After weeks that I had a comeback review since the Redmi 1S, another Redmi came in our hub. Is the Xiaomi Redmi S2 worth your Php8,000+?
Before we proceed, the review unit that I borrowed thru Widget City got a huge 1.3 GB system which led to MIUI Ver. 9.5.9 . My last long term hands-on of a Mi smartphone was way back in that battery-hungry Mi 4i. This UI has a lot of changes which gave me some smile from better pulldown menu, multi tasking, flatter-looking app icons and multi window (this UI has more apps to support it, just next to EMUI of Huawei and Honor).As expected, there are still some unnecesary animations in transition to those apps but good thing, the developers option was on the rescue to fix it
What was the most amazing thing in Redmi S2 is the very fast fingerprint sensor which can easily pull off against the ones from Huawei near it's price range.
Yup it is the old (yet gold for it's price range) Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core processor but it's an instant no-brainer that I had an excellent experience in the connectivity department in terms of calls, texts, mobile data, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth and OTG support
Unfortunately for some reason, the phone that was on my workstation did not allow us to put in an Antutu app inside (but we all knew the capabilities of it) but on sensors, it has 7 out of necesary sensors that we usually need including the gyro sensor
On battery life, the video battery rundown test gave us at 14 hours and 40 minutes which is pretty good for the already proven processor at this department. Having it as a main driver, it usually gave me an average of 30 hours of usage with 6 hours of screen on time at 20% brightness
The rear camera output on the Redmi S2 is a mixed bag. Sometimes, it will give the right color accuracy, sometimes not which gave me a realization that it is under 10k smartphone. At least, the rear cam gives a bit of justice. Their selfie camera is decent as long as you have enough lighting. The phone does not have enough options on pro mode so better to stick on your instincts and timing on auto mode. Comparing from auto to HDR mode, Redmi S2 did a good job
Xiaomi Redmi S2 rear camera samples
Normal to HDR comparison
Xiaomi Redmi S2 front camera sample
For the asking price of Php 8,500 thru Widget City, Xiaomi Redmi S2 is a decent choice if you are already at home, needs very good battery life and that large 5.99 inch 18:9 display and having a not-so-thick phone plus very good fingerprint sensor. I knew some might not gonna like it if they are already came from another SD 625 processor and having more priorities on the camera. So far, the competitors on this price range is the 3 GB RAM of Vivo Y71 and the 3 GB of OPPO A83 which between the two, OPPO can be it's nearest foe. It's gonna be 3.75 out of 5 for me on Xiaomi Redmi S2
