Xiaomi Redmi 4A: An affordable desi swag

While Make in India as a slogan has been around for many months, we have seen very few instances where real innovation or product development has actually resulted in consumers getting good devices at competitive prices. Rather than creating devices outside and shipping them into India, it obviously makes sense to manufacture in India as long as companies are willing to pass on the cost savings to you and me.  Chinese smartphone player Xiaomi has just announced a second manufacturing plant (partnering with Foxconn) in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh, that has the capacity to churn out one phone per second. Of the 5,000 employees of this plant, 90 per cent are women. This means that an almost all-women crew is creating low-cost devices for India, in India.

The device is the Redmi 4A, which comes with a 5 inches HD screen, with 4G dual SIM VoLTE support, powered by the Snapdragon 425 quad core processor. The device has a 2 GB RAM plus 16 GB storage configuration, expandable to 128GB. With a 13 MP rear and 5 MP front cameras, it has incorporated two selfie ‘beautify’ modes – Smart and Pro. The device feels extremely light and it is a breeze to operate it, even with a single hand. At Rs 5,999, the 4A is an impressive combo of battery performance, sleek design and a good camera.