Xiaomi Mi 4

Xiaomi Mi 4 is 139.2 mm tall, 68.5 mm wide, 8.9 mm thin, and has a weight of 149 grams. It integrates a 5.0-inch IPS LCD display with Full HD resolution, 441 ppi pixel density, and an impressive screen-to-body ratio of 72.3%.

Xiaomi Mi 4 is 139.2 mm tall, 68.5 mm wide, 8.9 mm thin, and has a weight of 149 grams. It integrates a 5.0-inch IPS LCD display with Full HD resolution, 441 ppi pixel density, and an impressive screen-to-body ratio of 72.3%.

Design

Unlike its predecessors, Xiaomi has gone with a metallic frame with the Mi 4. It uses a sturdy stainless steel frame which has chamfered edges giving it an elegant look. The rear cover is all-plastic though. The flat metallic chamfered edges look inspired by the design of the iPhone 5s. Even the base of the phone has a rectangular dotted design for the speaker grilles, which is again similar to the iPhone. The flat metallic frame is sand-blasted so it has the matte finish, but the chamfered edges are glossy in appearance and tend to attract smudges. Thankfully there aren’t any sharp edges.

On the top edge, you have a 3.5mm audio jack and the IR blaster, on the right hand side there are metallic buttons for the volume rocker and power/standby. 

The single microSIM slot is located on the left hand side and it lies flush with the edge. On the base you have the microUSB charging port along with the speaker grille.

The front face of the Mi 4 has a 5-inch full HD display with thin bezels on the sides and thicker ones on top and bottom. Xiaomi has employed the Corning One Glass Solution (OGS) to keep the phone slim. It measures 8.9mm thick, but thanks to the metallic frame, the phone weighs 149 grams.

Features

The Xiaomi Mi 4 ups the ante as far as the internal specifications are concerned. It houses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC which has a 2.5GHz quad-core processor along with an Adreno 330 GPU  which is clocked at 587MHz. The SoC is supported by a 3GB RAM along with 16GB storage space. There is no provision to add on a microSD card and of the 16GB, only 12.17GB is available to the user. This isn’t a lot of space for most buyers. Although Xiaomi sells the 64GB variant in China, that will not be currently selling in India. However, at the Mi 4 launch event it was told that the 64GB version will arrive in India in the near future depending on the demand.  There is a 5-inch full HD display which takes the pixel density to 441ppi. The Mi 4 runs on the Android 4.4.4 KitKat OS, with Xiaomi’s proprietary MIUI 6 OS

Performance

The Mi 3 was an able performer and even with the Redmi Note 3G/4G, the device performs well for its segment. The Xiaomi Mi 4 has the top end specs, so a speedy user experience is a given. Issues such as lag, random closing or slowing down of apps, random reboots were hardly faced. Even with the browser, I opened around 15 tabs and things were still functioning smoothly. Even when scrolling through image heavy apps or webpages, there was no stutter or lag. The Snapdragon 801 SoC paired with 3GB of RAM is more than capable of handling anything

Display

Xiaomi Mi 4 comes with a 5-inch full HD display and it has a pixel density of 441ppi. The display is sharp and bright. Readability in sunlight is quite good and the auto-brightness mode works quite well. The font size may seem tiny to some, but you can adjust that in settings. Unlike some phones we have tested in the past where we had to turn off the auto brightness mode, the Mi 4 handles it quite well. The only issue we felt was the propensity of the glass to collect smudges and finger prints. While this is certainly not as bad as the LG G3 Beat, the you do need to clean the display regularly. Watching movies on the display is a pleasure thanks to the good contrast levels.

Camera

You get a 13MP rear camera and an 8MP front facing camera. Both the cameras sport a fast f/1.8 lens. Xiaomi has redone the camera app and made it extremely minimal in appearance. You get a central white coloured shutter button to the left of which you have a gallery button and on the right video record button on the right. Swiping from the right will bring up the 12 filters and swiping from the left brings up features such as HDR, Refocus, Panorama, burst shooting mode and so on.