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Redmi S2, a mid-range Xiaomi phone

Redmi S2, a mid-range Xiaomi phone

Large display, serious camera and standard quality at low cost. Need more?

Redmi S2, a mid-range Xiaomi phone


 

Introduction

The Xiaomi Redmi S2 came as a surprise to the market as it was not a predecessor. The Redmi and the Note series were complete when it was launched on the market, so for the time being, I'm not sure I needed it. Not as if it was a bad phone, browsing the hardware specification somewhere, why I needed to show it as a mix of Redmi and the Note series, but I still feel we could have had it without it. Of course, if it's already here, I bought one of them, in the family always happy to surprise someone with a new phone, and I can even make an article about it.

Xiaomi Redmi S2 1

Based on the above, you may think that I am not in a good opinion about this mobile, but that's not true. let's see why.


 

Wrapping

Xiaomi Redmi S2 arrived in the usual orange card. For Xiaomi's cheaper devices, this is standard, the maximum size of the box is different, depending on the type of phone it is in.

Xiaomi Redmi S2 2

There is no surprise for us to lift the lid, the top of the phone, the silicon back cover at the bottom of the tray, and the bottom of the charger and the traditional Micro USB cable. In addition, there is only a short description, but at least English description and a need to remove the SIM tray. However, the description is not worth much, all the useful information content is exhausted from inserting SIM and memory cards into the tray.

Xiaomi Redmi S2 3


 

External

The first one that appears after the phone is highlighted by its mass. It is extremely light and not just in terms of its size. The 77,26 x 160,73 millimeter has an 8,1 millimeter thickness and a 170 gram weight. This low weight can be traced back to two reasons. One is that the battery is just a bit more than the 3000 mAh capacity so this does not pull our hands and the other is that the backing is plastic is not metal or glass. Because of this, the outer antenna on the bottom and top is a bit incomprehensible because the plastic does not shield anything from the radio signals.

Xiaomi Redmi S2 9

Though the thickness of the phone is more like average than thin, our hands still transmit other information to our brain. This was achieved with several tricks. One is that the side flange is completely thinned to "cut" our palms, so we feel a little thinner than the house. The other trick is that the glass over the display rises above the side flange by 1 - one and a half millimeters, so it makes the phone feel thinner.

Xiaomi Redmi S2 14

The outside is completely customary, the quality of assembly is impeccable. The front panel is not frameless, but the display has got a more modern aspect ratio of 18.9, of course, or fortunately with no notch. The front camera and sensors are loosely fitting in the upper lane. In the lower part there are physical buttons, but Xiaomin has not been there for quite some time now, the buttons of Adnroid are virtually displayed in the lower part of the display.

Xiaomi Redmi S2 15

Now we do not go to cameras and other details, let's see the hardware now.


 

Hardware

The central unit is a MSM8953, better known as Qualcomm Snapdragon 625. This is not a very young, but more popular, tile that we find in a lot of branded phones. This is no wonder, as it has the right power, though it has a moderate energy consistency, and its capabilities make it possible to build high-quality devices around.

snapdragon 625 3

The Snapdragon 625 14 is made of nanometer strip width, with an eight-core, 64 bit processor that has been seeded into two clusters. In each of these, there are four Cortex-A53 cores that can clock up to 2 GHz depending on power requirements.

Next to the processor, you'll find an integrated video controller running on the Adreno 506 that works on 650 MHz clocks. The GPU is also supported by a H.264 and HEVC decoder, which makes it possible to play even 4K videos.

Snapdragon 625

The chip has a dual channel memory controller that supports LPDDR3 memory. Of this, I have a 3 GB with a 16 GB built-in repository for Lenovo, which is naturally expandable with a memory card that can have up to 64 GB.

Image processors have also been integrated into the central chip, to which a 24-megapixel and a 13-megapixel camera can be fitted. It also includes a Cat-7 LTE modem for LTE connection and 802.11n Wi-Fi.

