While maybe not as widely known as Huawei or Samsung, South Africans have a certain appreciation for Xiaomi’s devices. They’re decent phones that don’t require a loan from the bank to purchase. We at Stuff were a big fan of Xiaomi’s last phone, the Redmi 9S, and its very respectable price tag so to see the company bring out an even cheaper entry-level device alongside a bigger (but still well-priced) sibling with some decent specs… well, that’s just a nice way to start a day, right? The new Xiaomi Redmi 9 will retail from R3,400 while the smaller Redmi 9A comes in at R2,000.
You Redmi mind
The Redmi 9 is clearly trying to bring a top-tier smartphone experience to those who can’t afford a R20,000 Samsung. So what exactly are you getting in the Redmi 9? Well, there are the standard bits for a phone this cheap, as well as some higher specs you might not expect. 4GB is a solid base for R2,000 and a 5,020mAh battery means that you should be getting a pretty solid chunk of up time on the device. And the forgetful will still manage that run to the shops without running out of battery thanks to the 18W fast charge.
It also sports a 6.3″ 1080 x 2340 LCD display, 64GB of internal storage (that can obviously be expanded out via the MicroSD card slot) and, most impressively, is the first entry level phone (According to Xiaomi, anyway) to sport a quad camera that features a 13MP wide lens, 8MP ultra-wide lens, a 5MP macro sensor and a 2MP depth sensor. For the selfie cam, you’re working with a standard 8MP lens. Nothing special but still not bad for entry level.
So what if you want an even entry-leveler phone? We know that’s not a word so let’s not dwell on it. Rather, let’s talk a little more about the Redmi 9A. It’s certainly not the same level as the Redmi 9 but given the ridiculously low price tag, that’s to be expected. The 9A is running with 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage space, an impressive 5,000 mAh battery and a single 13MP camera on the back and 5MP selfie camera.
Those are some damn good prices if you’re looking at buying a cheap phone that does enough to get by. Not too shabby, Xiaomi. Not too shabby at all.