Xiaomi note 4 review

Xiaomi redmi note 4 review:

BUY

FEATURE

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 has been launched at a starting price of Rs 9,999
Three variants of this model will be sold in India
Gadgets 360 rates the 4GB RAM variant of the phone 8 out of 10

Similar to its predecessor, Note 4 has an all-metal body

Specifications:

Design:

Though it has similar dimensions and weight, the Redmi Note 4 still has a better aesthetic appeal/design. Weighing 165 grams, it measures 151x76x8.3 mm and has a unibody metal chassis, with a 2.5D glass with round edges at the front. The 5.5 inch display with 1920x1080p resolution looks bright, offering rich colours and crisp text. The sunlight legibility is good and has also got a reading mode. Turning on the reading mode turns the screen light slightly yellow, reducing the display background glare, and there's a setting to schedule timings for auto-start and end of this mode. For colour and contrast, there are other modes automatic contrast, increased contrast and standard and I was comfortable using the automatic contrast. Below the display are the regular Android keys multitasking, home and back. However, the placement of the sensors, earpiece and front camera above the display are much more symmetrical - into a straight line making it look neat. The speaker grill from the rear has been moved to the bottom, with five drill holes on each side of the micro USB charging port (which has also been moved to the centre now). Audio port and IR blaster are on the top, volume control and power key on the right and SIM tray on the left. The rear mounts the camera module followed by the LED flash and fingerprint scanner. This scanner is quick and accurate and I ended up unlocking and activating the device using the same. Overall, the Redmi Note 4 has got a premium look and feel and is much more comfortable to hold over the predecessor.

Camera:

The Redmi Note 4 has a 13MP camera with f/2.0 lens and PDAF. There's a 5MP camera up front that also sports an f/2.0 lens. The camera app is easy to use and comes with a wealth of options, including filters, beautify effects, and a manual mode that lets you tweak the ISO, white balance, and exposure settings. You can also take tilt-shift photos, set a countdown timer, shoot panoramas, and select from various scenes. The camera does a great job of taking photos in well-lit conditions, and the resulting images are full of detail and offer saturated colors. You get more detail when shooting in HDR, but doing so takes slightly longer to shoot images. Images at low light turned out decent, but you'll have to put in a lot of effort to get passable shots.

The 4100mAh battery on the Redmi Note 4 is slightly larger than its predecessor, but the shift to 14nm has led to vastly increased battery life. The phone easily lasts a day on a full charge if you are a heavy user, and more often than not, you will get a day and a half worth of usage out of the phone. You can take out two days' worth of battery from the phone with medium usage that involves a few hours of streaming music, watching videos, and browsing the web. The one downside with the battery is that the Redmi Note 4's fast charging is limited to 5V/2A. That's equivalent to Quick Charge 2.0 speeds, and correspondingly the phone takes nearly two hours to fully charge.

Performance:

The Redmi Note 3 when it launched in India, was an exceptional phone; it sported an all metal design, and most importantly came with a dependable battery life and performance. The Redmi Note 4 builds on all of this, but in subtle ways. So, when I first looked at the review unit of the new phone, I wasn’t quite blown away. The Redmi Note 4 sticks with the all metal, unibody design; this time the bands on the top and bottom of the rear of the device have more prominent gold trimmings. It still has a curved back, and there’s 2.5D curved glass all over the front, which is a first for a Redmi phone.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 Prime is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 SoC paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. It also supports memory cards of up to 128GB in size. The company has also launched two other variants 2GB RAM/32GB ROM and 3GB RAM/32GB ROM. During our time with the device, the Redmi Note 4 delivered an overall smooth performance with no visible lag. The large display makes gaming and media consumption pretty enjoyable. We played games like Asphalt 8, Mini Militia etc. and the phone handled them very well.

That said, the Redmi Note 4 does get a little hot during extended gaming sessions, primarily because of the metal body.

Apart from that, multitasking works as it should. The phone manages to run multiple apps and switch between them without suffering from any performance drain. Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 sports a massive 4,100mAh battery, which easily lasted us up to a day with heavy usage. Call quality of the device was also fine during our testing. We used a Reliance Jio SIM with the smartphone and it handled VoLTE calls without any issues.

As for the software, Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow topped with the company's MIUI 8 UI layer. The interface itself is pretty clean and user friendly. However, there is no app drawer and all apps are placed on multiple home screens. MIUI is very colourful and offers nicely designed themes, app icons and wallpapers. The device offers some interesting modes such as a Reading Mode, which reduces the display's background glare to help in reading. Along with this, the device offers a second space, which essentially enables users to have different profiles each with separate wallpapers, apps, files and photos. Users can also assign different fingerprint and passcode to access them.

Redmi 4 Note comes equipped with an IR blaster which can be used to control home appliances such as TV and ACs easily. The pre-installed 'Mi remote app enables users to add multiple remote controls for different appliances and use them from the phone itself. For imaging duties, the Xiaomi Note 4 sports a 13MP rear camera with dual LED flash and a 5MP front camera for selfies. During our testing, we found camera performance of the device to be pretty decent. The smartphone uses a noise-eliminating CMOS sensor with backside illumination (BSI) and larger pixels to provide good shots even in low light conditions.

The camera itself is pretty fast and has a user friendly interface. Users can apply live filters at the time of clicking photos and can also access various shooting shooting by tapping on the button above the shutter button.The smartphone's cameras produced some really nice pictures during our testing. Focus is good and colour reproduction is accurate as well. There's a burst mode included as well.

Pros and Cons:

PROS:

Good performance by Snapdragon 625 + 4GB RAM
64 GB Internal Memory with 128 GB SD Card Support.
The sturdy built quality and premium look.
OTG cable is supported.
A good CPU under the budget range smartphone.
Long Lasting battery backup.

CONS:

Doesn't support Dual SIM with SD Card (Hybrid Slot).
13 MP primary Camera quality is average.
The battery is non-removable.
USB Type-C cable is not supported.

Verdict:

Xiaomi played a gamble by going in with a slightly lower-end chip given that Redmi Note 4 already had a pretty high bar to clear,thanks to the outstanding success Xiaomi's Redmi Note 3 tasted last year. In our opinion, this phone does a pretty competent job of building on the success of the Note 3.

The performance of this device is not a let down by any means except slightly slow app load timings. Apart from that, Redmi Note 4 lived up to our expectations and even surpassed them in the battery department. If you can compromise a bit on the processor for a stress relieving battery, then this phone will not let you down.

If you are on the Redmi Note 3, you might not see a lot of reason to upgrade. For those looking for a new phone for under Rs 12,999, the market is flood with options and it can be confusing. Lenovo K6 Power is an obvious competitor that comes to mind, given the battery, and yes the camera is impressive on that one. But there’s no doubt that Xiaomi’s extra storage at Rs 12,999 is an excellent deal.

A lot will depend on availability as well for the Redmi Note 4. If you are Mi fan, and want to upgrade right now, this phone is one of the best options to consider. It might seem a tad boring, but so far it has definitely been reliable

SmartTech Review

Tuesday 21 February 2017