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Xiaomi Mi 4i

Xiaomi says that their Mi 4i is a ‘flagship level phone’. In fact, the Mi 4i launch was one of the grandest as far as Xiaomi are concerned, and it was the first device from the company to have been launched outside its home country of China.

The phone has a brilliant form factor, and is made out of materials that haven’t been used on $200 phones before. Does this mean the phone is the best in its range? Lets find out.

Xiaomi Mi 4i Review: Design

The Mi 4i is, according to me, the best designed Xiaomi phone yet. Of course, if you’re a phablet guy you’d disagree; but if you prefer one handed smartphone usage, the Mi 4i is like a dream come true. It hardly feels like a 5-inch phone, and with the comfortable and grippy back, the phone fits your hand like a charm.

In more ways than one, the Mi 4i will remind you of the iPhone 5C. It’s made out of polycarbonate, and is second to the Mi 4 just like the 5C is to the 5S. But of course, the Mi 4i is MUCH cheaper and it runs Android (albeit with a skin that reminds you of the iPhone anyway).

The Mi 4i is lighter and thinner than the metal clad Mi 4, and you’ll realize that within a few seconds with the phone.
As usual for most phones, the entire front is covered in glass. Xiaomi don’t specify this to be Gorilla Glass, but maintain that it is made in close co-operation with Corning (makers of Gorilla Glass). I’m assuming this is the same Corning Concore glass that the Mi 4 uses. Nonetheless, the glass doesn’t seem as scratch proof as the Mi 4; I’ve already managed to find a little scratch on the screen.

Besides that, the front of the phone is really elegant, yet simplistic. I’ve been using the white version of the phone, so the ‘panda effect’ of a black front and white rear looks really attractive. There’s not a lot of black though, it’s only on the top and bottom of the screen — and the size bezels of course.

The earpiece grill is rather tiny, which goes well with the design in my books. Compared to the Mi 4, the Mi 4i certainly looks and feels much better, there’s no two ways about it. Xiaomi did sort of get it wrong with the Mi 4 on the design, some would feel.

Coming back to the Mi 4i, the rear of the phone is a scaled-down rear of the Mi Note. The camera positioning has changed from the Mi 4’s center, and is now on the top left — which again, looks better in my opinion. Also noticeable are the dual LEDs, both of which throw different tones of white light.

The rear also makes home for the speaker grill, right below the Mi logo.

It’s pure coincidence that you’re reading about the screen of the Mi 4i right after its design and build, for these are the two best things about the phone. The screen is perhaps the best I’ve seen on a 5-inch phone; the OPPO Find 5 comes to mind among other phones with screen almost as good as the Mi 4i’s.

It’s a 5-inch 1920 x 1080p panel if you aren’t aware, same as the Mi 4, yet better. The color reproduction on the Mi 4i is a little more saturated than the Mi 4, but not enough to make it oversaturated. Xiaomi have found the recipe to making a brilliant display with the Mi 4i. Also, quality control seems to be right up there; there’s no bright spots, light bleeding or dead pixels on the screen.

In general, the screen is a complete treat on the Mi 4i, and is something which will invariably leave you surprised, at least at the first look.

Xiaomi Mi 4i Review: Performance

The last one year or so has been about this new category of phones that you know as the mid-range flagships. The Mi 4i is perhaps the best specimen from that category, with a flagship-level design and form, and mid-range processing.

As you may have guessed from my previous statement, the performance of the Mi 4i isn’t really flagship-level. In fact, I found the Snapdragon 615 (second-gen) to have a performance that tends more towards poor than average. On paper, the Snapdragon 615 might look like a competitor to the MT6752 or the MT6732, but it’s a completely different story in the real world.

But then again, the Yu Yureka uses the same chipset (in fact, the older generation thereof) and yet manages to impress with the performance. Does this mean that the resource-heavy MIUI ROM is taking a toll on performance? Yes. MIUI is full of animations and other intuitive features that make it very usable, but at the cost of performance.

So if you only use your phone for things like taking pictures, surfing the web and say some IM, the Mi 4i would probably suffice for you. However, if you remotely use multiple apps at once, I’d strongly recommend you to look elsewhere, unless you’re open to flashing custom ROMs on the device.

As you might already have read, the phone does heat up quite a bit too. Xiaomi keeps pushing updates every now and then, which claim to ‘fix overheating issues’, but not a lot of progress has been made on that front. Clearly, the Mi 4i isn’t one for the power user.

Here’s some benchmark scores that the Mi 4i manages.

AnTuTu: 37,350
Quadrant Standard: 24,234
Geekbench 3 Single Core: 700
Geekbench 3 Multi Core: 2,692
Xiaomi Mi 4i Review: Camera

The Mi 4i inherits the camera tech from the Mi Note, so it is supposed to be pretty good. You will be happy to know that it is quite a good camera; I haven’t used the Mi Note enough to tell if the Mi 4i has a camera as good, but it’s a mighty fine camera phone in itself.

Just to run through the specifications of the camera – the rear is a 13 mega-pixel Sony/Samsung camera with a 5 element lens, an f/2.0 aperture and dual tone flash. Sure, we’ve had phones with f/1.8 and even larger apertures, but somehow the Mi 4i still manages to perform pretty well even in low lights. On the front, the phone has a 5 mega-pixel f/1.8 shooter with an 80-degree wide angle.

Almost any decent phone will give you good results in daylight, but what sets a good camera apart from an average one is the low light performance. As you see from the samples below, the Mi 4i does a great job in the night and other low-light scenarios too.

