Xiaomi’s Mi A1 smartphone went on sale in India on Tuesday, shortly before the smartphone is expected to make its debut in a wide variety of other markets, with the Chinese original equipment manufacturer (OEM) previously promising that the handset will be available for purchase in 37 countries around the globe. The company is presently offering the model with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal flash memory for Rs. 14,999, which translates to approximately $235. Apart from Xiaomi’s own Mi website, the device is also being offered by Flipkart, as well as several domestic retailers like Poorvika, UniverCell, LOT, and Sangeetha. The Mi A1 is still officially in the pre-order phase, with Flipkart stating that the smartphone will start shipping to customers by midnight, September 19.
Originally announced last week, the Mi A1 is Xiaomi’s first Android One device, running a stock version of Android 7.1.1 Nougat out of the box. The handset already went on sale on GearBest several days back and is expected to be available on a global level by the end of the year, though a potential North American release still seems highly unlikely. The Mi A1 is powered by the Snapdragon 625, Qualcomm’s mid-range SoC build on the 14nm process node with eight ARM Cortex A53 clocked at a maximum operating frequency of 2.0GHz, as well as the Adreno 506 GPU. The device comes with a dual camera setup entailing two horizontally arranged 12-megapixel sensors, a wide-angle module and a telephoto one. The two sensors are accompanied by a dual-LED (dual tone) flash unit, whereas the top bezel of the Mi A1 houses a 5-megapixel camera. The handset ships with a 5.5-inch display panel with a resolution of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels, supports two Nano SIM cards as part of its microSD-enabled Hybrid SIM setup and is powered by a 3,080mAh battery which isn’t removable. The Mi A1 also features an IR blaster which is becoming an increasingly rare component of contemporary smartphones, with the phone itself being available in Black, Gold, and Rose Gold color options.
The Mi A1 is essentially a revision of the Mi 5X, with the two only differing in terms of software seeing how the latter doesn’t feature a vanilla Android experience but instead ships with MIUI 9 based on Android 7.1.1 Nougat. The Chinese OEM already debuted a number of new devices in recent weeks, having unveiled the Mi MIX 2, Mi Note 3, and the Mi Notebook Pro just yesterday.
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