So, what’s the recipe for a kick-ass smartphone?
— Elegant design
— A Big, bright and vivid display
— A lag-free Performance
— A Battery that lasts
— A decent Camera
— And one that does not cost much.
Not many companies check all those boxes. But Xiaomi is different. The new Mi 4i is a phone that is priced at Rs 12,999. So it does compete with Motorola Moto G or Micomax, but is capable of giving the big daddies a run for their money.
Watch: Review of Xiaomi Mi 4i
Xiaomi Mi 4i might just be the perfect android smartphone you were looking for. Xiaomi has shown excellence beyond expectations with Mi 4i. Reminds you of Apple’s second innings that revolutionised the technology industry.
What’s Good?
Xiaomi Mi 4i comes with a compact unibody design, like what you see in smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S6, iPhone 6 and Motorola Moto X.
By compact we mean that though the smartphone boasts of a 5 inch display, it does not feel big at all. At 7.8mm and 130 grams, it is just thick enough to fit in your pocket or in the palm of your hand.
The 5-inch display that comes from Sharp/JDI on the Mi 4i is very precise and beautiful. The colour palate is pleasing to the eyes. Xiaomi has loaded the display on this one with NTSC 95% colour gamut which gives you a wide range of colours on the display. The display is non-reflective and has good viewing angles too.
But, this is not where the story ends. The high non-reflectivity under sunlight also comes with what Xiaomi calls a ‘Sunlight Display’. This is something that is really helpful if direct sunlight falls on the screen. The Mi 4i changes the colours to a lighter shade seamlessly, so that one can see what’s on the screen with ease.
The second gen Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 octa core 64 bit processor is also impressive. It combines two quad core processors in a A53 architecture that has 4 performance cores clocked at 1.7 GHz and 4 power saving cores for low powered apps clocked at 1.1 GHz.
There is also 2GB of RAM. Combined with an Adreno 405 Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), this makes the phone a smooth performer. The AnTuTu benchmark result for our review unit came out with a 36952 score that is twice the score that we got on the Moto G (2nd Gen)
We never saw it hanging or lagging even with 15 apps running in the background while we played a game. The phone has taken the performance that you get on smartphones under Rs 15,000 to a whole new level.
Xiaomi’s MiUi coupled along Android 5.0 is also very intuitive and easy to use.
The camera’s on the Mi4i are 13 megapixel at the back and 5 megapixels in front. They are performance oriented too. You can easily compare them to the likes of HTC Desire 826 or the Moto X (2nd Gen), and mind you both these phones are twice the price. The image quality is decent and the Sony/samsung sensors used in the camera work pretty well.
The list for pro’s is never ending on the Xiaomi Mi 4i. If you thought all this was not good enough wait till you hear about the battery.
Xiaomi has used a high density 3120 mAh battery that is really small. Well, maybe not that small, but the beauty is in the way Xiaomi was able to squeeze in one of the smallest mother board’s on a smartphone, making a lot of area in the shell of the phone to fit in that battery.
This battery is similar to the one used on the Samsung Galaxy S6, but with a higher capacity. So, with the processor it has to offer and a power saving sun light display, it still lasts you for a day-and-a-half easily. In our testing after one full charge the phone actually lasted two full days when used it as a primary smartphone.
Now that is something very hard to find.
Overall it checks all the right boxes.
What’s Bad?
You can’t expect a smartphone to be all good can you? If a company comes out with a good phone for under Rs 15,000 be sure that they did cut corners in some areas.
The Mi 4i comes only with 16GB internal storage and no memory card slot for storage expansion. With that you get only about 11.53 GB of usable storage on your device. So if you plan to load up your entire music library and the latest season on Game on Thrones along with apps, expect the Mi 4i to run out of memory.
Xiaomi though, does plan to come out with a 32GB version later this year.
Xiaomi will give you colour options for Mi 4i, but for now the phone will only be available in white and black in India. The yellow and green will follow later this year.
While the speakers are well placed on the phone, they aren’t good enough to listen to music without headphones.
Speakers on the HTC Desire 826 are better than what you find on the Xiaomi Mi 4i.
Why Buy It?
The Xiaomi Mi 4i goes on its first flash sale on April 30, 2015. And if you didn’t register for it, tough luck getting it this time. This is a smartphone that can put the likes of Moto G (2nd Gen) to shame and get phones like HTC Desire 826 and Moto X (2nd gen) to think, what next?
Mi 4i is a complete phone in every respect. Designed by utmost care by Xiaomi, loaded with a powerful octa-core processor, has a long lasting battery, a beautiful sunlight display and most of all fits in your pocket and budget.
The only other phone worth considering over this one is the Samsung Galaxy S6.
But in case you don’t have Rs 50,000 lying around, you can have it all for Rs 12,999 with the Xiaomi Mi 4i
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