Xiaomi Mi 4i Review: Battery

If you aren’t aware yet, you might be surprised to know that the Mi 4i comes with the largest smartphone battery Xiaomi have ever shipped. This means that the Mi 4i has a bigger battery than the Mi Note AND the Mi Note Pro, which is pretty weird. And impressive, for the Mi 4i.

It’s a 3120mAh non-removable cell which performs really well. Somehow you don’t get OnePlus One-levels of battery performance, but what the Mi 4i does with the 3120mAh cell is something you wouldn’t really mind, and perhaps like if you’re one who knows what to expect from a $200 phone.

With non-hardware intensive usage, you’ll get close to 6 hours of screen on time with every charge, which is pretty impressive for a phone that doesn’t cost a bomb. I’m also pretty sure that if Xiaomi manage to fix the heating problems (up to an extent), the battery life would get even better, as Le Chatelier’s principle states.

In general, the Mi 4i will last you a day pretty much regardless of how you use your phone. In my case (virtually no gaming), I got close to a day and a half on a single charge on most days.

Xiaomi Mi 4i Review: Reception

Cell radio, WiFi and GPS reception isn’t usually a problem with companies like Xiaomi. In fact, from the Xiaomi phones I’ve used, I’ve come to realize that the company uses some of the best antennas on its phones, and the Mi 4i is no exception. WiFi performance is pretty strong despite having a lot of WiFi interference. GPS and cell radio reception too, are satisfactory. GPS did take a while to get its first fix, but since then performance has been much better.

Xiaomi Mi 4i Review: ROM

This is where I believe the problems of the Mi 4i lie. A brilliant phone otherwise, the device is let down by stutters every now and then along with apps being force closed. 2GB of RAM should usually be enough for usual daily activities, but that doesn’t really seem to be the case with the Mi 4i.

Besides the stutters and FC’s, the MIUI 6 ROM (based on Android 5.0.2 Lollipop) is a visual treat as usual. Of course there is the iOS inspiration, but MIUI is a ROM born out of the need to incorporate more features, while on the other hand, makers (especially Chinese) have been dishing out new ROMs just for the sake of it.

Xiaomi do provide regular OTAs, but it looks like some of them are pushed in a hurry. For example, the OTA update to MIUI 6.5.5.0 literally rendered the front camera unusable for those who did install the update.

For example, take a look at the picture below, taken on the front camera of the Mi 4i (it wasn’t particularly a low-light situation). The issue is quite a massive one, and its surprising the testers didn’t report this to Xiaomi before the update went live. More info on the issue can be found on the MIUI forums.

This isn’t something you expect from a company like Xiaomi.

Xiaomi Mi 4i Review: Conclusion

The Mi 4i scores heavily on build, display and camera, but is unfortunately let down on performance. At the first look, the phone is bound to impress you with all its glitz, but as you start using the phone and install your usual suite of apps, the disappointment slowly creeps in. It wouldn’t be unfair to say that the US$110 Elephone P6000 with the MT6732 feels a lot smoother in performance than the Mi 4i.

For the first few hours with the phone, I truly believed I was looking at my next ‘daily driver’; but as it turns out, there’s going to be more waiting to do.

Xiaomi still have the opportunity to make it up with frequent and effective software updates, which they seem to be doing. Nonetheless, if you are looking for a 5-inch phone in the market and want a Xiaomi, the Mi 4 with the reduced prices, in my book, is a much better bet despite a lower quality screen and perhaps a camera that doesn’t quite match the Mi 4i’s.

Xiaomi Mi4

On paper, the Mi 4 is an insane deal. A solidly-built 5-incher (1080p) with a powerful Snapdragon 801, 3GB of RAM, a pair of 8MP/13MP Sony cameras at the front and back, and a long-lasting, 3080 mAh battery. And the price tag? That's the best part – the Mi 4 costs about 3.800.000 IDR, at least in Indonesia.

All of this actually sounds tot good to be true, and some of us tend to be somewhat skeptical towards such things. Should we give voice to our skepticism in this case, though? Time to find out!

In the box:

Wall charger

USB cable

SIM ejector tool

Design

While a number of Chinese manufacturers are always trying to clone Apple's products, we have a different approach with the Xiaomi Mi4 – the company might borrow a detail here and there, but it then goes off in its own direction.

While we do think that the Mi 4's predecessor, the Mi3, is a more unique-looking device, there's no arguing against the fact that Xiaomi has crafted a very, very compelling device nevertheless. The Mi 4 is defined by its stout stainless steel frame that adds just enough heft to the device to make it worth obsessing over its safety, even though it appears to be well-equipped to handle accidental bumps and even small drops. That seeming contradiction is kind of funny, especially seeing as everything else about the Mi 4 screams “reliable” – absolutely nothing creaks or moves with this phone. It really has no give. This same high level of execution also holds true for the power and volume key, both of which are located on the right side of the steel frame and provide good tactile feedback. On the top side, Xiaomi has fitted a 3.5 mm audio jack and an infrared blaster for control over home electronics.

The rest of the Mi 4's design isn't as impressive, but still pretty attractive. The (removable) back plate is made out of glossy plastic, but it's the good kind of plastic – sturdy, with an attractive finish and a diamond-like texture that adds a subtle brush of polish. The front is a bit generic-looking, though – only the large opening for the monstrous front-facing camera stands out, along with the capacitive navigation keys (yay for those!). The traditional “Mi” logo is seen on the top left, next to the fairly large slit for the proximity sensor.

