Xiaomi recently announced its two new Android One smartphones – The Mi A2 and Mi A2 Lite. Out of the these two, the Xiaomi Mi A2 is the phone that everyone was excited for. Last year, the Mi A1 was a big hit, thanks to the impressive hardware and stock Android at great pricing. With this year’s Mi A2, we wanted to see some major improvements, and it is indeed a major upgrade from last year’s Mi A1.
But among all the pros of this phone, there are some cons too. No smartphone is perfect, and the Mi A2 is no exception. In this particular article, we will talk about the Xiaomi Mi A2 cons that might make you skip this Android One device from Xiaomi.
XIAOMI MI A2 CONS
THE DESIGN
You may or may not like the design of Xiaomi Mi A2, but one of the major con of the device is its design. See, we agree that this is one of the best-built phones in the mid-range segment, but we are talking about how this phone looks. Start from this year’s Redmi Note 5, and you’ll see the same design for every Xiaomi smartphone launched this year. There is hardly anything unique regarding the design, no matter if it is a budget Xiaomi device or a high-end flagship.
Our first complain about the design is that vertical dual rear camera setup. Everyone knows that this design is copied from the iPhone X but what is the need of keeping the same design for every phone? Also, the phone has a huge camera bump, so it is almost impossible to use it perfectly while it is on a flat surface like a table. Second, the phone has that huge bottom chin that actually as nothing. We saw touch capacitive buttons on last year’s Mi A1 on the bottom chin, and if Xiaomi had added the same on Mi A2, then it would’ve been perfect.
NO HEADPHONE JACK
Wait, Is that even a con? Before writing such comments below, keep in mind that the Xiaomi Mi A2 is a mid-range phone and we don’t expect the companies to skip the essentials like the 3.5mm headphone jack from their mid-range or budget phones. We don’t need a slim phone that has no headphone jack and a small battery, right? We see the same thing with Motorola’s Z series smartphones. Also, no headphone jack means you either have to carry a dongle with you all the time or buy Bluetooth or Type-C Headphones.
Removing the headphone jack can help in adding a little more battery. According to the CEO of Razer, Min-Liang Tan, by removing the headphone jack on the Razer Phone, they were able to increase the battery size significantly (they added 500maH more), improve thermals for performance and a whole lot more.
But, this is not the case with the Xiaomi Mi A2 has it has a small battery, even smaller than last year’s Mi A1.
NO SD CARD SLOT
Again, it is something that we hardly see on budget smartphones. The Xiaomi Mi A2 doesn’t have an SD card slot, and this wasn’t expected when the Mi 6X first launched in China. The company could’ve added at least a hybrid SIM slot like all its budget phones, but for some reasons, Xiaomi decided to ditch the SD card slot. Another weird thing is that there is a variant of the phone with 32GB internal storage.
What was Xiaomi thinking? Adding no support for SD card and then launching a variant with just 32GB storage! The 64 and 128GB variants of the phone are perfect considering that there is no SD card slot, but you should avoid the 32GB variant if it launches in your country.
A SMALL BATTERY
Xiaomi’s budget phones are known for the impressive battery life, thanks to the huge batteries inside. We have seen phones like Redmi Note 4, Note 5, Note 5 Pro, Mi Max, Mi Max 2, Mi Max 3 and even the low-end Redmi series phones with huge 4,000mAh+ batteries that easily last a full day on heavy use. But when it comes to Android One devices, it’s completely different.
The Xiaomi Mi A2 had a 3,080mAh battery, and the all-new Xiaomi Mi A2 comes with even smaller 3,010mAh battery. This is probably one of the biggest Xiaomi Mi A2 Cons. Also, the phone comes with a 5V/2A charger inside the box so despite having support for Quick Charge 3.0/4.0, you’ll have to buy a separate adapter that supports Quick Charge 3.0 and 4.0.
NO NFC
If you are a user that uses NFC for payments, then the Xiaomi Mi A2 is surely not a phone that you should go for. The lack of NFC means that you are missing out on the NFC-based payments. Other mid-rangers in this price segment (like the Nokia 7 Plus) come with NFC support, so the choice is all yours.
ANDROID UPDATES
Don’t get us wrong, the Xiaomi Mi A2 is an Android One smartphone so it is expected to get Android Updates and Security Patches faster compared to other smartphones. But we have seen with the Mi A1 that with every new update, there are some new bugs and to fix that, the company has to either pull the update or roll out another update with fixes for those bugs. Also, the Android 8.1 Oreo update for the Mi A1 was rolled out just last month so we cannot say that Xiaomi was very fast in updating its Android One phone.
READ: Android 8.1 Oreo update for Xiaomi Mi A1 rolls out again, this time with a new bug
We are expecting to see a change in this situation with the Xiaomi Mi A2. The company has announced that it will get Android P update later this year, so fingers crossed for that.
Well, there are more Pros than cons when we talk about the Xiaomi Mi A2. Still, these were some of the major Xiaomi Mi A2 Cons that we talked about. What are your views on the Xiaomi Mi A2? Do let us know via the comments section.