Xiaomi MI3 Review

Xiaomi(pronounced shao-me) recently surpassed global powerhouse Samsung,to become China's top smartphone vendor.According to reports,they shipped over 15 million smartphones in China during the second quarter alone.This makes them the 5th biggest smartphone company in the world.This is huge for a company who is relatively unknown in countries outside China.In an attempt to improve their worldwide image,increase sales and compete globally,they recently entered India introducing their flagship "MI3".The MI3 is available at an aggressive price of just Rs 13,999 for a phone with top-tier specs.Will it change the smartphone industry in India?Let's find out.

                                

                                           Specifications

 The MI3 packs some serious top notch specifications which you expect to find only in phones which are priced higher.It packs a Qualcomm snapdragon 800 processor clocked at 2.3 ghz.This lightning fast processor coupled with the adreno 330 GPU and 2GB of DDR3 RAM takes care of your graphic needs. The MI3 is quite tall at 144mm but is very light weighing at just 145g.It's also 73.6mm wide.The screen is a 5-Inch full HD 1080p LCD display with a resolution of 1920*1080.This gives it a pixel density of 441 PPI.The rear camera is 13MP shooter with dual-LED flash.The display is made of corning gorilla glass 3 which protects your phone from scratches and scuffs.The phone is made of polycarbonate reinforced by magnesium alloy on the inside.It feels premium and one wouldn't guess that this phone costs only Rs 13,999.It also contains a 3050mah battery and speakers at the bottom of the phone.There is no sd card slot with the phone coming in two variants-16GB&64GB.It has a headphone jack at the top and the power button and volume rocker placed on the right side of the phone at comfortable positions.The MI3 also uses a normal SIM card instead of a micro-sim 

                                          Hardware  

               Display

It has a 1920*1080 Full-HD 1080p display at 441 PPI.The LCD screen is sharp,vivid,produces bright colors and has excellent viewing angles.Text is sharp and crisp and individual pixels are unidentifiable.It becomes very bright and is easy to use under direct sunlight.Watching movies,videos,playing games and reading is a delightful experience on the MI3.Also,it is made out of corning gorilla glass 3 which provides additional protection from falls and scratches.

             Camera

The MI3 consists of a 13MP rear camera with an f2.2 aperture and a 2MP front facing camera for video calls and selfies.It is capable of 1080p video recording at 30fps.It also has a dual-LED flash with a CMOS sensor.The pictures taken by the MI3 aren't anything great and you would expect more from a 13MP camera.Pictures taken in good light come out well with good color reproduction and detail with some noise in it.It's in low light that the camera fails with pictures being grainy and washed out.The front facing camera is decent and good enough for video calls and selfies,but definitely not one of the best.Overall,there is nothing impressive about the camera,but for the price,it is one of the best available.

         Speaker & Call quality

The speaker is located at the bottom of the phone and I personally do not like this placement as it becomes very inconvenient while watching a movie or playing games as your hands tend to cover the speaker grill everytime you hold your device in landscape mode.The sound however gets loud and clear and is pretty good for listening to music ,watching movies and playing games.The call quality is good and crisp.I did not experience any dropped calls while using this phone.

           Performance

The performance of the MI3 is outstanding as expected from the Snapdragon 800.It's fast,fluid and smooth.There is absolutely no lag and the experience has been phenomenal.Graphically intensive games like Dead Trigger,Modern Combat run flawlessly and smoothly.Gaming has been a delight on the MI3.The MI3 receives a huge thumbs-up from me in the performance department.

           Battery

The MI3 consists of a 3050 mah litium-ion battery which lasts a long time.One can easily get through the day or even more.There is also a battery saving option which helps in increasing the already awesome battery life.I usually got around 5-6 hours of screen on time with moderate usage at auto brightness.

                                             Software

The MI3 comes with MIUI on top of Android 4.4.2(Kitkat).MIUI,is Xiaomi's android skin and is actually pretty good.It is one-dimensional and doesn't have an app drawer much like IOS. MIUI is very customizable and there are tons of themes in the MI themes store.You can easily change the icons,boot animations,lock screen,dialer and so on,and all this without rooting.The phone is very easy to root and one just needs to flash the developer ROM available on the official website.MIUI receives regular updates to fix bugs and enhance performance.Since it is a highly themed version of Android,MI phones will need to wait for quite a bit to receive updates to the next Android version.The phone ships with no bloatware which is a bonus.MIUI is a very different take on Android and needs time to get used to,but becomes pleasurable to use after that.

                  "MIUI,Redefining Android"

                                           

                                    

                                               Conclusion

Xiaomi's MI3 offers a high end experience at a very low price.It is a complete steal at this price point.It is Not only the best in it's price range ,it even competes against top end phones like the Galaxy Note 3,Oppo N1 etc.The only major drawback is the availability of the MI3 with many Xiaomi bringing in only limited quantities to India.If you are able to get your hands on one of these and if you're in search of a premium phone at an exceptional price,search no further!!

PROS                               CONS
Performance                  Camera
Build Quality                  Availability                                                            
Display                          Lack of Micro SD card slot
Price                             Uses a Normal full-sized Sim Card

APUS Launcher Review

APUS Launcher which was launched recently, has already garnered over a million downloads.It boasts of being the fastest and smallest launcher.

"APUS Launcher, the smallest launcher in the world with only 1MB; the fastest launcher for app organization and recommendation."

