Samarth 619
Modrator @ Xbhp Biking
Xiaomi Redmi 1s review: The budget performer.
Guys,
As promised in the Mi 5200 Review thread, I am writing a review of Xiaomi Redmi 1S.
Thanks to my college’s corporate level Fibre-optic internet, I passed through the Redmi 1S flash sale in first attempt itself.
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To know more about Xiaomi or the concept of Flash sales, please go through my earlier Xiaomi Portable Charger REVIEW.
Right now, its been about 3 months using the redmi 1S, so I believe its the right time to talk how it performs in the long term. So, let’s get to it....
Present Accessories: Mi 5200, Mi 10400 portable chargers, Mi Piston 2 earphone, back replacement cases (China Red, Coral, Blue), plastic add on protective covers (transparent, black, blue, etc.) 64 GB Sandisk high speed memory card, 2 SIM adaptors (free with mobile), Screen guards (free), other older earphones, etc.
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The original package was given with two unique gifts:
A.) 3 sets of Good quality Screen Guards, (I have one of them on my set now, its useful)
B.) 2 Mini SIM to SIM adaptors. These are useful if you have a Mini or Micro SIM and want to fit it to the phone. In case of microSIM, it won't fit closely into the SIM sized adaptor, so you will have to stick it using cello tape.
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Feel & Handling:
Redmi at 160~ grams, feels heavier that some mobiles, but not once you get used to it. It feels sturdy, although not in the metal body kind of way. The construction is good for a plastic phone and there are no creaks or any other deficiency apparent. The rear cover opens by pulling it out. It exposes the 2 SIM Card slots (big sized SIM, not micro or nano), the memory card slot (which supports upto 64GB, tested by me) and the orange colored battery (which is 2000 mAh).
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The rear cover is dark-grey in the original package, but you may replace it with back replacement covers from Mi, with attractive options like china red, coral (pink), sky blue, pitch black, etc. By the way, I have all of these and I use mostly all except the original dark-grey. They all look beautiful & the color change is a good option for a user. They costed Rs. 470 on Flipkart for some time, and then for a brief while, they were discounted to Rs. 49 too, which is when most owners decided to get the entire back replacement cover range...
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Variety of add on covers (from Mi itself & other companies too) are also available for additional protection, and they help in case the set falls, and they also avoid accidental button presses, specially the unlock key.
The mobile overall seems slippery, though nothing one can’t handle. I was used to a 4 inch Nokia 808 Pureview, and this phone was slightly bigger but its still better than Notes and Phablets out there, so one can manage it easily, unless the hands are really small.
USB slot is at the bottom. 3.5mm jack is at the top. Volume keys and the unlock/ power key below it, are all of the right side. Left side is blank. Below the screen, there are 3 touch sensitive keys for Options, Home and Back, the typical Android setup.
Phone Department:
Redmi as a phone is good enough overall. There are some weak points though. Loudspeaker is mono, but even then, it could be much better in terms of volume. It sounds distinctly lower than my Nokia 808 Pureview’s speaker.
Sometimes, when I try to pick a call with a fast swipe, the call ends up being shown as a missed call, while the caller hears that I’m busy, or I’ve hung up. This needs to be solved in a firmware update.
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A v50 update is seeding with some minor bug fixes, but I’m waiting to go all out with a MIUI update which could be out any moment.
Display:
The display is good in color quality and accuracy. I've used Nokia 808 with AMOLED display and this seems slightly less saturated, but its a surprise how IPS LCD's are so much better than traditional LCD's in terms of quality. Its a 1280x720 pixels display with 16 Million colors, which should be great for a low-mid range device like this.
Brightness setting is a bit of a hassle. Auto brightness sometimes seems lesser and in manual, you have to go inside Menus, or choose from 3 levels in drop down menu.
Another problem is display visibility in bright sunlight. It comes nowhere near Nokia 808 in this matter. On maximum brightness, it somewhat shows what's on the display. The highly reflective Asahi Glass Company (AGC Dragontrail) screen isn't too helpful either, it just reflects a bit too much to clearly see the display. In dark to medium-lit areas, its great to use.
OS:
This mobile comes with Android 4.3 Jellybean skinned as MIUI 5.0. An update to Android 4.4 is promised by March, which is any day right now. Despite a 64 GB Sandisk high speed card, the phone hasn’t notably slowed down a bit. Its every bit as fast, although I should mention that around 28 GB is still empty in the card.
MIUI has a flat structure, which means that any and every software, game and settings icon is displayed on the desktop only and there is no Menu. Its time saving and convenient in my opinion. If you’re not ok with it, you can organise icons in folders and place them on the desktop so it works like a Menu, or the non-regular items may be put in folders.
