This formula of Xiaomi has appealed to the Indian customers. Today, the brand is the fifth largest smartphone vendor in India and India is the largest overseas market for the company.
The company has priced its latest product Xiaomi Mi 4i at Rs 12,999. As far as the price is concerned, it is around the range of Mi 3. But does this smartphone have everything that will maintain Xiaomi’s image of presenting superhit mobiles in the market in the coming times. Let’s find out.
Design and display
The unibody design of the Xiaomi Mi 4i gives this smartphone a solid look. It is made of good quality polycarbonate which is rarely seen in phones of this price range. At first glance, the Mi 4i looks very similar to the iPhone 5c, especially with the multi-color options. In terms of looks and feel, the Mi 4i is similar to many high-end Lumia devices.
The Mi 4i will be available in a variety of colors in the future, but at launch, the phone will be available in white color (16GB). The white color may disappoint many customers as it is more likely to get dirty in Indian environments.
The Xiaomi Mi 4i follows the standard format when it comes to the layout of buttons and ports. The power button is on the right edge and the volume buttons are right below it. The 3.5mm audio jack is on the top of the phone and the micro USB port is at the bottom. The noise cancelling microphones are placed on the back of the phone. The rear camera is also located in the same area along with dual tone LED flash. The dual micro-SIM tray is on the left side of the phone.
The Mi 4i has a 5-inch (actually 4.95-inch) Full HD screen, but the phone doesn’t feel too big when you hold it. Either we are used to big smartphones or the Mi 4i’s display to body ratio is so good that it doesn’t feel awkward in the hand. The company claims that it has taken help from Corning brand for the screen and the screen in the smartphone gives protection like Gorilla Glass 3.
Colour reproduction and viewing angles are excellent. The display is bright enough to make viewing text and on-screen elements easy in sunlight. Xiaomi has stated that the Mi 4i has a sunlight-ready display.
Actually, the work of sunlight display is to brighten the blurred part of a photo whenever you are outdoors so that you can see all the details clearly. Although the company is presenting this function a bit exaggeratedly, you will not be able to sense the change happening on the screen with open eyes. By the way, this is also a kind of praise. Xiaomi also says that sunlight display has very little effect on the phone’s battery.
After using the phone, it can definitely be said that the display of Xiaomi Mi 4i is the best in this range and perhaps this is the biggest feature of this product.
Software and performance
Xiaomi Mi 4i has the latest MIUI 6 firmware with Android 5.0.2. The problem is that MIUI uses a lot of RAM. The good thing is that Mi 4i has 2GB of RAM, of which a little less than half is available for applications. You can see recent apps through the button on the leftmost corner of the phone and the screen also shows how much RAM is available for apps at that moment. A button with the (‘X’) sign on the screen shows a button that lets you close apps. However, opening and closing multiple apps at once on Mi 4i is not a big problem. So you won’t need (‘X’) much and should avoid using it.
We believe that memory management should be left to the operating system itself. Because repeatedly closing apps unnecessarily can slow down your phone, especially when you want to use that app again.
You can also lock the app by sliding the app icon down in the Recent Apps view. This means that the app will not close even if you use the X button. And this action will remain intact even after rebooting the phone.
However, MIUI also has some shortcomings. Due to many animations, the phone takes more time to respond. To use the Settings app, you have to start from its home page again and again. That is, this app forgets the actions and positions of your last visit. Some third-party apps close repeatedly on Xiaomi devices, this shortcoming is also there in phones of other brands. But this happened more on this phone than on others.
There was one occasion when the phone was unable to complete data send and receive actions on the 3G network. Restarting the phone twice did not work. But the problem was fixed after disabling the 3G data option and reactivating it for the third time. There were other occasions when the email app had trouble responding to touch input. At first, we thought the issue was touchscreen related, but upon research, we found that the issue was only occurring in the Mail app, which was very disappointing.
Xiaomi had also given information about the visual IVR specification while launching the product. Actually, the company will prepare the menu of IVR numbers used by companies like Indian Railways, Vodafone and Cleartrip by studying the data of the users. This means that the next time you call Indian Railways, the message 1 for English and 2 for Hindi will already appear on the screen. This means that you will not have to listen to the entire message to tell your choice. You can choose the option by just tapping on the screen. We were eagerly waiting for this feature but it is still in the testing stage, which will come first on Mi 4i and then on other Xiaomi phones through software update in the coming time. Let us tell you that this is not an app, Xiaomi has not partnered with any company for this but is preparing to give you this facility through user behavior.
There was no major drop in the performance of the phone. In synthetic benchmarks, the Mi 4i performed better than the Mi 3 as well as the Mi 4, which was a bit surprising. The smartphone did get a little warm while playing games and during the battery loop test, but the situation was not worrisome.
The Mi 4i has 16GB of internal storage, of which 10.68GB is available for applications and user data. The only disappointment is that this phone does not have a microSD card slot. There are talks of a 64GB variant being launched soon, but there is no official information available as to when this will happen. The Mi 4i has support for USB OTG, which means that any USB drive or other device can be connected to the phone via the microUSB port.
Xiaomi claims that MIUI supports 6 Indian languages. This is good news for customers who use Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Bengali. However, we also saw an option for Marathi in the settings menu.
We did not face any problem while making phone calls with Xiaomi Mi 4i, the phone supports 4G on both SIM cards, however, we could not test it due to lack of 4G network in our area. The loudspeaker performance was good, whether it was for calls, watching movies or listening to music.
Camera and Battery Life
Xiaomi Mi 4i has a 13 megapixel rear camera which takes good photos in good light. However, in medium or low light conditions, the quality of the photos does not seem to be that strong. The performance in HDR mode is good.
The dual-tone LED flash works well, lighting up every area of the subject when taking photos. Videos shot by the rear camera are better than average. However, the lack of color reproduction persists in this feature as well. The in-built mic does a good job at recording audio.
The story of the front camera or selfie camera is also the same, when the light is good then the photo quality is excellent. But in low light, the result was poor on most occasions. Mi 4i has a beautification feature through which you can make your photo more beautiful. That is, if there are pimples or blemishes on the face, everything will disappear through this app. If you believe in natural photos then you can also turn off this feature.
The Xiaomi Mi 4i packs a 3000mAh battery and the company claims that it can last for at least a day and a half. However, while using the phone, we found that it lasted well for a day but by the next morning, the battery had very little life left. This performance was achieved during normal to heavy usage. We had two push email accounts active on the phone. We also used social media for some time during this time. 20 minutes of phone calling and a few minutes of gaming. The display was set to auto brightness and the phone was connected to a 3G data connection throughout the day. Apart from this, we also kept our phone paired with the Mi Band via Bluetooth.
Battery results of Snapdragon 615 smartphones have been poor. Considering this, Xiaomi has done a good job by providing a bigger battery and its performance results have to be considered good.
Our verdict
Xiaomi has once again won the battle with the Mi 4i. The price of this phone is almost half of the smartphones built on a powerful platform like Snapdragon 615, but in terms of performance, the Mi 4i gave good results in every department. In this price range, the Mi 4i should be praised for its excellent screen and good build quality.
On the other hand, MIUI has some shortcomings. Camera performance could have been better. If you are looking for standard Android UI, expandable memory, and are willing to compromise on the camera, then trust Moto G (Gen 2). For the rest, register yourself for the next flash sale of Xiaomi Mi 4i.