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