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Additionally, upto 5 icons of your choice can be kept stationary at the bottom of all the desktops. I keep important ones, which are Call, Contacts, Camera, Messaging and Whatsapp. However, there can only be one wallpaper which is panned horizontally as you shift desktops. Drag and Drop of icons is supported and apps are uninstalled by dragging them to the top of the screen where a Recycle Bin is visible. A large number of desktops can be created, I normally use 6 desktops, but I’ve created upto 15 desktops once.
MIUI has its own wallpaper source which works over the internet, and downloads a JPG file straight to the device. It has categories too, although the content is too much chinese: In People, there are mostly Chinese ladies and girls, maybe their actresses or musicians, who knows?
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There are unique touches to MIUI, like clicking and swiping up the Music Icon, brings up a smaller music player widget which is more quick at playing the music, its basically a now playing screen.
One more feature is Cloud messaging, which enables you to send SMS’es over internet, thus avoiding SMS charges, if both the sender and receiver have MIUI, and have enabled cloud messaging with a data plan too. I’ll come on this later, because I feel its a security threat, due to the amount & nature of information it uploads to Xiaomi servers to make this feature work. Its optional so you might want to turn it off in starting itself, until you understand its working better.
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Drop down menu provides the regular updates and toggles, and has 2 choices, Bar and Page. Desktop swipes has many attractive options like slide, swing, curtain, etc..
The speed is good, and while every site (including GSMArena, Mobile-Review, etc.) has posted performance figures, let me tell you something else.
In the starting it was on a version of v36, where it was fast but it used to overheat. In v45, the overheating was gone, but it became slightly slow. Slightly slow means slightly slow only, which is not normally noticeable.
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It can run almost all games aimed for low-mid range devices. I have installed Cars, Fashion Icon, Angry Birds (Seasons, Stella, Space, etc.), Candy Crush (both), Temple Run, Subway Surfer, Gun & Blood, etc. I once installed a sniping game, which I don’t remember, but it was the only game that gave me framerate issues. All others run very well.
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My internal memory is now only 1 or so GB free, but its still running fast and smooth, even with 40+ Apps & games installed. Play Store works flawlessly after you get a Google ID, or log in. There is a file manager, which you can use to install .APK installations directly from the memory.
MIUI’s Bundled softwares:
The phone came with some bundled softwares, some useful, others not so.
Useful ones: A “Security” app is preinstalled, which acts as a trash cleaner, data usage monitor, data usage restrictor (useful if you want one app to not use data, like whatsapp, etc.), a customisable Blocklist for SPAM content, power manager, virus scan and a permissions manager which is insanely useful if you root your phone later on. Hence, this is one of the most useful apps.
Then there are apps like mail, Gmail, Stock browser, themes, etc. A set of Google apps are also preinstalled. A compass app, a Mi bug report app, a recorder app, etc. were also preinstalled.
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The recorder app records voice memo as well as voice calls conveniently. I've been using it since quite some time now. The compass uses the internal compass hardware to give instant directions. Its screenshot is below:-
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Clock is useful enough with Alarm, Normal clock, Timer, Stopwatch, etc. World time can also be added:
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Useless ones, in my opinion are:- A weather app uses the internet to tell you about the weather conditions in your city. I find it rather unneeded, but sadly it can’t be removed without rooting. However, I removed my city data and disabled it this way.
Also, MiCloud is an app which may be useful, but it may be harmful too. We’ll come to that later on....
Plus, GMail may be useless, because you have a stock "Mail" app too, which means you will receive 2 updates from these 2 apps, even if you receive 1 email. Hence, for battery, internet and RAM, its better to remove one email app and I removed "Gmail" app.
Few times, I received some chinese advertisements of Xiaomi products which I didn't understand at all:
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Audio Department:
Hearing the sound through loudspeakers just reminded us of the price of this phone. For such a budget, all you could get is a medium volume speaker, with quality nothing to boast about. The loudspeaker can make you miss calls and messages in high noise environment, like in busy offices, driving, etc.
But wait, there's more to just a feeble loudspeaker. Read on what excites me about this phone....
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The quality through headphones was top class quality! All the acoustic elements are clearly hearable, and the entire frequency range is well covered from the thumping bass to the singer's voice, to the high frequency acoustics.
There is an Equalizer setting you might not spot easily (on clicking the album art while song a playing, you will see 3 tiny icons on it, click the middle one).
The interface is shown below. Can you see 3 icons near the top of the Album Art?
