Xiaomi Mi A2 Spec Roundup: Ditching the Headphone Jack

Xiaomi might not be a terribly recognizable name in the US, but they’re a juggernaut in China. They primarily make low-end smartphones, at least price-wise, that function well nonetheless. The newest batch of phones they’ve announced are the Xiaomi Mi A2 and the Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite. The normal Mi A2 follows a few trends started by Apple in order to stay modern and fresh. Let’s look at some of the newly-announced specs of this Chinese smartphone.

So Long, 3.5mm Jack

It seems modern smartphones are allergic to 3.5mm jacks. Case in point? Even budget smartphones are ditching them now. This design trend has been partly in order to increase waterproofing, and partly to streamline designs. As the Mi A2 isn’t waterproof, in this case we can only assume the lack of the jack is to mirror the designs of premium smartphones. The Mi A2 Lite, however, retains the legacy output port. Those who still love their traditional wired headphones need not despair—yet.

Hello, USB-C

Instead of the micro-USB sported by the Mi A2 Lite, the Mi A2 has a USB-C port. Again, this seems to keep the phone in line with the design features of modern smartphones. USB-C is a great standard, allowing for fast charging and allowing for dongles for 3.5mm jacks to convert to the USB-C. This is a good switch, to be sure, and it’s good to see even low-end phones adopting the style.

Xiaomi Mi A2 Specs

The Mi A2 has reasonable specs for a smartphone of its price. It starts with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. It also carries a Snapdragon 660 processor and an Adreno 512 GPU.  Oddly, it has a smaller battery than its little sibling, the A2 Lite. It sports a back-mounted fingerprint scanner and an IR blaster, as well, which both function reasonably well.

Interestingly, the A2 doesn’t have a notch design, but the A2 Lite does. This somewhat muddies the connection between the standard A2 and a premium smartphone look but isn’t exactly a negative. In fact, many Android enthusiasts see the notch as ugly, or a reminder of Apple’s design philosophy.

Bottom Line

The standard Xiaomi Mi A2 runs right around $290, while the Lite runs around $209. Neither will receive a normal American release, but you will be able to buy them online if you’re interested in the combination of low price and reasonable performance.