As we settle into the second half of the
year, where Apple and Google reveal their next-gen flagships, the
smartphone market should ideally cool down. But not in India, where it’s
a bonanza of smartphones from LG, Asus and newcomer Xiaomi.
The Mi 3 is in many ways the phone that will define Xiaomi in India, even though it won’t be the one selling the most. That honour could lie with either of
the Redmi phones that will follow soon, but
Mi 3 signals Xiaomi’s intent. Is it a good start?
13MP camera on the metallic back
Design and build quality
Boy, is it a good start. The Mi 3 exudes confidence from the moment
it’s in your hands. The well-disguised silver back on our review unit
could pass off for metal even on second glance, but tap on it and you
can tell it’s plastic. That’s no slight, though, as the feel is very
much like metal too, which also means there will be times when it feels
cold and slippery.
The front of the phone is all black, with a single cut-out for the
earpiece on top. This is in fact quite recessed, which means grime gets
in easily. There are three capacitive buttons on the bottom. Xiaomi uses
the old Menu button, instead of the current multi-tasking or Recent
Apps button, but each capacitive key can be configured to do double-duty
through settings (more on the software later).
Speaker grille on the bottom and the rounded sides
There’s a silver MI on the top left, which is the only branding. It’s
also on the back in the lower portion. The back is plain otherwise save
for the square camera on top and the dual LED flash, microphone next to
it.
The volume rocker and power button are crammed on the right, which
looks less elegant than the traditional arrangement. The buttons
themselves are carved out of metal, and have good tactile feedback, and
are not hard to find at all, stick out as they do from the body.
The top and bottom are flat, unlike the rounded edges. The top has
the 3.5mm jack, a mini SIM slot (that’s the big one, mind you, so you
might need adaptors if moving from a micro or nano SIM), and a noise
cancelling mic. The bottom has the speaker grille, which takes up much
of the space, but it’s actually just a mono speaker. Next to it is the
rather straight-looking microUSB port, which takes in the cable
hook-side facing down.
The hardware buttons on the right edge stick out far from the body
Overall, we were more than pleased with the build quality and
ergonomics, though at times a rubberised case would have made us feel
more assured about gripping it.
Display and performance
The 5-inch full HD display is a joy to view and use. It’s bright,
peppy and vibrant without being over-saturated. Viewing angles are very
good too, and Xiaomi packs in some basic colour temperature and
saturation settings for you to get it just right.
The Mi 3 did not give us any stutters or freezes in operation. The
Snapdragon 800 SoC, the 2GB of RAM deliver what they promise, and
everything from camera operation to playing games, and switching between
apps was smooth. MIUI is infamous for being a buggy OS, but the Mi 3’s
raw performance powers it past these minor impedances.
Very minimalist look
Multimedia performance was great. 1080p videos look sumptuous on this
screen, which has renders dark scene with as much aplomb as colourful
frames. The audio experience is equally good, through earphones,
headphones and even through the speaker. The stock music app is quite
slick and easily lets you see tagged lyrics and change tracks, while
letting the album art shine.
The mono speaker on the bottom was actually quite powerful and
delivered enough detail to make us use it regularly. Volume during calls
is quite terrific too, despite the recessed earpiece and the grime that
it’s prone to collect.
Software
While performance is not a hitch, the UI of Xiaomi’s custom skin is
another matter altogether. MIUI has been in development for years and
having used it during the Android Gingerbread days, I can say that not
much has changed, even though this is Android KitKat. The massive amount
of themes makes it fun to keep tinkering with the OS’s look.
Folders and iOS-like homescreens, but with Android widgets
But out of the box, there’s one thing you cannot change; MIUI does
not have an app drawer so all new and system apps are laid out on an
ever-expanding number of homescreens. Thankfully, MIUI has native
widgets support, so you don’t end up with an iOS lookalike. The widget
support does give users a lot more freedom to arrange their screen. For
example, you could have all your music and video apps with the music
player widget; and all your productivity apps with the glorious Keep
widget. In any case, if you hate MIUI, this is Android and with Google
Play support to boot. So go crazy with launchers.
Themes change the look of folders; MIUI’s signature toggles and the notification drawer
I have not brushed up on my custom ROM history, but MIUI was possibly
the first custom ROMs to bring in a full page of toggles, along side
the notification area. At any time 11 toggles are present and there are
others you can drag in, but not more or less than eleven, which is
possibly all the toggles one would need. The brightness slider lets you
set the minimum brightness, and the auto brightness sensor does not dip
below that mark, which is great for outdoors.