All in all, while we wouldn't call the Mi 4's design original per se, the way this thing is built is quite remarkable and the device is still plenty attractive.

Display

Most manufacturers aren't very open about the companies they source components such as the display from, but Xiaomi doesn't belong to that group. We know for a fact that, depending on the batch, Xiaomi makes use of 5-inch, 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution (441 ppi) IPS panels made by either Sharp or JDI (a joint venture between Sony, Toshiba, and Hitachi). It's an attractive, bright, and sharp display, but it's not perfect.

Indeed, even with the optimal “Warm” color profile on, the display's measured color temperature of 7392 K falls north from the reference value of 6500 K and the image has a slight purplish tint. In fact, the higher the brightness of the screen, the more over-represented blue is – generally at the expense of green. Moving on, the screen's color fidelity is also a bit out of whack, with measured average Delta E rgbcmy color inaccuracy of 4.82, which is about average. In non-tech lingo, this means that the various shades of primary (red, green, blue) and secondary (cyan, magenta, yellow) colors are generally off target. That's true regardless of which of the available color profiles you choose. Thankfully, so long as you stick to “Warm”, you can expect a perfect gamma – we measured 2.2, which is spot-on.

As for brightness, the Mi 4's display peaks at 490 nits, which is pretty good. Thankfully, the laminated cover glass is not nearly as reflective as the one on the Xiaomi Mi3, so outdoor visibility is also good.

Interface and functionality

The first ever Xiaomi product wasn't a hardware one – it was software. We're, of course, referring to the company's wildly-popular custom Android skin, MIUI (pronounced “Me You I”), which is available for a staggering amount of non-Xiaomi devices, too, including major competitors such as Samsung, HTC, LG, and so on.

Our own Mi 4 makes use of the latest major iteration of MIUI – V6, based on Android 4.4.4 KitKat – and is likely one of the best executed manufacturer Android skins out there. MIUI 6 is light, but feature-filled, and though it is heavily-inspired by Apple's iOS design-wise, it is still stunningly-beautiful. Everything, from the Calculator, through the Compass and Clock apps, down to the various animations that follow you when navigating the UI – all have been designed within a framework that puts emphasis on both aesthetics and function.

Perhaps the first thing newcomers are bound to notice with MIUI is the lack of an app drawer – all your icons are stored on your homscreens, of which you can have as many or as little as you want. The notification panel, which you can call up by simply swiping down anywhere on the homscreen, is also smarter than on stock Android – for example, whenever you have no “priority” notifications, you'll be redirected straight to the toggles pane, and vice-versa. By priority we mean stuff other than app updates – like a missed call or a new Viber or Facebook message.

Another useful feature of MIUI is the included Themes app, which is hooked up to Xiaomi's servers. You can browse through thousands of different free and paid themes that change the look and feel of your Mi 4 from the ground-up, but do prepare yourself for an onslaught of Chinese characters – there's as of yet no translation for the store. We can't possibly go through all the remaining features, but we'll mention one more – unlike the Mi 3, the Mi 4 has no dedicated “gloves mode”. Instead, the screen will always register your touches even if you're gloved – you no longer need to fiddle with the settings.

Processor and memory

In its short history, Xiaomi has never once dropped the ball with performance – its devices have consistently conducted themselves greatly. This is, in part, thanks to the software, but also due to the high-end hardware Xiaomi typically makes use of.

The Mi 4 is no exception. Powered by a potent quad-core Snapdragon 801 with four Krait 400 cores ticking at 2.5GHz and an Adreno 330 GPU, along with 3 gigs of RAM, this phone is no slouch – and it shows. Whether we're talking about general navigation throughout the interface or playing Asphalt 8-level graphics-intensive games, it's fair to say that the Mi 4 delivers. But there's a caveat that's worth talking about.

The Mi 4 has two distinct performance “modes” available through the Battery menu – “Balanced” (default) and “Performance”. It shouldn't be too hard to guess what the idea behind either is – the former is more conservative and puts a cap on the maximum achievable clock speeds of the processor's cores in order to conserve battery, while the latter allows it to go all out. We ran our usual suite of performance benchmarks with both modes on (the ones you're seeing below are for the default “Balanced” mode), and the differences in performance are there – when left to go full out, the Mi 4 lands among the best we've tested. Otherwise, it is quite ordinary with its scores.

Finally, in terms of storage, the Mi 4 comes in two flavors – a 16GB and 64GB one. If you're hoping that you can build on top of that, however, you'll be disappointed to hear that no microSD slot is to be found on board Xiaomi's latest.

Internet and connectivity

Built into the MIUI software is a default Browser that is a decent performer. Heavier pages aren't handled as well as with Chrome, but those are becoming more and more rare on mobile, so most of the time you're getting a smooth experience. We still prefer Chrome as it's an all-around better performer and can sync with its desktop counterpart, but some of you might want to stick with the default solution due its extended functionality set.

So, what have we got here? Well, for starters, we've got a dedicated reader mode that does away with images so that you can focus on the message with no distractions. There's also a night mode which switches the theme to a dark one – handy when browsing in bed. Also available is an ad/pop-ups blocker, along with a feature that allows you to save some of your monthly data allowance by compressing data.

