Over the past 2 years, Xiaomi had been rebranding its china exclusive phones – Mi 5X and Mi 6X – as their Android One counterparts Mi A1 and Mi A2, and launching it globally. While there has been no news on the Mi 8X or even the Mi 9X, it seems another phone would indeed end up as the Mi A3.
My sources have been able to confirm that the China Exclusive Mi CC9 smartphones will launch as the Mi A3 Android One series.
Mi A3 Pro
The Mi A3 Pro, just like the Mi CC9 smartphone is going to arrive with a Snapdragon 710 processor, with a clock speed up to 2.2 GHz. It is also going to come equipped with a 3940 mAh (min)/4030 mAh (max) battery. The phone will have a 6.39” AMOLED screen with a Full HD+ resolution. It will have 3D Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on the back, and possibly a 2.5D variant on the front. It will launch with Android 9 Pie OS, under the Android One Programme, and will also receive 2 major upgrades to Android Q and R with 3 months of monthly security updates.
It will arrive with a triple camera setup, of which the primary one will be a 48MP Sony IMX586 sensor while the other 2 are an 8MP ultra wide and a 2MP depth sensor. The phone will house a 32MP selfie camera, with a water-drop notch.
Mi A3 will also have 3 RAM and storage combinations:
- 6GB RAM, 64GB Storage
- 6GB RAM, 128GB Storage
- 8GB RAM, 256GB Storage
In India, there is a high likelihood of the 8/256 variant not arriving, thereby topping out at the 6/128 variant.
The phone will also have an optical in-display fingerprint scanner and will also retain a headphone jack. The availability details of the phone are not known given how Xiaomi caught many off-guard with the launch of Mi A3 on July 17th. It could be available anytime.
Mi A3
Xiaomi caught everyone by surprise when they launched Mi CC9e – the downgraded variant of CC9 – as the Mi A3, when everyone expected this one to be the Mi A3 Lite. This phone is a step-up from the Mi A2 in quite a lot of areas, as well as a downgrade in some other areas. With this launch, there will be no Mi A3 Lite. It will be Mi A3 and the Mi A3 Pro.
The phone comes with a Snapdragon 665 processor. While the clock speed is a tad slower than its predecessor at 2.0 GHz max speed, this is actually quite an upgrade in many areas as it comes with Adreno 610 GPU – a huge step-up – and comes in a 11nm fabric, resulting in a better battery life. It also comes with a 6.088″ HD+ AMOLED Screen. The resolution is quite a downgrade from its predecessor, Mi A2, as well its inferior variant Mi A2 Lite. Coming to the upgrades, the Phone comes with 4GB RAM and 64/128GB of UFS 2.1 storage. It also supports memory expansion through the microSD slot unto 256 GB, another notable presence given the slot’s absence in the Mi A2. Another good thing is it comes with an in-display fingerprint scanner.
Just like the CC9, the A3 also has a triple-camera setup of the same configurations – 48MP primary sensor, 8MP ultra wide and 2MP depth sensor. The phone comes with ability to record 4K@30fps, and also sadly 1080p@30fps. We do hope that the phone gets a 1080p@60fps option, given the A2 also didn’t have it at launch, but got it via software update.
This phone will also have the Black, Blue and Gray color options. Like its superior counterpart, the Mi A3 also comes with a 3940 mAh (min)/4030 mAh (max) battery. The phone launched with Android 9 Pie OS, under the Android One Programme. It will also receive 2 major upgrades to Android Q and R with 3 months of monthly security updates. It is priced at 249 Euros (Rs. 19000) for the 64GB edition and 279 Euros (Rs. 21000) for 128GB Edition.
