the Note 5 Pro will get you more than a day and half or even two on low usage.
Camera:
Both the phones has a dual camera setup but different execution. On the Note 5 Pro the primary camera is of 12-mp (f/2.2) and a secondary 5-mp depth sensor lens versus 12-mp (f/2.2) and another 12-mp (f/2.6) camera lens for depth sensor and this one has 2x optical zoom as an upper hand. The selfie department is won by Note 5 Pro with 20-mp camera with an LED flash compared to the ordinary 5-mp camera on Mi A1.
Xiaomi seems to have to tweak a few things around with software processing on the Note 5 Pro which results in warmer and saturated colors and on the Mi A1 it shows original colors. Even in the low-light conditions both phones almost the same with sharp pictures and shadow retaining images and same noise levels. Portrait mode will show you the difference and the Mi A1 was better here because of the telephoto lens and the 2x optical zoom, hence the focal length gives you better exposure on the subject.
Mi A1 can shoot 4K videos whereas the Note 5 Pro is limited to 1080p, but we think this can be resolved by an update by Xiaomi. The footage shot by Mi A1 is brighter, sharper and more color accurate compared to warmer videos on Note 5 Pro. But the videos shot on Note 5 Pro is lot more stable than the Mi A1, thanks to the Electronic Image Stabilization.
The Note 5 Pro again wins here in the selfie race. The whooping 20-mp selfie camera with an LED flash captures amazing details with accurate colors which the Mi A1 fails to do. The plus point on the Note 5 Pro is the portrait mode even that’s absent on the few months older Mi A1, and despite the single camera on the front the Note 5 Pro does an amazing job with good amount of blur and edge deduction.
Software:
Redmi Note 5 Pro runs on MiUI 9 built on Android 7.1.1 Nougat, the Mi A1 runs on stock Android 8.0 Oreo. Now it is worth to notice that the Mi A1 is an Android One program device and it will get guaranteed updates and security patches and much faster. So this one is won by the Mi A1 just because of the faster stock Android and faster updates by Google and security patches.
Bonuses:
Headphone sound on Mi A1 is better than Note 5 pro but the speaker are better on the later one, even there’s no FM radio on Mi A1 for the radio lovers this can be a deal breaker.
Editor’s take:
Both the phones are priced at 14,000/- rupees, not considering the higher priced 6GB RAM version of Note 5 PRO. Newer design, 18:9 display, a better selfie camera with selfie portrait and much stronger processor and a bigger battery life, the Redmi Note 5 PRO is the winner here for us.
