We know its more than a year since the device under review was launched, but as its said better late than never. I recently got to spend few days with Mi 4 being my primary phone and this post is all about the experience I had with the device during this time.
Xiaomi as you know is largest smartphone vendor in China and lately has shaken the presence of smartphone companies of all sort from Apple to Micromax all players felt the heat and competition got more tough in already saturated Smartphone market when Xiaomi entered Indian Market.
About Mi4:
Mi4 is one of the flagship devices from the company and housed few of most powerful hardware components of the time, to add cherry on the cake the device is priced less than a third of what we would have to pay for a flagship device from Samsung or Apple. Specifications wise the phone houses a powerful quad core Snapdragon 801 processor clocked at 2.5 GHz coupled with a 3 GB RAM which provides a smooth experience in day to day use.
Speaking of camera, Mi 4 comes sports a Sony make 13 MP rear camera accompanied by a LED Flash, on front there is a 8 MP camera. The smartphone comes with a 16 GB internal storage which can't be expanded. Mi 4 can hold only single Micro Sim card. The phone has connectivity options such as WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G, however it lacks 4G and NFC which can be a deal breaker for many.
User Experience:
The phone runs on MIUI 6 which is based on Android 4.4 Kitkat. MIUI seems to be oriented for Chinese markets as even after selecting primary language as English we could still see many applications with Chinese names. As for a regular Android user I felt strange when there was no Google application was pre installed, not even Google Play. After a bit of search it turned out that you need to first install Google installer from Mi App store using which all Google applications can be downloaded and installed. Another thing which I am not used as an Android User from past 5 years on atleast 8 different phones was absence of an app drawer. Well it depends on personal preference but It took a lot of time for me to get used to it. All applications are present on you home screen itself and for someone like me it can be bit difficult to organize applications as we can do in other Android phones.
The notifications are not the same as we see in other phones, you will not get icons of the applications with notifications on the notification area, instead you have to pull down the drawer to check the notifications. Well this got me missed many notifications. Also, the notifications comes floating on the screen not matter what application you are using.
Using Cardboard was a pleasant experience thanks to Full HD display and a series of sensors which work perfectly on VR cardboard.
The 3080 mAh battery lasts more than a day and is again over whelming knowing a very few Android phones managed to provide satisfactory battery backup to that level.
Camera:
The department I love the most on this device is its Cameras , yes both cameras (rear and front) does their job pretty well and results are brilliant.
The rear camera captures detailed photographs with very less focus time, low light imaging remains average but when it comes to well lit environment the device is capable of producing some stunning photographs.
Some samples are below.
Conclusion:
Mi 4 is one of the best built Android Smartphones design of which is inspired from Apple's iPhone 5. The smartphone comes with stunning display, very good battery backup, usable camera and efficient hardware which makes it a desirable phone. However, it is only advisable to buy if you can sacrifice 4G support and NFC, well you can also wait for Mi5 which will sport 4G and NFC both but Xiaomi Mi5 Price will be significantly higher. MIUI 6 is efficient but personal preferences should be taken care while short-listing a smartphone. Well
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