It's a good phone, Xiaomi is a victim of their own strategy of low prices and the presence of OPO and our own expectations which were high, expecting a phone similar to OPO
But apart from these phones the next SD 801 phone is Moto x which costs around 30k
Let's face it, this phone is much better than Moto x 16gb version, the lack of lte isn't gonna affect anyone at least for a year the telecom companies have talked about deploying them, and I don't think they are even fully functional (fdd lte I mean), and not everyone is gonna adopt it,, the moment its released
So if you put real life situation and usage in perspective, oPO scores over mi4 only in terms of storage,which is indeed a big let down but heck even the service of Xiaomi can be said to be "relatively" better
Cyanogenmod and miui are up to users preference, if you are gonna stick with stock rom, both offers more or less the same options
Heck mi4 has a fm radio and ir blaster, which I believe has more usage than the nfc
So far so good for mi4
But the moment you take software and customisation you can do,into perspective the whole situation becomes skewed in OPOs favour, and I would highly recommend for those people who are looking for what I have mentioned just now, to steer well clear of mi4
Granted, the miui India manager jaimani has declared that, they will release sources of newly released devices within 3 months (and they have followed it up with release of the sources for redmi and a date has also been announced for redmi 4 G), well I would say I need a bit more conviction, but I think they will keep the word this time for mi4
(my best guess for the delay of release of sources for mi3 is probably due to the fact both mi3 and mi4 share resources as is evident by how the roms released in XDA work on both phones)
So I don't think the phone is a "joke" even at this price
So unless anyone specifically needs the missing features in mi4, I don't think the phone would let anyone else down
For 2k extra you would get the OPO, but I have to remind everyone that oPO service options are still bad, even the return window for oPO is 10 days right? Compared to that mi4 should have a full 30 days period where you can eValuate and return if found faulty
Well I guess that's it from me