Nokia has recently launched its Android-based Nokia 6 smartphone, and it costs Rs. 14,999. Now, for the same price, you get the Xiaomi Mi A1. So, which one should you buy? Let’s find out. Highlights Nokia 6 wins build quality and design round with lighter weight and better build quality. Nokia 6 wins the display…
Nokia has recently launched its Android-based Nokia 6 smartphone, and it costs Rs. 14,999. Now, for the same price, you get the Xiaomi Mi A1. So, which one should you buy? Let’s find out.
The Xiaomi Mi A1, as well as, the Nokia 6 come with metal unibody build. Looking at the design, the Nokia 6 looks far better than the Mi A1 due to its chamfered edges and a brighter colour scheme. The Nokia 6 also feel more comfortable than the Xiaomi Mi A1 in hand because of its lighter weight. Also, the Nokia 6 feels much more premium and solidly built than the Mi A1. That said, the Xiaomi Mi A1 is by no means bad. It is just that the Nokia 6 is slightly better and therefore, wins the build quality and design round with ease.
The Nokia 6 comes with a 5.5-inch Full HD IPS LCD display, similar to the Xiaomi Mi A1. For protection, both the smartphones feature Corning Gorilla 3. Displays on both the smartphones are adequately good. Although, we found the display on the Nokia 6 to be brighter than the Mi A1, which gives it better visibility under direct sunlight. In terms of colour reproduction, the Xiaomi Mi A1 performs slightly better than the Nokia 6; it has better contrast ratio, which makes the content look more saturated than the Nokia 6. However, we think that people buying a smartphone in this price category would want better sunlight visibility rather than better colour reproduction accuracy. Therefore, we think that the Nokia 6 has better display compared to the Xiaomi Mi A1.
The Nokia 6 has an 8MP front-facing autofocus camera, whereas, the Xiaomi Mi A1 has a 5MP fixed focus camera. The image quality from the Nokia 6’s front-facing camera is excellent, but that is only when the camera properly focuses, which rarely happens. Whereas the Xiaomi Mi A1 puts out decent images, but unlike the Nokia 6, it always works properly.
Coming to the primary camera, the Nokia 6 features a 16MP primary camera with phase-detection autofocus. Whereas, the Mi A1 comes with dual 12MP primary cameras featuring phase-detection autofocus. The Nokia 6 puts out really good image quality; images contain a lot of details, and the noise levels are contained too. However, the Mi A1 is the one which takes the crown with its dual-camera setup; it produces much more detailed images with a vastly better dynamic range when compared to the Nokia 6. The Mi A1 also features a portrait mode and 4K video recording, which makes it a clear winner over then Nokia 6.
Performance is the most crucial part of any smartphone, and the Nokia 6 totally disappoints with its Snapdragon 430 processor. Not only the Nokia 6 has the least powerful processor on paper in its price category, but it is also the slowest performing smartphone of the lot. The slow performance is mostly because of the fact that the Nokia 6 has a Full HD display and the Snapdragon 430 processor, which features Adreno 505, isn’t powerful enough to smoothly handle the Full HD display. The Nokia 6 stutters during gaming and lags severely during heavy multitasking.
On the contrary, the Xiaomi Mi A1 has the fastest performance in its price category; it is equipped with Snapdragon 625. Opening apps, switching between apps, gaming, and multitasking are really fast and smooth on the XIaomi Mi A1. The Mi A1 also gets the Android One treatment, meaning, you get stock Android UI, and you also get fast Android OS updates that too directly from Google. So, the Xiaomi Mi A1 has faster performance and smoother gaming, compared to the Nokia 6, making it an absolute winner.
Logically, the Nokia 6 should have better battery backup compared to the Mi A1, as it has the same battery capacity and a more efficient processor. Sadly, that isn’t the case; the Nokia 6 has a far poor battery backup compared to the Mi A1. During our test, the Xiaomi Mi A1 lasted about 24 hours with 5 hours of screen on time. Whereas, the Nokia 6 lasted about 20 hours with 4 hours of screen on time. We think that the lesser battery backup on the Nokia 6 is mostly because the processor is always operating at its highest point, as it isn’t powerful enough to provide with a smoother performance at its lower operating point, therefore, resulting in more battery drain. In any case, the Xiaomi Mi A1 clearly wins the battery backup round too.
The Nokia 6 has better build quality and display than the Xiaomi Mi A1, but that really isn’t enough when compared to the Xiaomi Mi A1’s faster, smoother performance, better primary camera, and longer battery backup. Therefore, we think that the Xiaomi Mi A1 is a much more sensible buy than the Nokia 6.
