Xiaomi Mi3 Review
Top of the line performance at an unbeatable price.
August,2014
Xiaomi is the
latest Chinese smartphone maker to bring their fagship device to
India.The company which is known as the "Apple of China",enters the
Indian market with the Xiaomi Mi3,which hopes to stand
out from the competition in terms of pricing.The Mi3 boasts
specs that would rival any top tier offerings in the market
today.Xiaomi has managed to enclose enough tech in the device and
still flaunt a price tag of Rs.13,999.
So much that,labelling the Mi3 as another value for money offering
would be an understatement.
IS THE Mi3 THE DEVICE YOU ARE LOOKING FOR?
If you are hoping to get the best
smartphone in the mid-budget segment(Rs.10,000-Rs.20,000),then you
need not look much farther;the Xiaomi Mi3 is definitely the best
choice you can make;at least based on raw specs.
There's much more to
be had other than raw specs when you choose to go with a Moto
G(Rs.11,999) like updates to the latest version of Android without
waiting for months,or if you're in India you might want to
consider the fact that Xiaomi do not have a lot of service
centers,in case your device happens to fail on you;something which
smartphone makers like Sony,Samsung,Micromax and the like have all
sorted out.Lastly,another reason that may turn you down is
that Flipkart is the only licensed retailer od Xiaomi Phones in
India at moment,and with limited stock available you might find it
hard to get one,even if you wanted to.
The HARDWARE
Look &
Feel
The Xiaomi looks
premium at first glance,but thats just about where it ends.Once you
pick it up,the matte finish plastic which Xiaomi refers to as an
Alluminium-Magnesium alloy,doesn't feel all that
premium.
The device is 8.1mm
thick(or rather 8.1mm thin) and sports a rectangular slab design
akin to the Xperia flagship devices,although the Mi3 has sharper
corners and the choice of materials in the device makes it
feel more
like devices in its price range,and not a top tier device.On the
whole we could say that the design is simply not one of its selling
points.
Display
Type
: IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M
colors;Multitouch
Resolution: 1080 x
1920 pixels, 5.0 inches (~441 ppi pixel density)
Protection : Corning
Gorilla Glass 3
The 5"inch Full HD
IPS LCD display offers visually crisp images and text as well as
acceptable viewing angles.The colour reproduction is vivid,but the
display seems mediocre at best in broad daylight,with the screen
being a bit too reflective.
The Corning Gorilla
Glass 3 has been publicised to offer premium protection from
scratches et al.Overall,the Screen of this calibre is more than
welcome for a phone priced under 15k.
Under the
Hood
CPU
: Quad-core 2.3 GHz Krait 400
GPU
: Adreno 330
RAM
: 2GB
Memory : 16GB
(Internal)/No expansion slot
The Xiaomi
Mi3,powered by the quad core Snapdragon 800 processor clocked at
2.3Ghz offers some serious power and with 2GB of RAM,multitasking
won't be a bother as you can expect really smooth performance even
while running a few apps simultaneously.The
Adreno 330 GPU will comfortably take on any HD game,without lagging
off.In fact the Adreno 330 is a step ahead of the Adreno 320 GPUs
which were part of last year's flagship Phones from Sony and
Samsung.
The only feature that
disapionts is the lack of a Micro SD expansion slot,considering the
fact that the 16GB(12GB available to user) of onboard storage can
only hold out for so long.Throw in a few HD games,videos and you
would find yourself limited to adding just a
part of your music collection,just because the internal memory just
isn't sufficient.
Camera
Primary
: 13 MP, 4128 x 3096 pixels, autofocus, dual-LED
flash
Features
: Geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection,
HDR
Video
: 1080p@30fps, HDR
Secondary : 2 MP,
1080p@30fps
The Xiaomi Mi3 sports
a 13 Megapixel shooter which takes spendid photos in well lit
conditions with great colour reproduction and detailing albeit with
some noise in them.But as soon as the lighting
fades,the images appear washed out and sadly poor level of
detail.But all these faults can't keep it from being the best
smartphone camera at its pricepoint.
The Mi 3 has a custom
camera interface,where we could opt for a Simple Mode of operation
or the Advanced Mode for the more enthusiastic.The camera offers
features like HDR mode for low light
photography,filters,panorama,facial recognition and the
like.
The OS
The Xiaomi Mi3 runs
the latest version of Android, Kitkat 4.4.2.The Mi3 also uses a
heavily customized UI on top of the stock Android,which makes the
Mi3 looks as if it runs the iOS and not the Android.
The custom interface
which merges the homescreen and the app menu may not be in
everyone's liking.But this UI does more than just visually change
the feel of stock Android;it allows the user to create a shortcut
to an app,menu function
or widgets which can
be accessed right from the app drawer or better yet from the
homescreen.The notifications shade is also heavily customised,with
option to further customise the quick settings area.
Benchmarking using
the Antutu gives the Mi3 a score of around 26000 and 15000 in
Quadrant,which is infact on par with that of the Samsung Galaxy
S4.The Mi3's nearest competition atleast in terms of
pricing,
the Moto G scored
11,800 in Antutu and 8,500 in Quadrant.The Mi3 also put up a
consistent 28fps in 3DMark Ice Storm Test,while the Moto G could
only manage 11fps in the same test.
The Xiaomi Mi3
packs in almost everything it can and a whole lot more for its
price.It will certainly appeal to those who have been looking
forward to buying a Moto G.But with limited stock coming in,you
might find yourself waiting a while to own one.Overall,it certainly
impresses for a smartphone priced at just Rs.13,999;and we feel
that the Mi3 is certainly the best phone under Rs.15,000 or under
Rs.20,000 for that matter.
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