Let's find out whether this is true!

Apus launcher is a clean,simple,neat and definitely a fast and lightweight launcher.It draws inspiration from IOS and is single dimensional and does not have an app drawer.To avoid the homescreen from turning into a mess,APUS automatically groups all similar apps together and creates various folders based on their functions.It groups the applications into various folders like Game,Media,Communication,News,Tool etc.Once you open any folder,APUS also smartly recommends various  popular applications similar to the ones already installed on your phone.It also puts the most frequently used apps on your homescreen,so that you don't need to waste time searching for them.Pretty neat!!

APUS also adds a permanent widget to your notification bar,which is pretty useful.The Launcher isn't very customizable and offers only the basic features.But customization isn't really its goal.It aims at reducing RAM usage and providing a small and fast launcher and definitely does get that right.It also uses very little juice and hence your phone lasts a bit longer.

To sum it up,Apus is fast,smart and small and does what it's supposed to do.People low on storage and RAM will absolutely love it.The only problem is with it being one dimensional,but with the smart folders,Apus ensures that the homescreens are clutterless.Also,this is not the app for people who love to customize,and one cannot expect those features in an app as small as this.I recommend this app to everyone who wants a launcher which is Small and Fast and  something that just works!!

Link-Play Store

Xiaomi in India

It has recently been a trend for Chinese Manufacturers to enter India,as it opens up a huge market.Following suit,Xiaomi,touted as China's equivalent of Apple recently announced on July 15th that they would be entering the Indian market from July 22nd with the arrival of their flagship MI3,and other phones like the Redmi Note and the Redmi 1s to follow.

Xiaomi like many other manufacturers of late has gone Flipkart exclusive.

Xiaomi first announced that the MI3 will be available on Flipkart from July 22 onwards for Rs13,999.They will follow a registration-buy system just like they do in other countries i.e only people who register to buy the phone will be allowed to purchase it on a specific date.

The specs of the MI3 are as below:

Chipset
CPU	Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 8274AB
CPU	XT 712
GPU	Adreno 330

Camera
Camera (back)	13 Megapixels
Aperture	f2.2
Wide-angle	28mm
Flash	dual-LED
Camera (front)	2 Megapixels
Sensor type	Stacked CMOS Both cameras (front and back) support 1080p HD video recording

Battery
Capacity	3050mAh lithium-ion battery

Display
Display	5-inch Full HD 1080p LCD touch display
IPS	IPS Retina display manufactured by Sharp or LG
PPI	441
Resolution	1920x1080 FULL HD
Touch sensor	Supported

RAM
RAM	2GB RAM
Flash Memory	16 GB

Xiaomi are known for their competitive and aggressive pricing and they have followed the same strategy in India.These kind of specs are usually found on phones which are priced above Rs30,000.The MI3,on benchmarks,performs better than even the ~Rs38000 priced Samsung Galaxy Note 3.Therefore at Rs13,999,the MI3 is a steal and will definitely be most sought after for.

Xiaomi also announced that their other smartphones,the Redmi 1S(Rs 6,999) and RedmiNote(Rs 9,999) will be launched soon.Both these phones have also been in great demand in China and Singapore with Xiaomi creating record sales.

Xiaomi  also introduced their popular MI power bank(5200 and 10400 mah) which will be released soon.

Xiaomi has come to India with strong intent and with a plan of attacking the mid-range and budget price categories and I'm sure they'll do well in the Indian Market as the phones are the best bang-for-buck.It's going to be very interesting to see the strategies of other companies now,as Xiaomi has blown away the competition and offer way more than the others.It's definitely heating up in the Smartphone Industry!!

Android L-5.0

                 ANDROID 5.0-L(?)

Google's Sundar Pichai gave us a glimpse of how Android's new iteration is going to look like during Google's I/O earlier this week.Android 5.0 which hasn't received a codename yet is just called "L" for now.It is touted to be the most dramatic design overhaul since Ice Cream Sandwich.Google have castaway the Holo look(RIP) and "L" is based on what Google calls "Material Design".It brings a flatter look to Android,with rounded edges and corners,and with beautiful transitions and animations.Project Volta is also a part of L,which aims at optimizing and increasing battery life.They have also included a new type of notifications called "heads up" which brings you important notifications inside various apps.You can simply swipe away these notifications or enter the notifications if they are important to you.Pretty cool!Google have also given a lot of importance to security especially corporate security and Samsung's Knox feature is now part of stock Android.

Google have also introduced the Tinted Status bar feature kind of like HTC's sense UI and IOS.Another major change is that Google have done away with Dalvik,and the ART(Android Run time) is the new default run time.Google claims that this will improve battery life,boot up times,app loading speeds and so on.Android L also supports 64 Bit mobile chips,this will further enhance performance and battery.Integration between apps,chrome OS and the browser has also improved.For example,New tabs opened on the computer will also open on your phone.Google also announced that native Android apps will be supported on chrome OS.This is major news for people who own a chromebook,as they can attend calls,reply to messages etc using their chromebook .

Android L is more colorful,polished than the previous versions and it just looks way better.It takes the mobile OS game,a step further.The only thing I'm worried about is how L is going to perform on low end phones as there are so many new animations.I'm very excited about Android 5.0 and I can't wait to update my devices.Android L,the most beautiful Android OS,yet.