Hands On with Xiaomi Mi3, the phone that could shake the status quo

As a journalist who covers technology I get the chance to cover plenty of launch events, in fact, I’d be hard pressed to remember a week in which there wasn’t a single scheduled launch event. As a result, it often becomes difficult to discern launch events as the weeks go by. As I sat in on the Xiaomi launch event held yesterday in Delhi, I realised that this probably wouldn’t be the case this particular time around.

Now, this wasn’t because the event was well organised (it was), or that it was pleasantly low-key (again, it was) or that it was being attended by some of the big names in technology (it was- there was Bin Lin, ex-Microsoft & Google, and current President of Xiaomi; Sachin Bansal- CEO of Flipkart; and of course, Hugo Barra, ex-VP of Android at Google and current Vice President of Global Operations at Xiaomi, in attendance).

The reason why I will (probably) remember the Xiaomi event for a while is how open it appeared. The Xiaomi execs were all pleasant and casual and wanted to talk about their products, not out of compulsion or from some script, but because they truly seemed to like their products and wanted the gathered journalists to understand how much they cared.

The other reason was that the products they showed off- the Mi3, the RedMi 1S and the RedMiNote, if given the chance and if Xiaomi remain as sincere as it appeared at the event, could make the Indian smartphone market see common sense with respect to pricing, instead of lingering on the current path of pricing products at a premium because…well, why not?

Right, moving on then. I got the chance to use the Xiaomi Mi3 for some time at the event and it left me with a good impression. Why? Read on:

1. The Mi3 literally has the specs of a high-end phone. It’s powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor clocked at 2.3GHz and 2GB of RAM. It also has a 5-inch IPS full-HD display and runs on Android KitKat (the unit at the event ran on 4.4). Imaging is taken care of by a 13MP camera capable of shooting full HD videos coupled with a 2MP front camera. All of this runs on a 3,050 mAH battery.

2. Xiaomi revealed that all of the hardware components come from established manufacturers. According to Xiaomi, the IPS panel was built by Sharp, the camera’s sensor was a Sony, the flash memory was SanDisk and the battery was made by LG.

3. The Rs. 13,999 price-tag put into context with the above two points, looks even more unbelievable. As I was asked on Twitter yesterday, “What’s the catch?”, to which someone else replied succinctly, “Chinese.”

4. While the Mi3 looks a little plain, especially with significant bezels, it is built well. It’s an all plastic build but the back has been given a matte metallic finish. At 0.32 inches, the Mi3 isn’t the slimmest but it does feel really light considering that it weighs about 145 grams.

5. The 5-inch screen is colourful and more importantly, sharp and bright. It has great viewing angles too although it is somewhat of a glutton for fingerprints.

6. The MiUI “operating system” is one of the best custom Android jobs out there. As Barra went into a deep dive on the MiUI, he pointed out small integrated features that seemed well thought out and useful. For example, if you’re working inside an app (for e.g. writing a message or e-mail), any calls you receive will pop up as a notification up top without interrupting what you’re doing giving you the choice to finish up whatever you’re writing before answering the call. Another neat addition is that the camera comes pre-built with a QR code scanner.

7. During the time I used the Mi3, the custom UI did not cause the phone to lag or hamper performance in any way. The UI also looks elegant although you can completely change the way it looks and works with the help of thousands of user-created themes that you will be able to download from the Xiaomi store.

For a better understanding of MiUI, you can head over to my colleague Prasid’s story.

There were a few misgivings or doubts I had about the Mi3 and Xiaomi’s promises as well:

1. The Mi3 may have premium specs but it will rarely be mistaken for a premium phone. I did wish the phone looked better and was a little slimmer.

2. The decision to leave out a microSD card slot could be a significant factor on whether someone buys the phone or not. On the other hand, the Moto G doesn’t have a microSD card slot either and we all know how it has sold in India.

3. A lot of the great MiUI features aren’t very apparent. You will need to use the phone for a significant amount of time for all of them to become second nature, or spend some time reading up on the phone’s features.

4. Xiaomi promised that its weekly updates to MiUI would be quick to adapt and work with future Android updates but the lack of concrete timelines will make some people wary.

5. While Xiaomi did say that it had 36 service centres (34 centres run by third-party vendors while two exclusive service centres in Bangalore and Delhi), service still remains a very sensitive topic especially for Chinese handset manufacturers. Whether the service ecosystem is actually good will be something that becomes clearer in a few months time.

My take on the Xiaomi Mi3 after the launch event is one of optimism. Whether the phone is actually good and worth its Rs. 13,999 price tag, is something we’ll be able to tell you after our in-depth review which, hopefully, will go live very soon.     

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Nikhil Pradhan

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