The Xiaomi A1 is, and by all means, an international variant of the Mi 5x, which was launched in China last month, it is a decently priced phone with great performance internals and a great pair of cameras adopted from the flagship Mi 6. Earlier today, Xiaomi has announced that the Mi A1 will be available in other markets out of India (Malaysia included), and we are going to expect more of such devices appear really soon in Xiaomi’s international product release, because one thing for sure, is that the market has a demand for Android devices that run pure Android.
I’ve been complaining a lot about MIUI in the past for resembling iOS too much, though it was one of my favorite Android skins due to some useful features and more recently, I find it to be among the fastest Android skins to be updated with the most recent version of Android. However, it would seem that Xiaomi has eventually realized that MIUI isn’t exactly intended for the international market, despite of its huge community in the MIUI forums, some features just can’t be used out of China and as the gap of its features begin to close in with stock Android, it makes sense for Xiaomi to move on to the Android One program to compete with companies like Samsung, Oppo and Vivo, as Android One devices are among the fastest to receive the latest Android software and security patches, it gives Xiaomi devices one more unique selling point apart from its attractive hardware and pricing.
I’m optimistic about how the Mi A1 will perform here, despite the company being really quiet this year, as this is definitely one device almost anyone could afford with Google’s software support, companies like HMD Global are already embracing the stock Android experience with Nokia phones and promised that all of its current devices will be upgraded to Android Oreo soon, will we soon see companies like Samsung, Oppo and Vivo making the same move?