Chinese smartphone-maker Xiaomi today launched the Mi
4 in India, its flagship device that was released last year in
July in China. Given
that earlier there were reports that the Mi 4 would launch in India
post-Diwali 2014 itself, the January 2015 release is
rather late. The Mi 4 will follow the registration/flash sale format that
Xiaomi has gone with in India and while registrations have already opened on
Flipkart, Mi 4 will go on sale on 10th February.
The Xiaomi smartphone might be coming to India a year
late, but it’s also coming at a significantly higher price, well at least by
Xiaomi standards. If you remember the Mi 3 launched in India for Rs 13,999,
while the Redmi 4G Note launched at Rs 9,999.
The Mi 4 might be a slightly outdated flagship for
Xiaomi (considering it had announced the Mi Note and Mi Note Pro earlier this
month) but the company has priced it at Rs 19,999 in India, meaning that
Xiaomi’s new India flagship is no longer a budget-device. It’s definitely in
the higher mid-budget range, and the 20k pricing won’t come as good news for
India’s budget-conscious consumers who’ve been wanting to get their hands on
the device.
Standard
Google apps on Mi 4. Tech2
So what’s the Xiaomi Mi 4 smartphone like? We spent
sometime with the phone during the launch and here’s our first impression of
this new phone.
Design and Screen: The
Xiaomi Mi 4 has a metal frame, a 5-inch screen full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) IPS
display with 441 ppi resolution, and comes with a layer of Corning One Glass
Solution (OGS) Technology, which allows the device to be super slim. This
doesn’t come with Gorilla Glass 3, and while the screen is scratch and
shatter-resistant, it doesn’t mean that it will be completely scratch-proof.
The screen will function even if your fingers are wet or you are wearing
gloves, which is a good plus point.
The
plastic back cover of the Mi 4 doesn’t really stand out. Tech2
The one big problem with the screen are the smudges
and the fact that it’s tough to read on the device under sunlight due to the
reflection, though increasing brightness did help rectify this to some extent.
As far as the back cover is concerned, it’s a plastic
one and frankly nothing new or great. The metal frame with gold colour does
look nice, but what really doesn’t help the phone is the back cover. The white
polycarbonate will remind you of many Samsung, Micromax, or other smartphones
you might have seen before. The design and position of speaker on the bottom
will remind you of an iPhone, as does the gold colour on the side.
The
speaker on the bottom will remind you of an iPhone. Tech2
The smartphone weighs 149g and Xiaomi’s Hugo Barra
took quite some time trying to explain how they made the metal frame of this
smartphone.
Processor, Storage and
Battery: The Xiaomi Mi 4 has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801
chipset with a 2.5GHz quad-core processor, Adreno 330 GPU, 3GB of RAM and 16GB
of internal memory and runs on a 3,080 mAh battery. The phone had a little over
12 GB of usable space, which is fairly good.
The Mi 4 smartphone has a 3080 mAh Lithium-ion polymer
battery and according to the company, it will last 1.5 days easily, which is a
very strong claim. Again we can say more on this once we test it out. There’s
also a fast charging mode, which brings the phone to 60% battery capacity in
less than an hour and the phone takes 2.5 hours to charge to full capacity.
Standard
Xiaomi apps on the Mi 4. Tech2
One of the things that needs to be appreciated about
Xiaomi’s Mi 4 is that despite the device running MIUI 6 on Android 4.4.4, which
has it’s own set of customisations and features, it didn’t feel slow or even over-crowded
with software from the Chinese brand. Mi 4 seemed fairly zippy to us, at least
as far as switching between apps, taking pictures, etc., was concerned. Again
we can comment on this more once we’ve handled the device for longer.
Camera: The
Mi 4 has a 13 megapixel rear camera with LED flash, and an 8 megapixel front
camera. Mi 4 has the Sony CMOS sensor, f/1.8 aperture and built in real-time
HDR along with 4K video recording support as well.
The Mi 4 also has Chroma flash aka Intelligent
built-in flash which basically combines photos taken with and without flash,
thus blending them into a more natural photo, giving it an HDR-like effect. The
front camera has an 80 degree wide angle lens and a timer as well so that you
know when to smile during selfies.
Rear
camera on the Xiaomi Mi 4. Tech2
We tried out both the front and rear camera briefly
and experienced no lag. In the rear camera, you can even choose exposure for a
photo (similar to how Lumia devices first offered it) and this will help users
take sharper pictures say in sunlight. Another feature of the Mi 4’s camera
allows user to combine five photos with different points of focus in each.
The ton of features and the 8 mp front camera will
definitely make the Mi 4 an appealing option for those who are addicted to
taking pictures from their smartphone.
MIUI 6 : The
MIUI 6 is definitely one of the most important aspect of this smartphone and
we’ll look at it now. The rollout for the MIUI 6 will also begin from February
for other Xiaomi phones in India like the Mi 3, Redmi Note, etc.
Xiaomi
Mi 4’s camera allow for exposure to be adjusted as well. Tech2
Key features of the MIUI 6 are: Motion, Colour Content,
Customisation and Security. If you are one of those users who want every little
detail of his/her phone customised, the MIUI 6 is catering just to that.
Where Motion goes, MiUI 6 will see animation in some
apps like Clock, Weather, and Device unlock, etc.
In Content, MiUI 6 will allow floating notifications,
which has been seen in the past, where say if you get a call you don’t have to
leave the app to attend to the call. There’s also a division of Notifications
on the basis of important and unimportant ones and users can choose which apps
go on which side of the line.
This is actually quite a neat feature as it will make
sure a lot of game or news alerts, notifications that you might not want all
the time will go into the unimportant folder. Users can also choose certain
notifications that they would like to see in the Locked Screen mode as well.
Xiaomi
Mi 4 has over 12.12 GB space available out of the 16 GB. Here we can see the
detailed settings page. Tech2
Perhaps one of the coolest MIUI 6 feature is that when
setting your email in the native email app, you don’t have enter server
details, etc. You can just type your password and user ID and it will
automatically do the rest. Currently it supports over 120,000 domains. The
email client will also show your attachments in one place in the app. For those
who face constant trouble when setting up email on a new phone, this could be a
god-send, provided theirs is a supported domain name.
Other actions supported in the MIUI 6 are that you can
move an app with one finger, while switching the screens with another. If your
apps are all cluttered, you can just go in edit mode, and shake the phone and
it will align the apps perfectly. You can also bulk delete and move many apps
in one go as well.
Managing
notifications on Xiaomi Mi 4. Tech2
Of course themes are an important feature of the MIUI
6 where customisation is concerned, but there’s nothing drastically new on this
front. The other great bit of MIUI 6 is where security is concerned. Users can
now deny certain apps specific permissions by going into Permissions Manager.
Given how apps these days want access to pretty much everything, this is a
great addition.
As far as the MIUI 6 is concerned, this is the USP of
the Xiaomi smartphone. What works in its favour is that doesn’t feel like
bloatware and gives users ample options where customisations are concerned.
Conclusion: The
Mi 4 is an important launch for Xiaomi in India, even though it is taking place
long after its China launch. This is Xiaomi’s smartphone that shows that the
company isn’t always going to be a budget or mid-budget smartphone-maker. The
Mi 4 is priced higher at Rs 19,999 and for Xiaomi it’s a big leap in a market
like India where they launched just last year and one that tends to be highly
budget-conscious.
The big question is whether the Mi 4 help them sell
another 1 million smartphones in India? There’s no doubt that this is one
feature-packed device, but will its price hold it back? We will only be able to
answer that question after a detailed review of the Mi 4.
Source : http://tech.firstpost.com/
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