Xiaomi Redmi S2 can be purchased in two types of memory and mass storage. The cheaper version has 3 GB RAM and 32 GB ROM, the more expensive the memory 4, the built-in storage is gaining 64 GB. Irrespective of capacity, both versions have LPDDR933 memory with one channel memory controller and 3 MHz.

snapdragon 625 1

The display of the phone was a surprise to me. This phone only had an HD + panel at Xiaomi, using IPS technology, of course. We know that IPS is good, this great debate is not the case. However, the 5,99 colos and 720 x 1440 pixel resolution result that pixel density is only 269 ppi. I'm not saying it would be a tragedy, it's a completely accepted value for cheap phones, and because performance is worth the price, the price is friendly, so it can bend your mouth a bit, but we can not complain very much.


 

Kamerák

This is the point where the phone wins meaning. Of course we all know the meaning of a phone to make a phone call. But in addition, as I wrote in the introduction, I did not quite understand why Xiaomi launched this device. The explanation is probably that they wanted to make a cheap phone that was sharpened for photography. Therefore, there was no FHD display, no faster soC, so the central unit with the processor, because it was enough to fit it, and the costs did not even go to the sky.

There are two cameras on the back. These are especially good for sensors. Xiaomi also neglects the guts in this area, so it has chosen a Samsung and Sony sensor.

Xiaomi Redmi S2 6

In the more serious camera, the Sony IMX486 Exmor RS sensor works with 12 megapixels, the ISO value can be changed between 100 and 3200, the resolution is 4000 x 3000, the video resolution is 1920 x 1080 or FHD. Above the camera, a f / 2.2 aperture lens works.

The secondary camera received the Samsung S5K5E8 sensor, which is 5 megapixel. Its role is to look deep in the blur, and certainly improve the dynamics of the images.

The phone's interest is that the best camera is not in the back but on the front. At the launch of the Fifth Series at Xiaomi, we knew that some of the devices were made to be a stand-alone phone, such as S2. This camera is powered by the Samsung 16 megapixel S5K3P8SP sensor. The size of the sensor is relatively large, but due to the higher resolution, the size of the pixels is smaller than that of the rear camera cameras. This could easily mean that the aperture is worse, but fortunately this is not true. Through the lens, a lot of light can reach the sensor, as the f / 2.0 aperture value, if not prominent, can not be said to be bad either.

Xiaomi Redmi S2 8

It is important that this camera has already received Xiaomi's artificial intelligence support, so it has plenty of auto-enhancing features, as the software can use MI to distinguish the details of the face, for example, to recognize where the hairline begins. This is important because, for example, face-shaping features will blur a little, and this would not be too lucky for hair, because all-over-faced, face-shaded photos would become completely useless with the blurring of the hairs.

An important feature is that the front and back cameras also have a flash, that is, auxiliary light, so you can make a seperate or group photo, for example, in worse lighting conditions.

Xiaomi Redmi S2 test kit 4kXiaomi Redmi S2 test kit 5kXiaomi Redmi S2 test kit 6kXiaomi Redmi S2 test kit 9k
Xiaomi Redmi S2 test kit 10kXiaomi Redmi S2 test kit 11kXiaomi Redmi S2 test kit 7k 

 

Other skills

Up at the charging head you can read that there is a Micro USB connector on the phone, so it's clear that we get a jack socket where the headset can be plugged in.

The range of radios is average. GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou support are provided for navigation, wireless n networks are available from n standard, Bluetooth 4.2. It should be emphasized that the phone naturally supports the B20 800 MHz LTE band used in Hungary and Europe.

Xiaomi Redmi S2 12

The battery in your phone is the usual Lithium-Polymer-based solution with a capacity of 3080 mAh. We do not get a quick charge feature, but this is not too justified because the 3080 battery can be pumped quickly in normal mode.


 

Use and experience

The Xiaomi Redmi S2 was in my service for three days, during which time I did not find fault with him. The 8.1-based MIUI version of the 9.6-based 9, which was built on XNUMX, has done its job well, and has given us all the finesse that the MIUI XNUMX can offer. For example, I like the factory cleaning functions that help keep the memory busy. There is also a second table and picture in the picture and a split screen function, and of course a thousand other wisdom. Perhaps it is worth mentioning the Xiaomi remote control program, which handles a lot of things from climates to TVs, and can be started from the closing screen with one move, so it's lightning fast.

