THE BEAST OF XIAOMI Y2

It is intriguing how the selfie-taking capabilities of a phone have spurred a whole new line-up of phones across manufacturers. Following in the footsteps of ‘Selfie Experts’ like OPPO, Xiaomi too introduced their Y series of phones last year. Promising excellent front-facing cameras in addition to robust internals, the Redmi Y1 saw quite a bit of success. So it is fairly obvious why Xiaomi has introduced a second generation model ie the Xiaomi Redmi Y2 today. Follow along for the full review.

Xiaomi Redmi Y2 specifications

• 5.99-inch (1440 × 720 pixels) HD+ 18:9 2.5D curved glass display with 1000:1 contrast ratio, 450 nits (typ) Brightness, 70.8% NTSC color gamut
• 2GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 625 14nm Mobile Platform with Adreno 506 GPU
• 3GB RAM with 32GB storage / 4GB RAM with 64GB storage, expandable memory up to 256GB with microSD
• Android 8.1 (Oreo) with MIUI 9
• Dual SIM (nano + nano + microSD)
• 12MP rear camera with LED Flash, 1.25μm pixel size, PDAF, f/2.2 aperture, secondary 5MP camera
• 16MP front-facing camera with LED flash
• Fingerprint sensor, Infrared sensor
• Dimensions: 160.73 × 77.26 × 8.1mm; Weight: 170g
• 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS + GLONASS
• 3080mAh (typical) / 3000mAh (minimum) battery

Design

The design language of the Redmi Y2 will be instantly identifiable to most. The phone is almost a mini-me version of the Redmi Note 5. We’re not going to complain about that. The Redmi Y2 is smart to look at and while it won’t turn heads like the latest breed of Honor smartphones, it is still is a premium looking device.

The front has a 5.99 inch IPS LCD display with an 18:9 aspect ratio. Compared to the Redmi Note 5, bezels are slightly larger. This results in a phone that is larger than the Redmi Note 5 despite having a similar sized screen. There’s not a whole lot more to observe at the front. Yes, there is a chin and a prominent forehead too that houses the 16MP front-facing camera and LED flash. There are no capacitive controls at the bottom since those have been replaced with on-screen keys. It is easy enough to get around the interface and now that Xiaomi has introduced gesture-based navigation in MIUI, it is all the more easy to get around the phone.

Something else that you’ll observe is that instead of having the glass front mounted within the metal frame, it sits slightly ahead. This gives the phone a bit of an edge on all sides that helps you grip the phone better.