On the hardware side of the connectivity equation, we've got Bluetooth 4.0, 5GHz Wi-Fi, support for MHL, and an infrared blaster that can be used as a remote for pretty much all your home electronics that work with one. There's no NFC chip found on board, by the way – according to Xiaomi, just 1% of the user base actually ever used it, so it failed to make the shortlist this time around. Unfortunately, LTE is also missing on our version of the Mi 4 – that perk is currently reserved for a different version of the Mi 4 that won't work with most carriers around the globe.

Call quality

The Xiaomi Mi 4 is equipped with a noise-canceling duo of microphones – one nestled within the loudspeaker on the bottom, and another at the back, above the camera lens. The combo does a decent job isolating your voice from the background when on a call, but overall quality is only slightly above average. Indeed, while tonal information is preserved fairly well and the other side will hear you well enough at maximum volume, there will still be some distortion to your voice.

As for the speaker, we found ourselves wishing that it delivered just a slightly higher volume – other metrics proved to be above average.

Battery life

If you happen to have a suction cup lying around, you'll be able to lift off the seemingly non-removable back cover of the Mi 4, under which you'll find the device's battery. The 3080 mAh unit is quite generous, and our tests show that it is quite the performer, too. We already talked about Balanced and Performance modes earlier, so bear in mind that the test was carried out in the default (Balanced) mode the device comes in.

Anyway, the Xiaomi Mi 4 clocked the excellent 8 hours 32 minutes on our custom battery life benchmark, which puts it alongside some of the all-time highest-scoring devices we've tested. It's still behind heavyweights such as the Sony Xperia Z3 and the Motorola DROID Turbo, but ahead of the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S5, the HTC One M8, the Apple iPhone 6, and the LG G3.

The juicer is also fairly quick when it comes to regaining its charge – it needed 126 minutes to go from zero to 100% when using the wall charger provided in the box.

Xiaomi Mi3

Welcome to this review of the Xiaomi MI3. Before I get to the device, let me start you a quick overview on this company.

If you are concerned about the recent reports of Security and Data storage, this response from Xiomi will help.

Xiaomi was founded in 2010 and they have reached great heights in just 4 years. They’ve brought together some real smart people from Microsoft, Google, Motorola Yahoo and other big players in the industry with a focus of making great stuffs at affordable prices. Mi 3 is Xiaomi’s highest performing smartphone and has been in news for a while now. They have a philosophy of selling devices directly to customers; that helps them manage to keep the prices competitive

1. Technical Specifications:

This phone has a 5-inch Full HD 1080p IPS display. Inside the box, you have a 2.3 Ghz Snapdragon processor and a 2GB RAM to match the processing needs. It has a 13-megapixel rear camera with dual-LED flash and a 2MP front camera. Let’s talk about the camera functions and Battery life in a while. Other bits include a 16GB for storage (with a very good read speed), dual-band WiFi and NFC too. Given the 8.1mm body thickness, the 3,050mAh battery is quite impressive. – For a detailed Tech Spec Sheet, download this PDF.

xiaomi-mi3

The specs looks really brilliant; almost in the lines of any top end Android Smartphones. So in the specs department, this scores a good 4 out of 5.

2. User Experience:

This phone runs on MIUI, An Android-based platform with a very user friendly experience and offering power users a high degree of customisation too. If I can summarize the User Experience in one word, it would be integration. Just have a look at this feature where when you call someone you do have an option of taking a quick note and record the call integrated so well. The presentation mode is yet another killer option. You just need to pull down an app icon and you get a quick preview of the app for easy access.

selective-app-cleanThough KitKat has a great feature of Garbage collectors, this simple trick of selective app kill is a slick one. You can pretty much choose which application to keep it running while you close the rest of them. You do have an option to clear app memory selectively or all together.

There are tons of more features which make this UI special and its definitely worth spending sometime on this.

Many a times it happens, with most of the vendor customizations of Android, the OS turns out to be too slow and less responsive. However, this one looks an exception; the phone is definitely much faster than the other ones in the market, especially in this segment.

security The MIUI gives you an option to control the data transfer on your mobile data; to add its not just about setting up the limit. You can pretty much drill down to specific applications and configure the data utilisation in it.

A very simple interface which shows what type of media is using up the most disk space; its not just disk, but also provides an option with both Application and Hardware Level details on Power usage.

Everything from what runs and what’s visible can be secured. Be it blocking application, or even secret messaging. This is a killer feature. If you scroll down your messages and keep doing it, it takes you to a secret messaging screen; It shows as a private message and sender when you add a contact as a secret contact. You will see a review video in a couple of days.

The phone supports themes out of the box, so you can easily customise the look by downloading one of the many themes from the MIUI theme store. The MIUI is currently running on Android 4.4.2 and we can expect a software update in the coming days.

In the UX department, I would rate it a 4 out of 5.

3. Camera

The Mi 3 comes with a 13-megapixel rear camera with f/2.2 aperture and dual-LED flash as well as a 2-megapixel front camera. The camera is pretty decent and does click pretty good pictures. The details of the photograph aren’t very sharp and they look a little high on contrast. Hugo was a big fan of the HDR results from this camera and I am quite happy of this camera.

The details are pretty impressive.

details

In the camera department, I would rate it a 3 out of 5.

4. Display, Look and Feel, Call Quality:

With a 5-inch Full HD 1080p IPS display. The screen is really crisp and has some great viewing angles as well. The device feels very light; and though its made of plastic, it doesn’t make it look cheap at all. The quality still matches with premium smart-phones from other vendors. Most importantly its portable and the 5 inch screen doesn’t feel too big too. The call quality is pretty decent and the music on loudspeakers are good too. Its strange that the headset doesn’t come in the box; you will have to buy one separately for the same.

