Xiaomi Mi4: Review

The Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi is well known for budget phones with higher end hardware. This was proved when they released the Mi3 last year. Now comes the Mi4 which is not likely a polished new Mi3, rather its a new step forward in terms of design as well as features.  The Xiaomi Mi4 is completely different when compared to Mi3 and it also comes at a reasonable price. The Mi4 was released in China long back but I don't know why they delayed its release in India. Finally I got my hands on this mobile for a review.









Design
Xiaomi Mi4 is a wonderful device with a premium look and design. But I felt that the device's design is mostly inspired by Apple iPhone 5S and Samsung Galaxy series. All I felt it as an hybrid outcome of these two. But it is yet great to hold the phone in your hands with a unibody design and premium build.

The mobile has a aluminum rim running throughout the sides of the phone. With 5 inches larger screen the mobile will catch your attention with its excellent display and beautiful colors. The space above the screen has the front facing camera which is a 8 mega pixel shooter (good for selfies), the Mi symbol to the left end side, ear piece and sensor space. The space below the touch screen has the capacitive touch buttons which are back lit. In case if you miss any notifications such as a text message or a missed call, you need not worry there is notification LED at the bottom of the screen at the capacitive buttons.

The back side contains the 13 mega pixel camera which can shoot 4K videos at 30 fps. Both front and rear cameras incorporate Sony Exmor lens. The back cover is not removable and hence no access to the battery. The volume rocker is on left side and the power button below it. The 3.5 mm ear jack is on the top. The incorporation of 3.5 mm ear phone jack is a logical choice rather than at the bottom like iPhone 5 series, which would make you carry the phone upside down in your pocket while listening to music via ear phones. Can be annoying to see notifications during listening to music. Thanks we don't have such problems in Mi4.

Adjacent to the 3.5 mm ear phone jack is IR blaster which can be used to pair with other devices or ca be used as remote control for your other electronic devices at home.

Sadly Xiaomi Mi4 doesn't have the memory card option and the internal memory is 16 GB. 64 Gb variant is about to be released soon.



Hardware:

Xiaomi Mi4 is a huge phone in terms of it's hardware. It comes with 2.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 Soc supported with 3 GB RAM. This is similar to top end devices in present market such as S5, LG G3, Xperia Z3 and HTC M8. The difference comes down to the pricing. Mi4 is available at a price almost half of the mobiles having similar specs.

The battery is also huge. With 3080 mAh battery capacity the mobile has enough juice to last for complete one day with a single full charge.

The screen of Mi4 is a 5 inches IPS LCD screen with Corning Gorilla Glass which makes it scratch proof (One Glass Solution). The screen is brilliantly bright with 1080 X 1920 resolution at 441 pixels per inch. The color reproduction is excellent and viewing angles are great. 

The rear camera is a 13 MP shooter and the incorporation of the camera and the design is inspired by Samsung Galaxy series. The front camera is a 8 Mp shooter which makes one of the excellent camera for selfies. Both cameras are Sony's Exmor lenses. The rear camera can shoot 4K video at 30 fps. The best feature of this phone is 4G LTE support which will support wide ranged of cellular networks around the globe.






Software and Performance:
The mobile comes with Android 4.4.4 KitKat over Xiaomi's MIUI interface. It is expected to get the LolliPop update soon. The android OS has been heavily customized and many features are incorporated such as quick shortcut notifications, extra options in display and battery usage. The entire notifications panel is redesigned which I liked it.  The new usage app is redesigned and closing the apps from background is quite easy, this section is inspired from Apple.



The multi tasking on Xiaomi Mi4 is amazingly speed. I had no lags while switching between apps. It is also great for gaming experience. With the remote app you can use it as a universal remote for your house hold electronic devices. There are plenty other apps which come pre installed like SwiftKey, Facebook and many more. You will find plenty of themes pre installed.

The videos are a pleasure to watch on this mobile and the pictures taken with the camera are great in day light with accurate color reproduction. The pics in dull light were not that impressing. Even I found noticable lag in auto focus while taking pics in dim light. The camera app have many settings such as setting ISO, white balance, face detection, smile detection, HDR mode, panorama mode and many more.


Final Verdict:

Xiaomi Mi4 comes with loads of features at a cheaper price. Certainly a tough competitor for other mobiles with similar features. Though it is not a perfect phone and it has many similarities in terms of design with Apple and Samsung it can still be a perfect choice for people looking for mobiles up to Rs. 20,000 INR. I hope it will be available in stores rather than "available only in Flipkart". 

Design: 

Features: ★1/2

Hardware: 

Performance: ★1/2

Battery: 

Price value: 


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