What is going on with Xiaomi's Android One Mi A-series?

[Redaktion]

The Mi A1 signaled the start of major OEMs adopting Google's Android One program. While one would expect Xiaomi to build on the success of the Mi A1, it's starting to look like the series peaked with the phone. Poor updates, bad quality control, and cost-cutting decisions plague a lineup that had the potential to be the global enthusiast's smartphone series of choice.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/What-is-going-on-with-Xiaomi-s-Android-One-Mi-A-series.454487.0.html

[adylanchng]

My question is. Does anybody do Android One justice?
HMD Global may not recall updates, but they certainly roll out buggy updates. Check out their forum and almost all their devices are infected by very frustrating bugs users experience on the day to day basis.

It's like either you get no security updates (most phones), monthly secuirty updates with bugs (Android One) or monthly security updates with little bugs (flagships, not affordable to most).

[skoda9635]

Motorola seems to be doing just fine with Android One.

[Codrut Nistor]

Motorola seems to be doing just fine with Android One.

Doing what? They're kinda outside the big league...

[Peterb meter]

I have Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite and this is my very LAST xiaomi phone. Just because of this! Xiaomi never ever, even if i got paid for it!

[Alex Eliot]

It's really frustrating when the author exaggerates so much over something so petty. There are 2 paragraphs of the author saying how sad they are because the A3 has a 720p display. Like REALLY? You haven't owned the A3, hell, not even touched it if you say that. First of all, you can't see the pixels, like, it's just so hard, you must have high myopia and get as close as you can get without glasses to see them. There is no damn chance you are gonna pull out your phone from your pocket and notice one pixel, none, really. So not only do you not see the difference between 1080p (I come from P9 Lite so I know trust me), you get more battery life because of the lower resolution, and it's also an AMOLED so black pixels are off = even more battery life. Lastly, even if the fact that someone MIGHT see the pixels if they get a magnifier makes you consider the screen to be a downgrade, you are wrong to that as well. You see 1080p x LCD vs. 720p x AMOLED seems a pretty balanced fight to me with the 720p on the winning side. Also, because your knowledge of the device is so little, you completely ignore several perks you will not find in other A series phones like

1) Google Camera. A3 has a Sony IMX586 sensor and it's compatible with Google camera (yes you must download the apk), I've tried it.
2) Faster internal memory. Everybody ignores this for some reason! A3 has an internal memory which is used on several flagships before which is faster than normal budget ones.

If the "downgrade" to 720p makes you sad, it makes me even more sad that you will affect people who consider buying this phone who will get misled by your article.

[Ricci Rox]

It's really frustrating when the author exaggerates so much over something so petty. There are 2 paragraphs of the author saying how sad they are because the A3 has a 720p display. Like REALLY? You haven't owned the A3, hell, not even touched it if you say that. First of all, you can't see the pixels, like, it's just so hard, you must have high myopia and get as close as you can get without glasses to see them. There is no damn chance you are gonna pull out your phone from your pocket and notice one pixel, none, really. So not only do you not see the difference between 1080p (I come from P9 Lite so I know trust me), you get more battery life because of the lower resolution, and it's also an AMOLED so black pixels are off = even more battery life. Lastly, even if the fact that someone MIGHT see the pixels if they get a magnifier makes you consider the screen to be a downgrade, you are wrong to that as well. You see 1080p x LCD vs. 720p x AMOLED seems a pretty balanced fight to me with the 720p on the winning side. Also, because your knowledge of the device is so little, you completely ignore several perks you will not find in other A series phones like

1) Google Camera. A3 has a Sony IMX586 sensor and it's compatible with Google camera (yes you must download the apk), I've tried it.
2) Faster internal memory. Everybody ignores this for some reason! A3 has an internal memory which is used on several flagships before which is faster than normal budget ones.

If the "downgrade" to 720p makes you sad, it makes me even more sad that you will affect people who consider buying this phone who will get misled by your article.

Author here.

Never settle.

Plus, I don't think you quite understand how AMOLED pentile matrices work. Other phones in that segment all have 1080p displays, the A3 getting a 720p is awful of Xiaomi; stop trying to excuse it.

No doubt, the Mi A3 has its perks, but this piece was never intended to highlight those perks. We have a full review on the Mi A3 that you should check out to know what we think about the phone, pros and cons included.

[jabon]

Another extremely disappointed customer of Xiaomi A2 Lite here. Because of this fiasco, I will no longer buy the Xiaomi brand.

[Arky Lyngdoh]

I don't think there will be a Mi A4. It looks like they've lost interest in the A series. Late updates and Buggy updates. Nokia has releeased android 10 updates for their phones months before even the A2 got its buggy one. The made a useless Mi A2 lite model which is just a rebranded Redmi phone not even a Mi one.

[Anonym]

You haven't owned the A3, hell, not even touched it if you say that. First of all, you can't see the pixels (...). There is no damn chance you are gonna pull out your phone from your pocket and notice one pixel, none, really. (...) you completely ignore several perks you will not find in other A series phones like

1) Google Camera. A3 has a Sony IMX586 sensor and it's compatible with Google camera (yes you must download the apk), I've tried it.
(...)

The irony of the matter is that your best "showcase" scenario for this phone is exactly where anyone who knows anything about photography will find issue with the 720p pentile AMOLED display, the finer detail in pictures just isn't there!
You'll never know if the photo is properly focused without afterwards zooming into the snapped picture, because the screen just isn't capable of showing the needed finer detail in the preview. Often times I had pictures that looked just in the verge of out-of-focus, but were in fact perfectly focused, it was just the screen that massively sucked. Never had this issue in my Mi A2, heck not even in the iPhone Xr (which also has a 720p screen, but is IPS instead of pentile AMOLED).

Plus, if you display the 3x3 grid, the lacking pixel density of this type of panel will be very noticeable. Where there should be perfectly continuous lines, you'll have what looks like a collection of dots trying to resemble a line.

The issues are so obvious that claiming otherwise is not a matter of eyesight, but rather not wanting to see.

[Anonym]

Small side-note, the issue with the AMOLED isn't really the fact it's pentile, but rather the fact it's diamond pentile -- emphasis on the diamond part.

[Glasso]

Xiaomi have given up on Android One imo. They did a bad job of it to be honest. There were some serious bugs introduced with the updates that were never fixed. E.g. on the mi a2 lite wifi was speed was seriously impacted if bluetooth was on at the same time. Probably not worth their while for the effort involved in this budget phone segment.

[LL]

Sad that the author choose to list defective hardware and mix it up with an hardware choice.

It is manipulative.

"The Mi A3 also, somehow, features a 720p pentile AMOLED display."

It is a good display, i prefer it to a 1080p IPS.

Maybe you should use Mi A3 for a week at least instead.

[thomasB]

Fully agreed with the good screen quality. Anyone complaining with screen resolution doesn't own the phone and is just a geek that always want "the best" without even knowing why... For me the 720P resolution has no drawback (I can't see any pixel when reading) but allows to have better performance in games/apps and improve significantly the battery life...I just need to charge the phone 2-3 times a week.

[Mateja]

Im using my A2 for 2yrs and I havent had any issues with updates or bugs. Only thing that happened, after update to 9 at the end of 2018 and to 10 in January this year was Crome freezing and crashing few times. Until new update, after that worked like a charm. I had nothing but smooth experience with A2, but I read that a lot of people had issues, but I cant relate to any of them. I'll be using this phone until its dead.  ;D