So… about a week ago, the Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi began selling the Redmi Note in Singapore. The device boasts some pretty decent specs for just $199 Singapore dollars (SGD) (~160 USD). But is it actually any good, or would you be better off spending a little bit more for other low end devices like the Moto G? Read on to find out more.
For the price, it is easy to forgive the generous use of plastic on the device. That said, the build quality of the device is actually not that bad. In fact it feels pretty similar to most Samsung devices. At 154 x 78.7 x 9.45 mm (H x W x D), this is a large device. It is also a bit on the heavier side at 199g, but that actually works to its advantage. Since the phone is pretty big, instead of gripping the phone while using it one-handed, I just let it sit on top of my fingers. This allows my thumb to reach a wider area on the screen and allow for easier one-handed use. The heavier weight does help with the balancing act.
The buttons are all comfortably placed on the right side of the device. They have a nice rough touch to it, and gives a nice click when pressed.
Of course the reason for the huge size of the phone, is to house the 5.5” display. With a resolution of 1280 by 720, it is definitely not the sharpest display around. But it still does provide a really great viewing experience.
The colours looked pretty decent and fairly accurate, and viewing angles were great too. Outdoor visibility is decent, but not great. In bright sun light, it is a little hard to see what is on the screen, and a brighter backlight might have helped.
Powering the device is a Mediatek MT6592 octa-core (ARM v7) processor clocked at 1.7Ghz paired with a Mali 450 GPU and 2GB of RAM. Part of my gripe with the original Redmi was that it still felt a little slow at times. With the upgraded chipset in the Redmi Note, the sluggishness has been mostly eliminated. The UI is noticeably smoother, and apps runs noticeably faster.
The 2GB of RAM definitely helped as well to cope with the additional feature that comes with MIUI as well. The phone is able to handle graphic intensive games with relative ease, but I did notice dropped frames occasionally. Comparing to the HTC One M7 with the Snapdragon 600 processor (which according to benchmarks should be pretty similar), performance actually felt a little better on the One M7. But overall, it still provides a pretty good gaming experience.
Ingress players might want to read my G+ posts here for how the phone performs during the game, as well as its GPS performance.
(Part 1, Part 2)
Like the Redmi, the Redmi Note is a dual-sim device with one WCDMA/3G sim slot, and another GSM only slot. Both slots uses mini-sim. Network speeds were pretty normal, though I did noticed that the signal switches between HSPA+ and 3G frequently, causing additional battery drain on the device. I also noticed that the device drops data connectivity completely at times even though the signal still indicating H+, but a quick on/off toggle of airplane mode normally fixes that. I did notice the same behaviour on other HSPA+ only devices like the Nexus 4 and Moto G as well, so it might be a carrier issue (Singtel).
As with most phablet size devices, the Redmi Note has a pretty decent 3100mAh battery. Despite the slightly higher drain from the radio, I was able to get pretty good battery life out of the devices. In one of the days with heavy use, the phone lasted 12 hours with a screen on time of 5 hours, and that is with 2 hours of playing the game Ingress, a game known for its insane battery use. As a gauge, phones like the Moto X, Nexus 5, and Nexus 4 would go from a full charge to empty in less than 3 hours while playing Ingress. Hopefully the signal issue is something that can be fixed with software updates and optimisation.
One thing to note is that the charger provided is only a 1.0A charger, which does take a really long time to charge up the 3100mAh battery. But since the phone is able to last a day of use, I just leave it to charge overnight. And if you need more power, Xiaomi sells its 10,400mAh power bank for a mere 13.99 SGD and spare batteries for the Redmi Note costs just 10.99 SGD a pop.
The phone has a 13MP rear facing camera with a f/2.2 aperture. It takes decent photos in good lighting conditions. Images taken are sharp, but tend to look a bit washed out to me, and there is this noticeable delay between hitting the shutter button and the phone actually taking the photo. (photos taken in auto mode)
Where the camera really falters, is in its low light performance. The lack of optical image stabilisation, as well as backside illumination on the camera is probably the reason. The front camera is a generous 5MP shooter, which is also as average as it gets other than the high resolution count. As expected with an average still camera, the video recording capabilities are pretty mediocre too. Overall the optics on the Redmi Note is nothing to call home about.
The single firing speaker is on the back of the device, and is pretty average. For the occasional gaming and video watching, it serves it purposes pretty well. Though it is pretty easy to cover the speaker unintentionally due to its position. The call speaker on the front is pretty average too, but I would have preferred if it was louder.
The phone runs MIUI which is based off Android Jellybean 4.2.2. The UI will probably remind you a little of iOS. The icons are colourful, simple, and housed within a rounded square, and they actually look pretty nice. But if you notice some of the Google apps doesn’t actually follow the same icon style, which kind of ruins the look a little. What I personally do is go into the theme store, then download a new set of icons which are based off MIUI, but includes stylised icons for other apps to suit the rest of MIUI’s icons.
MIUI also comes with loads of features that I found to be pretty useful.
Here are a few of my favourites:
- Double tap on lock screen to get quick access to music player
- The locking of recently used apps to keep them running, and then a single click to clear the rest of the apps that I don’t need.
- If you are on the home screen you can swipe down from anywhere to get to the slide down menu. No need to reach all the way to the status bar.
- Slide down menu will default to quick settings when there are no notifications.
- Quick access to apps like the music player and notes app with a swipe down on the icon.
- UI is highly customisable with loads of themes available in the Themes app.
- Ability to pin shortcuts to settings and toggle as an app icon. I have one to lock the screen, and another to check battery use.
- When uninstalling apps, the phone scans for residual files that are related to the app in question and erases them completely too.
There are a few bugs in the OS that I have found though, and most of them are minor things like menus not being translated properly to english. I have a few apps force closed on me as well like G+ and Ingress. But hopefully those could be eventually worked out with software updates.
Conclusion:
The Redmi Note is a good device in my opinion, and not just because it is cheap. But the cheap price does make it easy to forgive its shortcomings mentioned above. This is a device that I could actually see myself using as my daily driver, something I struggled to do with the Redmi. At $199, it makes the Moto G feel overpriced, and that is saying a lot considering how much I loved the Moto G. Before using the device I was pretty much on the fence between this and the newly released Moto G LTE. But after using the Redmi Note for a while, I find it hard to justify paying an additional 100 SGD for the Moto G LTE. Even the 3G dual sim variant of the Moto G costs more than the Redmi Note!
But in the end, everyone has different needs and preferences. Some are Android purists who will scoff at anything other than stock or near stock Android devices. But if you are like me, and can appreciate the variety and functionality that these custom skinned versions of Android brings to the market, the Redmi Note is a great buy. (IF, you can manage to get one that is)
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