Plenty of tweaks for almost everything; MI 3 runs KitKat
Xiaomi packs in a lot of settings for each aspect from display to
sound to how the toggles are arranged in the drawer. It lets you adjust
sound according to the kind of earphones plugged in, and lets you tweak
long-press actions for the capacitive keys.
It also lets you choose the permissions each app can access. In fact,
when it comes to permissions, MIUI does a better job than stock
Android, alerting users when apps tries to access contacts or phone
info, and letting them select the action, and whether to allow the app
access. Speculation is such a feature is coming with Android L, but MIUI
has it right at the moment.
Permissions manager, Themes centre and the slick Music app
Other than the homescreen arrangement and the extensive theming
through the UI, including in core apps such as phone, messaging and
contacts, the Mi 3 is any other Android phone and it runs all apps that
you would on a Nexus 5 or any other comparable smartphone with ease.
Camera
The 13-megapixel camera does a decent job outdoors and indoors. The
dreary weather of the last few days did not allow us to test it
extensively outside, but the few shots we did manage were quite good and
something that’s expected from a 13MP sensor. The front camera is quite
adequate too, and should work fine for selfies or video calls. Here are
some samples.
With HDR off
With HDR on
Great detail in close-ups
Accurately captures colours
Macro with foreground in focus
Macro, with focus on the figurine in the background
Xiaomi has made big claims about its HDR mode, and it’s surely
snappy. While the results are not super impressive, it does not overly
saturate the image. Burst mode is a charm to use. You could easily shoot
around 50 images in four seconds. The stock camera UI comes with native
filters and a skin tone adjustment tool. It also features a panorama
mode.
Battery life
The Mi 3 is stellar in the battery department, when it comes to
battery life and charging speed. We got a full days’ usage without any
issue as the Mi 3 conserves power brilliantly when not in use. We never
found ourselves fretting about the Mi 3 dying on us on our way back
home, because it always had enough to get through the next hour and
more. Xiaomi has also built in PC-like power management profiles which
lets you select the use case such as high-performance or power-saving
mode.
What’s brilliant is that the phone charges very quickly. In about 30
minutes, we went from 0 to 40 percent, which is a boon if you are
constantly pulling down cellular data, on the move.
Stellar battery life
Verdict and price in India
It’s been a great month for Indian smartphone buyers of all budgets. You have the superbly-priced and
brilliantly-produced Zenfone series from Asus. Then there’s the LG G3,
the best high-end Android in the market currently, and possibly the phone of the year. And then we have the Mi 3.
It’s brilliant in nearly every aspect. I say ‘nearly’ because there’s
one audience that the Mi 3 is not for, and I am part of that pool.
During the course of the review my trusty Nexus 4’s display went bust
and I have been struggling with the notion of buying a new phone,
because seriously there’s just so much choice. Was the Xiaomi Mi 3 for
me? It’s almost identical in specs to
the Nexus 5
and at half the price. But I turned it down because the custom ROM
support for this phone is negligible. Having become used to mods and
flashing aftermarket ROMs on a weekly basis, I could never imagine
giving that up for the Mi 3.
Secondly, MIUI is all-pervasive and we don’t know yet how Xiaomi will
respond to the massive paradigm shift that is Material Design. MIUI is
from a different era of Android, one where Android and design did not
meet, but as third-party apps and more of Google’s apps make the shift
to Material Design, MIUI is going to feel ancient and far-removed from
Google’s vision. Yes, Xiaomi may manage to release an Android L-based
MIUI as soon as it’s out, but whether it will be able to retain any of
that slick L UI is still a big question.
But don’t let that nitpicking digression distract you from the
verdict; those are not the considerations of an average smartphone user
in any case. The Xiaomi Mi 3 is fantastic; it’s near-perfect. For its
price, it’s without parallel, and any talk about competition is hollow
given how the Xiaomi Mi 3 has performed in our hands. It’s Android at
heart and brings with it all the familiar customisation options to
change the UI, which is honestly the only demerit. Regardless of whether
you can afford to pay three times the asking price, the Xiaomi Mi 3 is
the one to go with (
when it’s back in stock).
