But obviously there are some trade offs. You need to consider before buying so without any further ado. Let'S get right into it when it comes to the looks the xiaomi redmi 9c and the redmi 9a sport. Quite generic looking budget devices design, if you're paying just about 100 bucks for your phone, you don't need to expect any premium materials like glass or metal. Instead, xiaomi used plastic in the construction of these devices, but i would say this is solid plastic and even though these phones don't look very expensive, they don't look very cheap. Redmi 9a has a textured window like finish on the back. The redmi 9c also has a textured back, but it is less pronounced. I personally prefer the design of this phone, but both devices look nice considering the price, despite not having any premium materials in the construction in terms of size. Both devices are pretty much identical and they carry the same weight of 196 grams because they both ship with a massive 5 000 milliamp hours battery. Both devices use 6.53 inch, 720p plus lcd screens, which may not be the most pixel dense, but they are plenty sharp for daily use. Visibility under direct sunlight could be better, though, as the maximum brightness is just about 400 nits.
Both phones use a micro usb port for charging. They have a headphone, jack and bottom firing loudspeaker. That is actually pretty good, i'm glad to see a dual sim, as well as a dedicated micro sd card slot on each device.
One of the key advantages of the redmi 9c over the redmi 9a. It has a triple camera system in comparison to a single 13 megapixel shooter. The redmi 9c has irregular macro and depth sensors. Some marketing materials show that this phone has an ultra wide shooter, which is not true, i'll talk about image quality in just a bit. Lastly, both phones have face unlock feature, but only redmi 9c has a fingerprint reader that i found to be quite reliable and fast. Now let's talk about the specifications of each device, as you may expect, both phones ship with pretty low end chipsets. The redmi 9c has a slightly more powerful mediatek helio g35, whereas the redmi 9a has a helio g25 processor. My official global models have just 2 gigabytes of ram and 32 gigs of storage, but you can choose more powerful models. If you opt in for the chinese variant, however, i would suggest buying official global models. Redmi 9a has the standard 2 gigabytes of ram and 64 gigabytes option and you can choose up to 3 gigabytes of ram and 64 gigabytes of storage on the redmi 9c gaming performance is surprisingly good on these budget phones. Obviously don't expect flagship great performance, but you can definitely play quite a few 3d titles with no significant lag.
For instance, both phones perform pretty much equally in asphalt extreme with just a bit of stutter. The redmi 9c performs a bit better than the redmi 9a.
In call of duty, but expect to see some skipped frames and a bit of stutter when playing this game on each device. Lastly, the redmi 9c performs noticeably better in pubg, but both phones lag and stutter in this game. Even on the lowest graphics settings, you can't even choose hd graphics, and this is a reminder that these are budget phones. After all, they were not designed to play 3d games. To be honest with you, i have these phones for a couple of months now, and i can tell you that these devices received quite a few software updates. This shows that xiaomi actually cares about its budget segment. The latest software version is miui global 12.0.8 on the redmi 9a and 12.0.7 on the redmi 9c. To be honest with you, if i had made reviews of each device when i just got the phones, i would have said that both devices were a little slow and laggy, especially the redmi 9a. Fortunately, the latest software update improved the performance quite significantly, but don't expect the devices to perform like flagships, you'll, see occasional, stutter and a bit of lag and skipped frames in the ui, especially on the redmi 9a. But keep in mind that i have 2 gigabyte of ram models still, i would say that the day to day performance is quite decent.
Well, these are not the fastest phones around, but they will certainly get the job done for the basic stuff and the miui traditionally has plenty of features and customization options to play with.
When it comes to image quality, i can say that both phones produce pretty nice. Looking daylight shots considering 100 dollar price tag, i would say that image quality is pretty much identical on each device using the main camera. Well, if you start nitpicking, you may argue about the lack of dynamic range in some of the shots. Are the colors being a little bit oversaturated but that's just nitpicking for the amount of money you are paying you can't get anything better than this. The redmi 9c gives you more versatility with its macro and depth. Lens macro lens allows you to take decent close up shots and depth. Sensor produces much better quality portrait images, in fact, the redmi 9a doesn't even bother to use software background blur effect when taking pictures of objects. If you take pictures of humans, the portrait mode, is it had better yet not really impressive. The redmi 9c is much better in this department. When the sun goes down, the image quality gets worse, but these are certainly one of the best looking knight shots. Considering such a low price of these phones keep in mind that neither phone has a dedicated night mode, both phones shoot identical. Looking 1080p video using both the main and selfie shooters, the overall quality could be decent, but there is no image stabilization that leads to shaky video.
Sound recording quality is just average. Here is a quick sample, video, no civilization tools, whatsoever i'm, holding the spawn in one hand, uh and today's lighting conditions are pretty good, even though it's not sunny it's a little bit cloudy, but yet it's quite heavy friday.
So no complaints about that. Both phones are very good when it comes to battery life, thanks to an integrated, 5000 milliamp hours unit. However, i found the redmi 9c to have a better power management, as i could consistently get 1 or even 2 hours more of screen on time. If you use these phones for the basic stuff at about fifty percent of screen brightness, you should expect to get from eight to ten hours of sot. If you use the phones just for youtube at about fifty percent of screen, brightness you'll be able to get about 18 hours of screen on time on each device. However, the charging time is really slow. 10 watts charger in the box fully charges each phone in about 3 hours. Speaking of the retail box, you get just the basic stuff, no cases included. Connectivity has been good on each phone. Even though call quality is pretty average, neither phone has nfc, but there is redmi 9c model with nfc. If you need this feature overall, i think that both devices offer excellent value for money, even though they are not perfect still, if you have just about 100 dollars to spare. These are one of the best budget options at the moment.
If i had to choose one, i would definitely pick the xiaomi redmi 9c, but if you can find the redmi 9a for a lower price and every dollar matters to you, the latter phone is also a good budget option.
