Xiaomi’s smartphones have been making more and more appearances on our radars of late and that’s a trend that doesn’t seem to be slowing. The Xiaomi Mi A1 is just the latest in a line of handsets that have caught our collective eyes, only this one is a bit different.

For starters, the Mi A1 is a member of Google’s Android One program. A program that didn’t really get off the ground on the hardware front but which does mean that participating will have more-or-less completely stock Android to play with.

The A1 aims to give users a little more than that to fiddle with, though. Xiaomi’s handset sports a 5.5in HD display, a Snapdragon 625 processor — locking it into the mid-range, and 4GB of RAM as well as 64GB of storage. That’s a decent amount of power for what looks to be a physically attractive handset and that’s not where it stops, either.

A dual camera (because everyone has to have one of these these days) consisting of 12MP telephoto and wide-angle lenses, fingerprint scanner, a metal body, dual SIM card slots AND space for a microSD, and a 3,050mAh battery round out the rest of the features. The only place the A1 seems to have skimped is with the front camera. A lowly 5MP sensor sits there for your selfie requirements.

The Xiaomi Mi A1 is slated for release in India first before making its way to more that 40 markets. Just which markets are planned isn’t explained fully, however. Russia, Indonesia, Poland, Taiwan, and Vietnam are among those that already cracked the nod — we’re hoping that South Africa is on the guest list as well.

Source: via Ars Technica