Xiaomi recently announced the Mi A3, an Android One powered version of their Mi CC9e smartphone. It features a pretty strong set of hardware, including triple cameras, in-display fingerprint scanner, and a Snapdragon 665 CPU, but only a 720p display and a value that looks a little rough next to some other current phones.
But it turns out there's another knock against the phone that's not even Xiaomi's fault.
It turns out that Android One doesn't allow HBM, or high-brightness mode, on a smartphone. The Xiaomi CC9e has a manual max brightness of 350 nits and automatic max brightness of 530 nits, but the Mi A3 caps out at just below 350 nits regardless of whether or not you're in automatic or manual mode.
HBM allows newer smartphones to really crank up the brightness of their screens when in automatic mode and the phone gets in a bright situation, like when you're outside and under the sun. You wouldn't normally need that much brightness indoors, but outside it's pretty much the only way to keep the device usable in most circumstances. Android One, for whatever reason, can't support that.
Xiaomi did confirm that running Android One instead of EMUI is indeed the reason for this, despite all of the hardware between the two phones being identical. Keep that in mind if you're thinking about buying one.
source: Teknofilo
Wtf