On the Looks, feel and Display, I would rate it a 4 out of 5 again.

Pros and Cons:

Great hardware, a fantastic User Experience and most importantly an attractive price are the Pros of this device. Talking about Cons, well, one thing which stands out is the lack of the external micro-sd cards and only 16GB version is available in Indonesia right now. With 16GB storage, the usable memory is just about 12 Gigs. I dont see this to be too big a problem, considering the options of OTGs and Cloud Storage. However, if you love using lots of apps and end up installing the same on this phone, you may see a little lag or disk space issues.

Value for Money:

Well, if you do a list check on the specs and the price, this phone sounds fantastic. Ofcourse, the bench-mark scores are also in its favour too.

However, You can never buy a phone just because it has great specs. You buy it for its reliability, design, style and most importantly, the user-experience. I would say, the USP of this device is not its price; but the User Experience what the MIUI has to offer. Xiaomi has made a great hardware which runs their MIUI better; and they have managed to make something at a lesser price. I wont call it cheap, because the phone definitely doesn’t feel cheap at all.

Xiaomi Redmi 2

Xiaomi has had a great run since it launched in India last June. While its entry level Redmi 1S was well received in India, it was discontinued towards the end of last year to help concentrate on Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G. The Redmi Note 3G was stopped from being sold in India after Ericsson filed a patent infringement suit against Xiaomi. So since the start of this year, the cheapest Xiaomi phone has been the Redmi Note 4G at Rs 9,999. Considering Lenovo had already announced the A6000 at CES (and released it in India in February) and the Moto E (2015) was released earlier last month, it was a matter of time before we saw Xiaomi Redmi 2.

Build and Design: 7/10

The Xiaomi Redmi 2 is an upgrage to last year’s Redmi 1S and in terms of looks, not much has changed. For all practical purposes, the Redmi 2 looks like a smaller sibling of the Redmi Note 4G. Xiaomi has employed a matte-finish plastic back on the Redmi 2. The rear cover is made of flimsy plastic, but it is comparatively sturdier than that seen on the Lenovo A6000. The rear cover opens up to reveal the removable battery section and the dual SIM card slot along with a microSD card slot.

On the right hand side, you have a volume rocker and power/standby button whereas the left hand side edge is clean. On top, you have the 3.5mm audio jack and at the base you have the microUSB charging and data transfer port.

The front-face is protected by a Corning Gorilla Glass 2 protection and you have the red-coloured capacitive touch buttons located at the base of the Redmi 2. Bezels could certainly have been thinner. There is the audio-speaker section on the top beside which you have the proximity sensor and the 2MP front camera. On the rear side there is an 8MP camera with the LED flash unit on the left hand side and a speaker section on the right hand side. It measures 9.4mm thick and weighs around 133g. The overall build quality is quite good and the matte finish on the rear cover gives a good grip.

Features: 7/10

Xiaomi Redmi 2 features a slight upgrade from its predecessor. The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 SoC which has a 1.2GHz quad-core Cortex A53 processor along with Adreno 306GPU. This is paired with 1GB of RAM and has 8GB of internal storage. Xiaomi plans to release a 16GB internal storage and 2GB RAM variant of the Redmi 2 later this year. It sports a 4.7-inch HD display with Corning Gorilla Glass 2 protection.

The Redmi 2 comes with a dual SIM configuration with dual 4G SIM standby. This gives it an edge over the Lenovo A6000 where you can only use one 4G SIM at a time. Other connectivity features include Wi-fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-fi Direct, Bluetooth v4.0 LE and GPS with A-GPS / GLONASS and Beidou. Sensors such as accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity sensor and compass are also present on board.

On the OS front, you get Android 4.4.4 KitKat OS with the MIUI 6.0 skin on top, just like Xiaomi Mi 4. An 8MP camera is present on the rear side along with a 2MP front-facing camera. The camera claims to have a 1.4micrometer pixel size. We will see if that helps with the image quality in the camera section below.

The phone has a 2,200mAh Li-Polymer battery which is removable. Sensors such as accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity sensor and compass are present on the Redmi 2.

Software: 8/10

The Xiaomi Redmi 2 launched with the MIUI 6 OS atop the Android 4.4.4 KitKat OS. Now this skin is Xiaomi’s latest update and brings in a lot of design changes along with some improved experience as well. But for someone familiar with the iOS design philosophy, the MIUI 6 skin seems to have take a lot of ‘inspiration’.

From L to R: Apps have undergone a design change; the new-look weather app; the Clock app is neatly divided into sections

The overall look of the MIUI 6 hasn’t changed drastically, but Xiaomi has refined the app design, made apps more simpler and flatter in appearance. For instance, the music and video apps are neatly divided into local and cloud sections; the clock app has a new design which is again divided into alarm, stopwatch, timer and clock; weather app has beautiful data visualisation; the Security app is neatly divided into different sections such as cleaner, data usage, blocklist and so on. There is a nice toggle button to switch a setting on or off.

In terms of features, Xiaomi has added on some good touches. You now get floating notifications so that you are not interrupted (while making that decisive photograph or while playing your favourite game) when you get a message or a call, as it will show up as a floating notification at the top. Even with notifications, MIUI 6 divides them into important and unimportant notifications.

