Xiaomi Mi 3 review

OK, First of all I’ve never thought I’ll be using other phones than iPhone (I’am still No.1 Apple Fan boy!). Probably the reason why I like this phone Xiaomi Mi 3  is because of the user interface which looks (EXACTLY) like iOS on iPhone. Last year I’ve got the chance to use Android (HTC One) for the very first time for a month because I gotta send my iPhone for service. Seriously, it’s the worst phone ever. It lags a lot & camera quality sucks (how can someone use 4MP on a smartphone?!).

But Xiaomi is totally different. Here’s the reason why :-

Price
For a smartphone, the price is (SUPER) affordable for anyone to purchase. How much does it cost? RM 769. Yeap, that’s USD$250. Compared to other smartphones out there, you save 500 bucks (slightly more or less).

Design & Hardware
The body is kinda similar to Windows Lumia Phone’s but it’s way solid. The screen is 5-inch. I like to take photos, so this is one of my favourite feature. It's made of plastic & feels metallic. However, the chassis uses an aluminum-magnesium alloy for rigidity and has a beautiful face with a 5-inch full-HD display covered in Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Watching HD video via Youtube is A-MA-ZING! (1,920 x 1,080 pixels)

Weighing just 145g - That’s not heavy at ALL. Speakers are located at the bottom  of the phone (Good sound quality btw!) together with the USB port, where else volume buttons and power button is placed on the right side of the phone. (But since kinda near to each other I often accidentally pressed the volume button to off the phone).

SIM Card slot is placed on the top of the phone. If you’re iPhone user, no worries it comes with Micro-Sim slot (get it under accessories) so that you can easily use the sim card on Xiaomi’s phone too. You’ll be impressed with the build quality and feel once you hands on one!

Storage can be an issue if you’re a person who downloads a lots of app or taking a lot of photos because it has only 2GB of RAM and 16GB of onboard storage (No microSD card lot for external storage purposes). Connectivity wise, it has no 4G LTE but it does have Wi-Fi, NFC and Bluetooth.

Camera
Xiaomi Mi 3 has 13MP (Megapixel) camera as well as a dual-LED flash. The front-camera is 2.0MP (Need to mention that for all the selfies out there :P). Since I love taking photos, quality must be good and Mi 3 meet the requirement.  Here are some of the shots taken with this phone (No edits)

(Indoor shot)

(Indoor shot)

(Indoor shot)

(Outdoor shot)

Software
The UI is very pretty (As if you’re looking at iOS app icons). It has its own version of android called MIUI. This phones comes with all Google’s mobile software. To name the few… Play Store, Chrome, Maps, Gmail, Google + and a lot more. Since it’s running Android, you can do a lot of customisation to it - theming function capable (Custom effects, Widgets etc). Home screen swipe over can be customised too. Other stuff I like about this phone is that, I can clear up the cache and close apps with a press of a button (See screenshot below) which saves a lots of hassle - I don’t have to close each apps one by one. Switching between apps is super fast too. So far, I’ve no problem with the UI/UX.

Performance
Since it has Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor, the phone is never noticed it lagging. It’s fast and didn’t hangs or crash while I used any apps. One of the other main feature of this phone is the battery life. Unlike iPhone, I don’t have to charge the phone all the time.  If I fully charged it in the morning, it lasts long with moderate usage and I just have to charge it again once I got back home from work. I’ve no I issues with the phone call too. It’s clear and crisp.


Conclusion
This Xiaomi phone is affordable phone to get. The cost might be less but it performs way better than some of the smartphone in the current market. It has good camera, fast processor and huge screen. The only lack thing about this phone is that it doesn’t support LTE and no extra storage, other than that it work like charm :-)