We have some bad news for stock Android lovers as Xiaomi is leaving the Android One program behind. Its Mi A-series has gained popularity mostly in the western market by offering clean Android experience at the customary for the company’s aggressive prices. Anyone looking for the vanilla Android was bound to stumble upon one of Xiaomi’s A series.
However, the company has officially confirmed that it will no longer release handsets running Android One, which in turn means that there won’t be Mi A4. There’s no specific reason for the discontinuation of the lineup but our educated guess would be the issues Xiaomi was facing with the software when providing updates to these phones. They were often late even though the Android One program is all about swift updates and longer support.
Interestingly enough, Motorola has been steering away from the Android One initiative with the last couple of releases sticking to pure Android with some added features on top, much like OnePlus is doing. So this leaves HMD as the only major maker, still running the Android One show.
Xiaomi Mi A3 Specs
Xiaomi Mi A3 was the last Mi A series smartphone. It was a re-branded Mi CC9e which was launched in China and was re-branded as Mi A3 globally. The Xiaomi Mi A3 comes with 6.09 inches Super AMOLED display. It features a triple rear camera setup led by a 48-megapixel primary, 8-megapixel ultrawide, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. On the front side, you’ll be greeted by a 32-megapixel snapper.
The smartphone featured Snapdragon 665 chipset which is backed up by a 4030 mAh battery with 18W fast charging support. It came with Pixel-like naming schemes for color options: Kind of Gray, Not just Blue and More than White.
How Android One Was Just A Gimmick On Xiaomi Mi A Series
The smartphone got into 2 big controversies. The first one was a 720p display on a mid-ranger. Xiaomi was made fun of for adding a 720p display, and many called it a deal-breaker. Secondly, even being an Android One smartphone, it didn’t receive an Android 10 update for a long time. Ironically, a petition wad filled against Xiaomi to give Android 10 to Mi A3. It was delayed so much, that it got released later in February of 2020.
I wasn’t impressed by Xiaomi Mi A3. And maybe Xiaomi also knows that they aren’t good at it. However, Google itself has entered the mid-range budget lineup with Pixel 4A.
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