Notifications can show up on the lock screen as well as when you pull down the notification tray. The notification tray when pulled down will show two pages – one showing the quick settings menu and the other page showing the unattended notifications. The quick notifications screen with its transparent backdrop looks inspired by iOS’s pull up control centre. Instead of getting a notification icon from the app, you can now get three dots which is common for all the unimportant notifications. You can control which notifications should show up as important by going into Settings > Notifications > Manage Notifications.

The Mail app has also been redesigned. One of the key features includes the layout of threaded email conversations which actually appears like chat messages. Other proprietary apps include the Mi Account, Security, Themes, Music and so on.

MIUI 6 allows you to easily switch apps between screens. You can actually hold onto an app by one finger while swiping the screen by the other finger. You add on widgets, change transition effects and so on. The camera app has also under gone a redesign, but we will take a look at it under the camera section. The browser has also got a new look.

Performance: 7/10

The Redmi 2 comes with the MIUI 6 skin atop the Android 4.4.4 OS but I did not notice any lag/stutter while using the phone. Switching between apps, swiping and scrolling operations are smooth. With image heavy sites, there will be a mild stutter as the image is loading. Call quality is good and earpiece speaker is loud enough.

Since it houses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 SoC, its immediate competitors include the Lenovo A6000 and the Huawei Honor 4X. The benchmark scores are at par with the Lenovo A6000 and Honor 4X in the balanced mode and slightly higher in the Performance mode.

Audio quality is good and you can easily listen to audio on the speaker section in your living room. Gaming on the phone is fun and there was barely any stutter while playing games such as Fruit Ninja, Riptide GP2 as well as high end games such as Frontline Commando 2 and Asphalt 8 as well. The phone does get warm on the rear side while you are playing games.

Display: 7/10

As a result of a 4.7-inch IPS display with an HD resolution, you get a high pixel density 312PPI. Text appears sharp and even on close distance I did not notice any pixellation. Colours are vibrant, but there is a mild warm tinge on the Redmi 2. The auto-brightness feature works well in when you are outdoors. It gives great viewing angles and only the reflective surface is distracting when viewed from angles. While watching movies, the dark scenes make the reflective surface of the display quite evident as it acts as a mirror then. Bright scenes did not post any issue.

Camera: 7/10

Xiaomi Redmi 2 comes with an 8MP rear camera and a 2MP front-facing camera, with the rear camera having a sensor with pixel size of 1.4 micrometer. Having seen a lot of entry level phones with high megapixel count, I didn’t really expect much from the Redmi 2’s camera. But it is quite decent for an entry level phone. It comes with the same minimal user interface that was there on the Mi 4. Swiping right brings up the various filters and swiping left throws up options such as Panorama mode, HDR mode, Manual mode and so on.

Autofocus speed is not the fastest, but the option to manipulate the exposure by just tapping on the frame and circling the slider around the focus circle is quite helpful. Daylight shots are detailed, although there is a slight warm tinge to the photographs. Sharpness around the edges was better than that seen on the Huawei Honor 4X and Lenovo A6000. Indoor shots had better control over noise when compared with competition.

Low light shots is where the camera performance starts to suffer. Although, the images are certainly usable if you’re just sharing online, one does notice the dithering around edges when you shoot in low light situations. You will notice a mild barrel distortion in images, but the chromatic aberrations are well controlled. On the whole, between its competitors such as the Lenovo A6000, Huawei Honor 4X and the Moto E, the Redmi 2 certainly has an edge when it comes to image quality and camera performance.

Battery life: 7/10

Battery capacity has been bumped up from 2,000mAh on the Redmi 1S to 2,200mAh on the Redmi 2. In the 8-hour loop test which includes two hours each of calling, video streaming, video playback and audio playback simulating an 8 hour work day, the Redmi 2 was left with 33 per cent battery remaining in the Performance mode. This means that the phone will easily last you for a day on regular usage and maybe even more. In the Balanced mode, you can extract even more life out of the phone.

Verdict and Price in Indonesia

Xiaomi Redmi 2’s major improvement over its predecessor is the addition of the dual SIM 4G slots, higher capacity battery and a new user interface. While this may make sense for someone living in a city which is blessed with a 4G connectivity, for majority of buyers 4G is not such an important buying decision at the moment since many parts of India are yet to get 4G networks. Existing Redmi 1S users have no need to upgrade to the the Redmi 2, as barring 4G there isn’t much that’s changed.

The Redmi 2 is priced at 1.600.000 IDR, where it competes with the Lenovo A6000 (which also offers 4G connectivity) and the Motorola Moto E. Redmi 2 certainly has en edge over the other competitors and is definitely a good option for first time buyers. The only issue is the flash sale model which can put off many prospective customers, who will prefer the convenient option of going for the Android 5.0 sporting Moto E. Xiaomi had recently announced that it will start selling phones offline in certain metros, but the Redmi 2 isn’t on the list of phones that’ll be sold in the first wave.

Ultimately it all boils down to your needs. If you want to future-proof your investment, then it is a battle between the Lenovo A6000 and the Xiaomi Redmi 2. If the latest Android updates are what you are after, then the Motorola Moto E is the one for you, although read up about its flaws before placing your money on it. Hopefully, A6000 and Redmi 2 should also get the Android 5.0 update, but with no word out on that, the Moto E certainly has the first mover advantage in that department. Not to mention the battery life of Moto E is better than both the Redmi 2 and the A6000.

Xiaomi Redmi Note

LOUNCING...

