[Review] Xiaomi Mi3

I recently purchased the Xiaomi Mi3 from FLipkart and after 2 months of using it, here’s what I have to say about it.

Following the same trade principle of Motorola’s Moto G, the Xiaomi is extremely well priced for the hardware it offers.

The Packaging:

The box is minimalistic and recyclable. Xiaomi has decided to go for a no-nonsense box. It is small and doesn’t contain much of the unnecessary paperwork that most other phone manufacturers tend to include. There is a USB cable, wall wart and a pin to remove the SIM tray. A small Quick Start booklet and that’s all.

Looks and Aesthetics:

The phone looks phenomenal. The full glass front and the brushed metal back look simply stunning. It beats every other phone Ive seen in terms of first impressions. Its comfortable to hold and carry around. You can buy various coloured back stick-on cases. The only niggle here is that the Xiaomi Mi3 will not fit in your front pocket. But then again, if you are buying a 5 inch device, you already know that.

The Screen:

The 1080 x 1920 pixels, 5.0 inch screen has a pixel density of 441 ppi. It is immensely sharp and delivers colours pretty well. The Corning Gorilla Glass 3 will prevent small bumps and scratches on your precious new screen. The MIUI is amazingly simple and to the point.

The MIUI Skin:

The MIUI is really beautiful. There are hundreds of themes available for free and each is of top quality. There are updates almost every month which fix bugs and improve performance among other things. Notifications and quick settings are easy to see and use. The All Apps screen is no more so you’ll have to get used to seeing all your apps on the home screen.

Connectivity:

3G, 2G, GPS, GLONASS, WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, USB On the Go cover all the bases. There is no HDMI Out, but you can mirror your screen on a TV using Miracast.

Under The Hood:

The Xiaomi MI3 runs on the capable Snapdragon 800 chipset with a quad-core 2.3GHz Krait 400 processor, Adreno 330 GPU and 2GB of RAM. It performs well in all benchmark tests including CPU, GPU and RAM tests. More than whats needed for daily use and powerful enough for taxing games as well.

The Camera:

A 13.1 Mega Pixel primary camera and a 2 Mega Pixel secondary camera ensures good quality photos. The primary camera is sharp and low light performance is good. The exposure and ISO settings can be tweaked. The exposure can go up to 2 seconds. The photos are really sharp and detailed in good lighting conditions. Even the front cam takes impressive selfies 😉

The Software:

The Xiaomi Mi3 runs MIUI on top of Android 4.4 Kit Kat. Many of the settings which were hard to turn on or off in plain android are easier to access in MIUI. The contact management and phone functions work just as you expect them to.

The Battery:

The Xiaomi Mi3 has a 3050 mAh non-removable battery. Battery life is impressive and easily lasts a whole day of heavy usage. Normal usage should see you around 3 days. The Battery is one of the Killer Features which should make you consider this phone.

Problem with the Back cases:

Xiaomi went horribly wrong with the stick on back cases. They obscure the flash a tiny bit and glare the photos taken with the flash on. Avoid them at any cost.

Camera Pictures:

The Box:

Random Wall:

Selfie:

Without HDR:

With HDR:

Verdict:

This device punches well above its weight. If you are looking for a phone in this range, I will suggest you go for it. Long battery life, sharp display, Unibody design, eye catching looks, and great software are some of the things you should consider. Some people have problems with this phone but I have seen none. Just avoid the back cases and you should be fine.

Posted on Wednesday, October 29th, 2014 at 10:59 AM.