Review: Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Has it All in a Budget But...
Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 delivers on all aspects of a perfect budget smartphone but has some niggling issues.
advertisement
It’s the return of Xiaomi in 2016. The Chinese smartphone company has been absent from the mainstream smartphone market for almost a year now, and now they are back with the Redmi Note 3.
This is an all-metal smartphone that’s in a budget and has striking similarities with the LeEco 1s. But will it be the comeback that Xiaomi was hoping for?
What’s Good?
Xiaomi is known for making quality hardware on their phones and the Redmi Note 3 is no different. The phone sports a full-metal body with round edges that sits in the palm of your hand with ease. The phone looks classy, unlike any previous Redmi Note design.
The Redmi Note 3 features a 5.5-inch full-HD display with 1080x1920 pixel resolution and Xiaomi’s Sunlight display. The Sunlight display is something that Xiaomi has developed to make it less reflective under direct sunlight. We saw the Sunlight display first on Xiaomi Mi4i and on the Note 3 it also works like a dream.
The Redmi Note 3 comes in two variants – one with 2GB RAM and 16GB storage and the other with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage. You can also expand the storage of the phone with the help of a micro-SD card.
It’s a dual-SIM 4G LTE smartphone with support for 3, 5, 40, 41 bands, which makes it future proof. When it comes to performance the phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 Hexa-Core processor that’s clocked at 1.8 Ghz. The Adreno 510 GPU also gives superb graphics performance in a budget.
It runs on an MIUI 7 based on Android Lollipop OS. The phone is capable of handling heavy graphic games and videos and multitasks with ease.
The best part of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 is its high-density 4050mAh battery with fast charging support. The phone lasted us easily for two days. The power management system used by Xiami on this phone is better than any phone out there.
What’s Bad?
The phone has a rear 16-megapixel camera that features Phase Detection Auto Focus (PDAF) and a true-tone flash. The 13-Megapixel camera on the LeEco 1s gave us better results than this one.
The dual ISP’s tend to overdo the image results on the Redmi Note 3.
On paper that sounds impressive but the images that we clicked were a little washed out. The 5-megapixel front camera of the phone is also not that impressive.
Given the amount of processing power it tends to get warm at times but not sizzling hot like other high-processing phones in the market.
Why Buy it?
Xiaomi priced the 16GB version of the phone at Rs 9,999 and the 32GB Version of the phone at Rs 11,999. That makes it compete with the likes of LeEco 1s and the Lenovo Vibe K4 Note at a better price point.
Why Xiaomi makes more sense is simply because they are not a new Chinese entrant in the Indian market like LeEco and they are no longer making budget phones using plastic, like Lenovo.
Xiaomi has got itself a winner here, if you are looking for a budget smartphone with an average camera .
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)