Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Xiaomi Mi 4i review

Xiaomi Mi 4i review


Xiaomi Mi 4i has the dimensions 138.1×69.6×7.8mm and is more durable as it comes with a unibody form factor. The back is somewhat bent and even though it is built of plastic, it appears strong and thick due to the matte finish.

As a result, the device is less vulnerable to stains. The smartphone is convenient for a single-handed use owing to the thin bezels and the power as well as volume rocker keys placed at the device’s right-hand corner.

The rear camera towards the top left-hand side does not project outwards and the speaker outlet is also at the back. The left corner of the device has a sim card tray with two slots for micro sim cards.
The front of the smartphone is controlled by the full-HD display lined by three navigation keys at the bottom and the lens of the front-camera at the top.
The smartphone sports a full-HD IPS display screen measuring 5 inch having a resolution of 1920x1080p protected against scratches by Corning’s Concore One Glass Solution.

Design

Xiaomi Mi 4i comes with a polycarbonate rear cover which is non removable and this cover wraps the phone from the rear side giving smooth rounded corners and edges. In terms of design there are more hints of the Redmi 2 rather than the Mi 4. The dual SIM tray is located on left hand side. On the top you have the 3.5mm audio jack and at the base there is the micro USB charging and data transfer port.
On the rear side, you have the 13MP camera placed on the top left hand corner beside which is the dual LED flash unit. The camera is flush with the surface of the rear side which is quite good. Towards the base you have the silver coloured embossed Mi branding and below it the grilles of the speaker along with a tiny lip to help raise the phone a bit when it is resting on a flat surface, so as to not muffle the sound.

Features
The Xiaomi Mi 4i houses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 SoC (second generation) which has an octa core processor. You get a quad core Cortex A53 clocked at 1.7GHz also known as the performance cores and another quad core processor clocked at 1.1GHz known as power saving cores. It has an Adreno 405 GPU. This is paired with 2GB LPDDR3 RAM.

The Mi 4i runs Android 5.0 Lollipop with the MIUI 6 skin on top. It comes with 16GB of internal storage of which 12.9 GB is available to the user. Sadly, there isn’t a provision to add in a microSD card. Xiaomi has used a small form factor motherboard to accommodate a large capacity battery (3120mAh). The Xiaomi Mi 4i has a dual SIM, dual standy mode and can take in 4G SIM cards in both the slots. It features 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS/GLONASS and USB OTG.

Software

First Xiaomi phone to be launched with Android 5.0 Lollipop. But thanks to the MIUI 6 skin atop the phone, you can barely tell the difference between the look of the Mi 4i from the Mi 4 or even Redmi 2.

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. 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.

Performance

second generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 SoC paired with 2GB RAM is enough to handle most tasks. The phone works well in the performance mode and the Adreno 405 GPU is capable of handling heavy games such as Asphalt 8: Airborne and Dead Trigger 2. Browsing on Chrome with over 10 tabs open at a time, along with 10 apps running in the background didn’t slow down the device or make it freeze.

Display

The 5-inch full HD display is vibrant  and comes with IPS panel which gives it great viewing angles. Just like the higher end Mi 4, the Mi 4i also has a 441ppi pixel density. Colours are vibrant and text appears sharp. There isn’t any visible warm tinge to the display. Xiaomi has used a One Glass Solution instead of Gorilla Glass protection. The screen is resistant to smudges and when the phone display is off, you can see a continuous black top. Only when you observe closely will you notice the separation between the screen and bezel.

Xiaomi has employed a technology called ‘Sunlight Display’, which basically is a hardware based always on signal processor, which dynamically adjusts the contrast of pixels in real time so as to help you show a balanced display in situations where there is extreme glare.

Camera

Xiaomi Mi 4i has the same camera 13MP rear camera as its elder sibling – the Mi 4. But the only area where it differs is that the Mi 4 has a 6-element f/1.8 lens whereas the Mi 4i has a 5-element lens configuration with an f/2.0 aperture. On the front-face it has the 5MP camera.

Battery Life

The Mi 4i houses a 3120mAh battery which is quite a large capacity battery on a 5-inch device. Over 3000mAh batteries are generally seen on 5.5-inch devices. battery easily lasted over 12-14 hours of moderate usage involving surfing the web, calling for couple of hours, social media use, photography, video streaming and so on. In performance mode will last around 10-11 hours depending on your usage. But you can easily extract a day’s worth of battery life from the Mi 4i.