The GPS, more precisely the navigation worked well, there is no problem with the accuracy, the software makes us the right way. Of course, it's good to know that this is not a smartphone, so there may be minor inaccuracies, especially in places where houses or terrain can see less satellites than ideal.

Xiaomi Redmi S2 4

You can read that battery capacity is not too big, but this did not cause any problems. In my average use with mobile phones, wifi usage, browsing, mailing and, of course, navigation also lasted for almost two days. That is, I took the charger on the morning of the first day and on the second day evening I had to get back to the end of the madagascar. This I think is completely acceptable, and charging does not last forever.

It is not typical of Xiaomi phones, but many emerging manufacturers are having trouble with fingerprint sensors. Detection may also be a problem, even with the speed of resolution. Well, with Xiaomin, these are not typical symptoms, Redmi S2 is free from such problems, detection and resolution are fast. Although the camera and the hardware would allow face recognition and resolution, I did not find any traces of it on the phone. it did not hurt because the fingerprint sensing worked well, or because it is a very nice feature to pause a Bluetooth device to close or open. For example, if I have a phone near my smartphone, I'm set to stop locking.

Xiaomi Redmi S2 10

Generally, I usually include measurements for phone tests, which I do with synthetic measuring programs. I'm skipping this because this chipset has been tested several times, and I felt completely unnecessary to do it again. If you are interested in these values, you can find them in this article, for example:

It's more important to have your phone feel more than adequate. Although the central chip and the video controller are not the most advanced, because of the low resolution, you can try running cooler games as the number of pixels to drive is low.

Everything is true of cameras, which can usually be true for mobile photography for mid-range phones. What's positive is that the portraum mode can be selected at the back camera camera port and using the two cameras is working very well to recognize the face and background, and the latter is well blurred.

Xiaomi Redmi S2 7

The photographs are not bad, though there is some distortion and blurring to the edges, but in return, the central part of the image produces a sharp, detailed image. Like most phones, S2 has not been invented for night-time photography. Nevertheless, I have to say that, among the phones I have, the Redmi S2 camcorder is a couple of the better ones and it is quite bearable, and it means that it produces a whole lot of sharper images.


 

Conclusion

The article started by saying that I find this phone a bit unnecessary in Xiaomi's offer. While this article was written, the Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite introduced itself, which makes me feel that S2 does not have much space in this portfolio. Again, I would point out that the phone is not bad, there is nothing wrong with it, there are just so few differences between phones that it does not make it easier but complicate the choice between them.

The Xiaomi Redmi S2 is clearly designed to strengthen Xiaomi's Seiko phone series. Compared to other components of the hardware, the cameras are outstanding, and this does not mean that the cameras are average and all the other bad ones, but actually that everything else is average but the cameras are exceptionally good in this price range. We can understand this even for the brands of emerging brands, and who has caught up in the hands of Xiaomi's phone, knows that there are serious differences between an average Chinese mobile and Xiaomi.

Xiaomi Redmi S2 13

So the question is whether we would recommend buying this phone and, if so, who. Since it is a very good Xiaomi product, the purchase recommendation is no question, you will not be disappointed when it arrives. From what has been said so far, it is recommended that the phone is first and foremost for those who want the least amount of money to buy the best camera camera. In fact, S2 is very good.

I ordered from here: Xiaomi Redmi S2 (European warehouse, fast delivery, no customs duty and VAT)

Remember, if you order from an EU warehouse (Fast-xx), the EU Priority Line will bring your phone to customs and VAT without you!

 


 

Measurements:

Xiaomi Redmi S2 test 1kXiaomi Redmi S2 test 2kXiaomi Redmi S2 test 3k
Xiaomi Redmi S2 test 4kXiaomi Redmi S2 test 5kXiaomi Redmi S2 test 6k
Xiaomi Redmi S2 test 7kXiaomi Redmi S2 test 8kXiaomi Redmi S2 test 9k
Xiaomi Redmi S2 test 10k Xiaomi Redmi S2 test 11k

 

 

About the Author

s3nki

Owner of the HOC.hu website. He is the author of hundreds of articles and thousands of news. In addition to various online interfaces, he has written for Chip Magazine and also for the PC Guru. For a time, he ran his own PC shop, working for years as a store manager, service manager, system administrator in addition to journalism.