Xiaomi Redmi Note

NETWORK Technology : GSM / HSPA

LAUNCH Announced : 2014, March

Status Available. Released 2014, March

BODY Dimensions : 154 x 78.7 x 9.5 mm (6.06 x 3.10 x 0.37 in)

Weight : 199 g (7.02 oz)

SIM : Dual SIM

DISPLAY : Type : IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors

Size 5.5 inches (~68.8% screen-to-body ratio)

Resolution : 720 x 1280 pixels (~267 ppi pixel density)

Multitouch : Yes

Protection : Corning Gorilla Glass 3

PLATFORM OS : Android OS, v4.2 (Jelly Bean)

Chipset : Mediatek MT6592

CPU Octa-core 1.4/1.7 GHz Cortex-A7

GPU : Mali-450MP4

MEMORY Card slot microSD, up to 32 GB

Internal 8 GB, 1/2 GB RAM

CAMERA Primary :13 MP, 4128 x 3096 pixels, autofocus, LED flash, check quality

Features : Geo-tagging, touch focus, face/smile detection, HDR

Video : 1080p@30fps

Secondary : 5 MP

SOUND Alert types : Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones

Loudspeaker : Yes

3.5mm jack : Yes

COMMS WLAN :Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot

Bluetooth v4.0, A2DP, LE

GPS Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS

Radio FM radio; recording

USB microUSB v2.0, USB Host

FEATURES : Sensors Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass

Messaging : SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM

Browser : HTML5

Java : No

- Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic

- MP4/H.264 player

- MP3/WAV/eAAC+ player

- Photo/video editor

- Document viewer

- Voice memo/dial/commands

BATTERY : Li-Po 3100 mAh / 3200 mAh battery

MISC : Colors Various

Price : About 2.500.000 IDR

TESTS : Performance Basemark OS II: 452 / Basemark OS II 2.0: 479

Basemark X: 2974

Display Contrast ratio: 1016 (nominal), 2.119 (sunlight)

Camera :Photo / Video

Loudspeaker : Voice 65dB / Noise 66dB / Ring 75dB

Audio quality : Noise -88.4dB / Crosstalk -85.2dB

Battery life

Endurance rating 55h

Xiaomi Redmi 1S

It's safe to say that Xiaomi is the most talked-about new brand on the Indonesian tech scene today. The Chinese company has not spent any money on advertising and in fact seems pretty laid back about all the fuss it has caused by selling good phones at shockingly low prices.

Although its unique strategy of using online flash sales has aggravated quite a few customers, we must remember that Xiaomi is still a startup and doesn't have the financial or logistical might of the Samsungs and Apples of the world.

Now, the company has temporarily put sales of the Mi 3 on hold to concentrate on an even lower priced offering, the Redmi 1S. As with the Mi 3, this phone boasts of specs that are usually found in phones that cost at least twice as much, such as the much-loved Motorola Moto G. We've played with the Redmi 1S extensively to tell you in detail how well it performs. This phone could once again change the dynamics of the smartphone market.

Look and feel

Unlike in the days of the Nokia 7280, which looked like a lipstick case, phone companies are not experimenting a lot with design. Smartphones today are all pretty much the same predictable candybar shape, and most don't even really think about that.

The Xiaomi Redmi 1S is yet another candybar smartphone with a staid look that does not attract attention. It's unexciting, but may not a bad thing for a lot of people.

The Redmi 1S measures 137x69x9.9mm and is definitely not slim. Moreover, its 158g weight makes it heavier than a lot of other phones in this price range. The rear cover is removable and Xiaomi is expected to offer colourful replacement panels priced at Rs. 459 each, which will be a good way to give your phone some kind of distinction. The Redmi 1S is sold with a matte grey rear, and gripping it is not an issue.

The primary camera and flash sit on the upper part of the rear. The loudspeaker is just a small slit in the top right corner. A Mi logo in silver is etched on the lower back. Opening the rear cover is fairly simple, and the battery is removable.

The front is mostly taken up by the 4.7-inch screen, which has thick plastic borders. The three capacitive button labels which sit below the screen are printed in red. Oddly, the LED indicator is below the home button. Above the display are the earpiece and the front-facing camera. On the bottom edge is a microphone and a Micro-USB port for charging/data transfer. A 3.5mm jack sits on the top. The volume rocker and power button are on the right edge of the phone.

Specifications and software

For a phone priced so low, the Redmi 1S has jaw-dropping specs. Housed inside the body of the Redmi 1S are top-quality hardware components including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor clocked at 1.6GHz with an integrated Adreno 305 GPU. There is 1GB of RAM for applications and 8GB of internal storage, of which 6.14GB is available to the user. You can increase the storage space by up to 64GB using a microSD card.

The Redmi 1S has an 8-megapixel BSI camera with flash which can record 1080p videos. It also has a 1.6-megapixel front-facing camera. There is a 2,000mAh battery. The phone accepts two Mini-SIM cards, but only one will be usable on 3G networks. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 round out the list of connectivity options.

The 4.7-inch LCD has a resolution of 720x1280 pixels, which is phenomenal compared to other phones in this price range. The screen is crisp, and its 312ppi density makes it difficult to discern individual pixels. It is protected by AGC Dragontrail 2 glass. We tried scratching the screen with a coin and a scissor, and neither left any visible scratches. On the flipside, the screen looks washed out when viewed at an angle, and sunlight legibility is bad thanks to the super reflective front panel.

The Redmi 1S runs Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) with Xiaomi's MIUI v5 skin on top of it. This is the only drawback considering a lot of phones in this price range come with Android 4.4 (KitKat) pre-installed. Xiaomi has promised a software update before the end of this year that will bring MIUI v6 on top of Android 4.4 KitKat.

