Xiaomi Redmi Go

The king of budget phones is back with a low-budget Redmi Go, suitable for the common masses. Priced at Rs 4,499, the Redmi Go may contain some low-tier hardware but remains an accomplished handset.

Despite coming with an old processor and poor cameras, the Redmi Go delivers what it promises to offer – a passable set of hardware to get you through the necessities of a phone. It is a value-for-money phone which does not boast of excess and remains a capable model in the budget market.

The Redmi Go is an ordinary looking phone, but it feels a lot more premium when you hold it. Despite being made of plastic, the Redmi Go discards any ugly seams that might drop the value of the phone. The rear curves nicely so that it can sit well in hand.

The phone does not show any flex, and is quite rigid. Being a compact set, it is quite easy to handle with one hand. The phone weighs a light 137g, which is below the average weight and seems less reliable as a consequence. There is a Micro-USB port and a speaker grille at the bottom and a 3.5mm headphone jack present on top.

The notification LED is missing. The single rear camera sits flush with the back panel, and so, you don’t get scratches on it. The rear panel does not attract many fingerprint smudges.

Redmi Go arrives with a 5-inch screen which offers a surprising 720×1280 resolution. At this range, phones used to provide 480×854 or 540×960 resolution panel. The screen is quite sharp, but the colors appear to be a bit muted. The viewing angles are decent with slight color distortion at hard angles. The screen is passably bright but does not have enough sunlight legibility in it.

Redmi Go gets its power from the Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 SoC which is quite a dated model. It has four Cortex-A53 cores, which is about 1.4 GHz and a weak Adreno 308 GPU. Plus, the phone arrives with a very low 1GB RAM.

Due to the low performance, the apps tend to take a long time to load. Then, the phone tends to stutter while closing or opening apps due to the UI animation. Switching between app will slow down the phone. The Go apps on the phone have some excellent features.

For example, YouTube Go shows the exact amount of data that you have consumed while the Maps Go has optimised directions for two-wheelers. As claimed by Redmi, the Go apps do launch within 5 seconds. Gaming performance was just about average with high-end games like Asphalt 9 and PUBG Mobile not being compatible, and Asphalt 8 running without effects.

Without effects, Asphalt 8 experienced little stutters. Even casual games like Temple Run 2 ran smoothly with a few stutters while you are loading maps. It registers about 29,782 points in AnTuTu, which is lower than budget phone Redmi 6A’s 61,053 points and Asus ZenFone Lite L1 at 55,690 points.

Redmi Go has an 8MP sensor with an f/2.0 aperture, but it does not have autofocus. In daylight, the photos come out clean and vibrant though the phone screen dims the quality. Transferring the images on a computer showed that the colors popped out well, but there was an overall drop of quality.

There is a slight shutter lag too. In macros, the phone did not do well, with a blurring of edges present.

In low light situations, the images are grainy and noisy with the subjects developing a poor definition. Thankfully, the photos were pretty bright, making the objects discernible.

The 5MP front camera has an f/2.2 aperture which is quite basic, even with the low-quality beautification. The photos can be used for social media but are not recommended.

Due to the lack of stabilization, the videos were shaky, and there was a need to hunt for focus. The 1080p videos were just about passable.

Redmi Go gets a massive 3000mAh battery which is quite good and can keep the phone running for an entire day with light use. Playing some games, watching a few videos, and browsing through social media constitutes light use.

An HD video loop test found out that the phone got a decent 9 hours and 50 minutes, which is a delight for a budget phone. The phone does not come with quick-charging and can take about 3-4 hours to get to full charge.

The Redmi Go will not catch your attention, but if you have a tight budget, then this phone could be a marvellous acquisition. However, it does come with abysmal performance, and the low RAM can make this phone lacking. There are better alternatives in the market, like the ZenFone Lite F1, which has better performance and RAM.