Xiaomi Redmi 2 review: The budget smartphone breaker

Yes, we did find the Redmi 2 a little too pleasing, especially the design. Plain, simple, yet aesthetically appealing—no idea why, but it does! Xiaomi launched the Redmi 2 in India recently and it seems like a better alternative to the older Redmi 1S. The device stayed with us for a while and we do have good things to say about it.

Though plain and simple, the Redmi 2 does look elegant. With a dark, glossy front panel contrasting against the matte-finished white rear panel, the Redmi 2 is a better alternative to the Redmi 1S, in terms of both looks and performance. The Redmi 2 has an excellent form factor, making it very comfortable to use and grip—excellent for those with small palm sizes. The plastic body does not feel cheap, but if you drop the device, you would be in a shock to see dents and scratches—forcing you to opt for a back cover.

The front panel highlights the earpiece and camera on towards the top, while the lower end holds the three capacitive, non-backlit buttons for home, back and menu. The right side takes care of the chrome volume rocker and power buttons, while the top and bottom have the earphone jack and the micro USB port in place. The rear panel shows-off the 8MP primary camera with a single LED flash and the speaker on each side and a secondary microphone on the top. Below the rear panel are the slots available for the micro SD card and the two SIM cards. The micro SD card and SIM cards are not hot-swappable as you need to remove the battery in order to place them. Compared to the Redmi 1S, the Redmi 2is slimmer in both width and thickness, making the Redmi 1S look unappealing when kept together. Thanks to the fully laminated display used on the Redmi 2, which helps cut down on the thickness of the smartphone. The Redmi 2 is 9.4mm thick and weighs just 133g, one of the lightest in its category.

The Redmi 2 sports a 4.7-inch fully laminated IPS HD display with a resolution of 720x1280 pixels. Protecting the display panel is a DragonTrail glass, eliminating the need for a scratch guard. Under the hood lies a decently fast Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 chipset running four 1.2GHz processors along with 1GB of RAM and an Adreno 306 graphics processor. An internal storage of 8GB is available for your disposal, and since you would definitely need more, you can expand it to 32GB via the micro SD card or even more using the USB OTG option.

The primary camera sports an 8MP sensor along with an LED flash, and the front camera is a 2MP for casual selfies and video calling. The Redmi 2 supports 4G LTE, which makes this one of the cheapest 4G-supported Android smartphones in the market. Additional connectivity options include 3G, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth, GPS and GLONASS. The smartphone is fuelled by a 2200mAh battery and runs Xiaomi’s own home-brewed custom operating system, MIUI V6, based on Android KitKat 4.4.

The user interface being MIUI V6 is now a common feature for Xiaomi. Closely resembling Apple’s iOS operating system, the MIUI is similarly smooth, fluid, colourful and very intuitive. The performance of the V6 is great and the Snapdragon 410 chipset seems to surprisingly handle it well. No jitters, lags or sluggish performance, whatsoever. Set up the smartphone and sign up yourself for free themes, wallpapers, icons, ringtones, lockscreens and many more and personalize the operating system to your preference. The OS includes all Google apps by default and also includes an antivirus, cloud service, junk cleaner, call recording and a few more.

The display being a fully-laminated IPS panel is a great upgrade to the older versions of the Mi phones. Being laminated, the OGS process on the screen reduces the gap between the touch panel and the upper layer DragonTrail Glass protection, making the touch sensitivity even superior and precise. The IPS panel has a great level of brightness with vibrant colours and a good contrast level. We did not find any issues in terms of display quality. Watching movies, checking out your photos or simply reading text is crisp and clear. Visibility in broad daylight is good, albeit, you may have to turn up the brightness if needed. The graphics processor is a mid-range type and casual to mid-level gaming is a good experience.

The rear speaker is pretty loud, and we mean really loud and you would have to reduce the volume by around 25 per cent to keep it decently audible, unless you are outdoors. The audio quality is clear, but lacks proper bass. Using a good headphone will allow you to enjoy some great audio quality, but sadly, the Redmi 2 does not come with one.

The camera’s performance, though good, was a tad disappointing. We found the images captured by the camera to be at par with the Redmi 1S, but the photos did put out a slightly warm tinge.

Update: We tested the camera once again and found that the lighting conditions creates warm tinges, depeniding on the time of day, atmospheric conditions and camera settings. We have a few shots added at the end of this article for your disposal.

Images are sharp and colours are slightly toned down. We also did notice that the images were bleeding in brightly lit areas. Focusing and capture speeds are pretty good. However, the overall image is good enough for use across casual printing and sharing. We leave you with some images captured by the primary camera to judge for yourself.

To round up the entire review, the experience with the Redmi 2 was excellent. The aesthetic design, comfortable form factor, above average performance and a low budget low price, the 4G supported Redmi 2 is definitely a smartphone for budget hunters.

Update: More photo samples added below: