Last month, Xiaomi launched its cheapest budget handset in India: the Redmi 5A. The successor to the Redmi 4A from last year, the Redmi 5A features largely the same specs as its predecessor but features an improved build quality and a lower price tag.

The Redmi 5A is targeted at first-time smartphone owners and users who are looking to buy a cheap smartphone that does not compromise on performance. Despite its low price tag, the Redmi 5A is pretty feature packed and runs on MIUI 9 similar to other phones from Xiaomi. If you have just purchased the Redmi 5A, check out our collection of the best tips, tricks, and features for the handset below to help you make the most out of it.

Best Redmi 5A Tips and Tricks

#12 Use Mi Remote to Control Other Appliances

Despite its incredibly low price, the Redmi 5A comes with an IR blaster — something which even flagship phones are missing out on nowadays. The inclusion of an IR blaster means that you can use your Redmi 5A to control other home appliances around you like TV, AC, music system and more. Xiaomi also does an excellent job keeping its Mi Remote app up to date with old and new devices for optimum compatibility.

If you have never used a smartphone with an IR blaster before to control other devices around you, do give it a try on your Redmi 5A — its super convenient.

#11 Show Notification Icons

For some strange reason, MIUI does not display notification icons in the status bar. So, you will never know about your unread notifications you have without pulling down on the notification shade. While this does give the status bar a cleaner look, it does not particularly lead to a good user experience.

Just like every other aspect of MIUI that is customisable, you can tweak this functionality as well. Simply head over to Settings -> Notifications & status bar and enable the Show notification icons option.

#10 Display Memory Usage

Xiaomi used to display the amount of free RAM in a device in the Recent Apps screen until MIUI 8.5. After that for some reason though, the company stopped displaying this possibly in a bid to prevent users from managing the free RAM on their device on their own. However, since the base variant of the Redmi 5A comes with only 2GB of RAM, it is kind of important that one keeps a tab on the number of apps running in the background and the amount of free RAM available. If there are too many apps running in the background, the phone’s performance could take a serious hit.

To display the RAM use on the Recent Apps screen of your Redmi 5A, enable the Show memory status option from under Settings -> Home screen & Recents.

#9 Run Two Instances of WhatsApp

The Redmi 5A comes with a dual-SIM slot which means you can use two SIM cards on the phone at the same time. This also means that many people would be looking to run two copies of WhatsApp on the device at the same time as well for their two different numbers. Thankfully, Xiaomi was smart enough to figure this out and has included a Dual Apps feature in MIUI 9 which allows users to run two separate copies of the same app on a single device. This way, you can use two different copies of WhatsApp and other messaging apps on your Redmi 5A without any issues.

You can find all the Dual Apps related options under Settings -> Dual Apps. 

#8 Quickly Toggle Flashlight

Want to quickly enable the flashlight on the Redmi 5A? Simply long press the menu button while on the lock screen. And when you want to turn it off, simply press the power button once.

#7 Lock Apps in Memory

With the base variant of the Redmi 5A coming with only 2GB of RAM, users are bound to run out of memory on the device during heavy multitasking. In such cases, MIUI will automatically unload certain apps from memory to ensure optimum system performance. But if you want a particular app to stay in memory no matter what, you can do so by bringing up the Recent Apps screen and then swiping down on the card of that app. A lock icon would then be displayed on the card of that app signifying that going forward it won’t be unloaded from the memory of the device.

#6 Take Photos in a Snap

Want to quickly launch the camera app on your Redmi 5A and take a picture? Simply double press the Volume down button while on the lock screen or when the display is off. And if you want to customise this gesture or pair it with another button, that’s also possible. Just head over to Settings -> Additional settings -> Button and gesture shortcuts -> Launch camera and select any of the available options.

$5 Gestures and Shortcuts

The Redmi 5A also comes with plenty of customisable gestures and shortcuts that you can use for some day-to-day tasks. This includes being able to quickly take a screenshot by swiping down with three fingers on the screen, quickly launching Google Assistant or opening the camera app, and more. You can find all the gestures and shortcuts related options on your Redmi 5A under Settings -> Additional settings -> Buttons and gesture shortcuts.

#4 Expand Notifications

After resisting for years, Xiaomi has finally adopted the stock notification panel behavior with MIUI 9 for all its devices. This means that the notification panel on MIUI 9 will now function exactly like it does on an Android device running stock Android. This makes it easier for one to quickly expand on a notification to view its content without actually having to open it. And on compatible apps, you will also be shown relevant action buttons. To expand a notification, simply slide down with one finger. You can also swipe down with two fingers to expand a notification, though this will require you to use both your hands.

#3 Multi-window Multitasking

Despite coming with modest internals, the Redmi 5A supports multi-window multitasking. This means that you can run two apps side-by-side on the phone to maximise your productivity. To enjoy Split Window/multi-window multitasking on your Redmi 5A, open the Recent Apps window and tap the Split Window button on the top-left corner. Now, drag and drop any of the two open and compatible apps to enjoy multi-window multitasking on your Redmi 5A. You can resize individual app windows and also quickly swap their position around with just a tap.

#2 Quickly Toggle Silent mode

You can now quickly enable Silent mode on the Redmi 5A by pressing the Volume down button once and then enabling the Silent button toggle at the top. You will then automatically be provided an option to select how long the silent mode will last — 30 mins, 1 hour, 2 hours; or whether you’d like to put your phone in Do Not Disturb mode.

#1 Flip to mute and Other Incoming Call Settings

If you want to quickly mute an incoming call on your Redmi 5A, simply flip the phone to silence it. Similarly, you can also mute the ringer volume for incoming calls as soon as you lift the phone.

Both these options are disabled by default and needs to be enabled from Settings -> System Apps -> Call settings -> Incoming call settings. You will also find the option to mute the first ring of your Redmi 5A when you receive calls from unknown numbers and flash the notification light during incoming calls.

Missed a great tip for the Redmi 5A above? Drop a comment and do share them with us!