MIUI goes farther than most Android skins when it comes to customisation. It offers a lot of depth and a ton of features. It is incredibly responsive to touch and, unlike stock Android, has all the app icons lined up on the homescreen itself. There are also tonnes of useful software tweaks. We noticed that Xiaomi has included a 'Lite Mode' which resembles Windows Phone's UI. The most important and frequently used apps are available in the form of large easy-access tiles.

Xiaomi's MIUI is a community-driven exercise. In one of our interactions with Xiaomi Vice President Hugo Barra, he outlined one feature that was added after a user's suggestion. Essentially, the phone can vibrate when a call you make is picked up by the party on the other end, which is both convenient and also cuts down on exposure to radiation, which is higher when a call is being established.

You can swipe up or down the Music or Notes icons to make the respective apps launch in a pop-up mode. The Messages app has a "secret messages" area that can be accessed by swiping down from within the app. Even more interestingly, a few app icons work somewhat like Live Tiles (seen on Windows Phones). For example, the Calendar and Weather app icons display relevant information such as the time and temperature.

The Flipkart app is preloaded on the phone, which is to be expected since the phone is sold exclusively via the e-commerce platform. The default music player is feature-rich and fun to use. There is also a fairly powerful WPS Office app pre-installed for reading and editing documents. Facebook comes preloaded as well.

There are a ton of themes which is great for customisation, but in our opinion they all look really cartoonish. In fact, MIUI itself is very colourful. Ultimately, this boils down to preference.

You can read more of our thoughts on MIUI in the Xiaomi Mi 3 review.

Camera

We want to get one thing out of the way: the primary 8-megapixel camera on the Xiaomi Redmi 1S is the best anyone can find for a phone priced below 2.000.000 IDR right now.

In our daylight shots the camera managed to capture some really good images. The only problem we noticed was the software processing worked overtime to reduce noise in the images by smudging details slightly. Otherwise, colours were natural. Even in macro mode, the phone performs really well. We were shocked after the low-light performance test. The camera managed to capture some details which even more expensive smartphones generally fail to do. The quality of the 1080p video is also fairly decent.

The camera software does a lot of processing after images are captured by the 1.6-megapixel front camera. This smudges details in order to beautify a person's face. These selfies should suffice for sharing on social networks.

The camera app looks like a slightly tweaked version of the default app from Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). However, it is easy to use. By default, it starts up in simple mode which strips away a lot of the feature that the camera offers. We'd suggest that users switch to the advanced mode to exploit the full potential of this camera.

Performance

At the risk of sounding repetitive, we start another section by stating there is no other phone in this price range that performs as well as the Xiaomi Redmi 1S. If someone put a gun to our heads and forced us to come up with one problem, it would be that only around 400MB of RAM is available after the OS and services have loaded. As long as you don't open tons of apps together, it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

For the most part, the phone works well and we didn't face any heating issues either. We tried Shadowgun: Deadzone and Dead Trigger 2, both on Ultra High settings, just to push the GPU. The phone lagged only during intensive fight sequences, which we expected from such specifications anyway. We don't think prospective buyers will be disappointed with the gaming performance.

We also ran a bunch of synthetic benchmarks. The Redmi 1S scored 21,439 in AnTuTu 5 and 10,752 in Quadrant, which are leagues ahead of phones competing in this price range. In our graphics benchmarks 3D Mark Ice Storm and GFXbench, the phone scored 5274 and 10.4fps, which are both comparable to scores of much higher priced phones.

We played a few sample videos to test if the phone could handle them and found that the 1080p sample video encoded at 40mbps didn't run, which was a bit of a letdown - 1080p videos encoded at a lower bit rate ran fine though. The tiny speaker can get really loud but at its highest volume the sound distorts.

Xiaomi doesn't bundle earphones in the box and for testing purposes we used our reference headphones. The sound quality was really good. While testing via the Bluetooth A2DP profile using our Plantronics Backbeat Go 2 earphones, the volume level was really low for some odd reason.

In our rigorous battery test, the Xiaomi Redmi 1S tramples its competition mercilessly. It lasted a good 8 hours and 27 minutes of video playback on a loop. In everyday usage shuffling between 3G and Wi-Fi, it wasn't significantly better than other offerings, but should still last you a day of heavy usage.

Verdict

Xiaomi continues the trend of aggressive pricing first set by Motorola earlier this year. Samsung and Micromax, who were comfortably ruling the roost in the under-10k price segment, have had the carpet pulled out from under them.

Even more expensive phones such as the Moto E (Review | Pictures). The Micromax Unite 2 (Review | Pictures) cannot match the Redmi 1S with its reliable performance, great camera, crisp screen and excellent battery life. The only major drawback we see is the lack of Android 4.4 (KitKat) at the moment.

Looking at this phone's specs, it is easy to make comparisons to the Moto G but we are consciously avoiding that at the moment since it is very nearly at the end of its life in the market, and will soon be succeeded by the Moto G2 (or whatever the final phone will be called).

At the moment the Xiaomi Redmi 1S is the best buy under 2.000.000 IDR. The Chinese startup is expected to sell the phone starting September 2 using the same flash sale format. In the first round, 40,000 units will be put up for sale and we expect them all to be gone in a matter of seconds. We can easily recommend this phone because the price-to-performance ratio is unbelievably good - and thankfully, this isn't a case of 'too good to be true'.