One of the latest smartphone from Xiaomi to arrive here in the Philippines is the Xiaomi Redmi 2. This smartphone is one of their most affordable smartphone and now, the Xiaomi Redmi 2 is now available in the Philippines via Lazada. The Xiaomi Redmi 2 is the successor of the Xiaomi Redmi 1S that we reviewed that before and we were very impressed with it and today, we’re gonna do a review of the Xiaomi Redmi 2
Hardware
Just like the predecessor, the Xiaomi Redmi 2 looks simple but sports a nice feel. The body of the smartphone is still made up of plastic but this time, the back feels better and the phone feels more solid than ever. The back cover features a little bit rougher texture compared to the previous generation. The phone feels very sturdy and it feels like it won’t broke when you drop it (But of course, I didn’t do a drop test on this smartphone).
The ports and the design didn’t had too much a makeover and for some, the front of the Xiaomi Redmi 2 can be mistakenly recognize as a Xiaomi Redmi 1s but once you look at the simple and minimalistic back, you’ll notice the LED flash and the speaker has been placed near the speaker.
The Xiaomi Redmi 2 still sports a 4.7-inch display which makes the smartphone smaller and thanks to its design, the Xiaomi Redmi 2 is very comfortable to hold even at using it in one hand. The weight? As expected, the Xiaomi Redmi 2 is light and isn’t thick. Again, the smartphone is very comfortable to hold and use.
One thing that I hate in the Xiaomi Redmi 2 is the lack of backlit on its red capacitive buttons. That’s why, I find it hard to recognize where the buttons are when I’m using the smartphone in my bed at night. Below the home button of the Xiaomi Redmi 2, you could still find the LED notification and I really find it enticing to see an LED notification below the home button instead on top of the display.
Inside the Xiaomi Redmi 2 is a removable 2200mAh battery, a MicroSD card slot and a dual Micro Sim Card slot and if ever that’s not yet okay with you, there’s USB OTG now on the Xiaomi Redmi 2 for your storage needs. Oh and the dealbreaker here? Well, the smartphone packs LTE but the LTE modem only works on Globe LTE. So if you’re a Smart subscriber, I would suggest to stay away from this smartphone.
Display
 
The Xiaomi Redmi 2 might still have the same 4.7-inch display with the same HD 1280×720 resolution but the display drastically got better compared to the previous generation. The colors and contrasts were much better on the Xiaomi Redmi 2 and the display feels closer to the glass too. The outside visibility was just at average though.
Software
 
One of the things that I love with Xiaomi smartphones is the MIUI. I’m not actually a fan of operating systems with no app drawer but the MIUI 6 on the  Xiaomi Redmi 2 is an exception. The operating system icons and elements are flat and the smartphone is still fast and very user-friendly. Now that they’re flat, I liked it even more and the colors weren’t annoying to the eyes even at everyday use.
Despite being the latest entry level smartphone of Xiaomi, the Redmi 2 only sports a 1GB of RAM. Today, apps and games need more than that. That’s why the Redmi 2 suffers when you opened too much apps and games simultaneously. I really recommend that you close the applications and games before using other heavy applications.
The Xiaomi Redmi 2 runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 Quad-Core processor with Adreno 306 GPU. It’s only a slight upgrade from predecessor but this time, the processor is now 64-bit but unfortunately, you can’t maximize it that much because the Redmi 2 is still on Android 4.4 Kitkat.
The Xiaomi Redmi 2 doesn’t pack a really powerful processor. Actually, Antutu proved the Redmi 2’s hardware isn’t much of an upgrade from Redmi 1s because the score that I got on the Redmi 2 is 20196. The score is very close to the score that I got on Redmi 1s. But once the Android 5.0 arrives on the Xiaomi Redmi 2, expect the phone to be faster thanks to the 64-bit processor.
When it comes to games, the Xiaomi Redmi 2, there won’t be a problem if you just want to play games like Clash of Clans, Dead Trigger, and other not-so-heavy 3D games however, playing games on Modern Combat 4 & GTA: San Andreas would not be 100% but it is still playable.
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Battery life
The Xiaomi Redmi 2 might have a 2200mAh battery which might be small to some, but the Xiaomi Red mi 2 was able to perform well. The battery doesn’t really suck and I was able to use it for less than a day or around 6 hours at heavy use.
Camera
The Xiaomi Redmi 2 might still have an 8-Megapixel Rear camera but the quality has improved drastically from the predecessor. The night shots were brighter and camera can focus and shoot even faster. The low-light shots features less noise that I expected and they’re quite sharp for its level. The front camera has been greatly improved too so yes, you could now do better selfies on the Xiaomi Redmi 2.
Verdict
 
Xiaomi never failed us when it comes to price. Their smartphones are really affordable including this one, the Redmi 2. The camera, design, and experience have been improved on the Redmi 2 however, the performance of the smartphone wasn’t able to meet my expectations. The RAM is too small for me and the processor wasn’t really a biggie update for the Redmi 2 however, I expect the Redmi 2 to be faster once the Android Lollipop update arrives on this smartphone.
If you’re interested with the Xiaomi Redmi 2, head over to Lazada and you can now buy it for P5,999.
