Xiaomi Mi 4i

Mi 4i follows the Xiaomi philosophy – provide a killer phone experience at an affordable price. Coming at a price of Rs. 11,999, Mi 4i is again set to get a victory in the low mid-range market.

While Mi 4i wins the budget market, as usual, it does not come with the best performance in the market. It has a laggy processor and an average battery-life, two significant points that go against it but is necessary for average use. Thus, it is not a recommended phone for people looking for power in their handset.

Mi 4i arrives with a white polycarbonate back. It almost looks similar to the design language used by Redmi Note. However, it is much more compact and easy to hold. The rear of the phone is slightly curved around the edges so that it sits comfortably in hand. The phone is of plastic-build, but that does not make it cheap. It looks strong, is quite sturdy and the matte finish does not let it slip. The matte finish also doesn’t allow it become a fingerprint magnet. The rear camera is sitting in flush with the back panel, so you have a seamless design with this phone. The compactness makes it easy to use with one hand, without a problem.

Mi 4i has a 5-inch full-HD display, but yet it does not seem large because of the excellent body-to-screen ratio. It has thin side bezels and gives you a lot of screen space to use. Plus, the screen has a custom solution from Corning which according to Xiaomi gives the same level of protection as Gorilla Glass 3. The viewing angle of Mi 4i is great, and it does not go dim when you tilt the phone. The colour reproduction is quite accurate. The display is bright and has great sunlight legibility so if you go out in the sun with this phone, and it would not cause any reflection to be cast on it. Xiaomi has a special feature called Sunlight Display. It brightens the darker portions of the image when you go outside so that the details are easily visible. You can notice this best when you come under some mixed lighting. On the whole, the display of Mi 4i is lovely.

Mi 4i arrives with the Snapdragon 615 processor which is a 1.7 GHz octa-core processor. While it does have a bit of laggy performance due to the animation of the UI, turning it down can help in the speed of the phone. It scores a decent 38,006 in Antutu which is quite surprising considering the 19,040 scores registered by Vivo X5 Max, powered with the same processor. Light games can run with ease, but moderate games tend to stutter a bit. Asphalt 8 had minor frame drops. However, if the phone is put to Performance Mode, the gaming experience improves significantly. However, Performance Mode can lead to massive drainage of battery.

Xiaomi Mi 4i has a 13MP rear camera which has dual-tone LED flash and HDR mode. When the lights are adequate, the camera captures amazing details and pictures produced are very sharp. The LED flash makes sure that the lighting is perfect.

However, low light shots suffer and capture quite a lot of noise. The pictures produced are quite oversaturated.

The 5MP selfie camera is capable and takes decent selfies when there is adequate light. However, it begins to falter yet again when the lights are dimmed, capturing a bit of noise. Mi 4i has beautification features in its camera app, and while it tries to put embellishments to removes wrinkles for your selfies, it might go overboard and make your face look artificial. Fortunately, it gives you the option to adjust the beautification level.

Xiaomi Mi 4i is fitted with a 3000mAh battery. According to the company, it can give you one and a half days of light to moderate usage. However, in real life experience, it fails to deliver according to its claim. While it can last for an entire day, the juice left in the tank would be very low. A test of using two email accounts, a few minutes of gaming, social media and calling saw the battery tank was already going red.

Mi 4i is a winner in the budget market. It has a good performance considering the budget rivals that it competes with, capable battery and the HD display is exceptional and seems to deliver more than can be expected at this price range. While the camera may not be the best, it is still decent and captures enough details. Like many phones, it struggles to capture low-light images, but that is not surprising, considering even top-end phones struggle with it. On the whole, it is a phone that any person looking for a budget power-packer should go for.