The middle icon of these three, takes you to the section where you can:- Enhance Audio or Apply Equalizer... Most owners miss it, and think their stock player doesn't have it. You don't make this mistake, ok?
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It allows you to "Enhance Audio" based on the earphones you're using, from General earbuds to in-ear earphones to proprietory products from Mi, like Mi earbuds and Piston earphones. Toggling thru these settings, changed the music's attributes like frequency response, stereo wideness, etc.
And below this option, is the option for Equalizer, which is 7 band with 10 presets and the option to create & store your own presets too.
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You want to know how good quality it is? Well, you can listen it alongside a iPhone blindfolded and you may not find a difference, its that good audio quality.
To put into comparison, it sounds better than my earlier phones Nokia 808 Pureview & Nokia N8.
Galaxy S4 & Note 3 still sound "slightly" better than Redmi 1S, but remember the cost difference... My friend Rishabh has both of these phones, and they sound slightly better in my perception, but the difference is so little that most users will never notice it.
I have used headphones. I have used earphones. I have used external amplified Creative 5.1 speakers.... All point out to what a fine musician this Redmi 1S is. While using headphone/ earphones the volume levels were average to above average, but I never felt more volume needed ever so far. Use a good ear/ head phone for good volume levels.
Using default music player, I used a set of Philips (non-inserting earbud) earphones costing approx Rs. 400, and was listening to .AAC format songs taken from Nokia Music Store on my earlier phone.
The volume has 15 steps, I found them well spaced. The dedicated volume keys are helpful even when keypad is locked. I kept volume mostly at 10th to 12th step out of 15 total steps. If you keep volume at 15th step, it gets loud, but not deafening for most songs. For some MP3 songs, I had to keep it at Volume Step 8 out of the 15 steps because these songs were loud.
Overall, I'm satisfied with the volume levels through the 3.5mm jack. Never did I feel they should be more than the maximum limit. If I used high fidelity bass intensive headphones, then maybe I might feel the need for more volume. If you still feel volume is low, you can use volume boosters from Play Store. Once installed, they work in the background so your problem is solved!
FM works as promised and it has the regular station auto scanning and saving features, but it also records Radio, which is a good thing if you listen to FM too much. Recording quality is good, depending on the reception.
The Mi Piston 2 earphones is a good combination for both telephony.and good quality music, which is a rare combination in headsets from other companies. The demerit is that Redmi doesn’t support 3.5mm 4 pin Mic-headsets from other companies like Nokia, Samsung, etc. It has its own standard.
Camera Department:
The camera will surprise you too. Just don't expect miracles but yes, for a phone costing Rs. 6000, it will surprise you.
Starting with the capturing speed. I managed 90 images shot in just 1 minute on the latest firmware. This is crazy figure for a Snapdragon 400 phone. How many phones can match this? Not many I know of.
The below is a screenshot for still camera. Modification options are one menu deep, which is not so convenient, but ok anyways.
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Coming on to Image Quality, the image quality is a suprise to a phone of this capacity. The 8 Megapixel images have plenty of details, good contrast, enough saturation, and generally detailed look. Software based sharpness is kept to normal. Somewhere this phone follows the philosophy of Nokia N8, keeping basics strong and ensuring post processing kept to the minimum. White Balance is good in good light, slightly yellowish or blueish in low light but that's not a big problem as it can be configured manually.
If you're still not happy with the image quality attributes, you can always tune the Saturation (Colorfulness), Contrast and sharpness of your images, in the settings menu. I would suggest going against this though, because stock setting is the best overall.
That’s because, excess saturation means more color noise too. Excessive contrast means an attractive look, but you lose details in the highlight and shadow areas of the images. Excessive sharpness doesn't bring additional details, it only makes the lines sharper and the effect is mostly always unnatural.
Macro was a surprise again. Shooting small objects less than 8 cms away from the camera surface is very pleasant. Yes, 8 cms away, as good as human eyes can focus. This is how good this camera is. Even without switching on the dedicated Macro mode, the normal mode shoots good macro images. Macro Focus mode makes the focusing faster so you choose it only when shooting macro only, for a particular duration.
A problem is that while it is easy to get a green box showing a focus lock-on, the macro image is not always in focus. You have to check the viewfinder closely to see if it is in focus. If it appears out of focus, click to focus again until it is in focus. Its more of a problem in low light than good light though.
The 1.6 MP front camera was surprising because it had all these qualities too, expect for maybe autofocus and image detail which was deliberately kept low for that smooth-skin-selfie look. And may I say, it looks good. So the front camera does its job well for selfies, but don’t expect too much detail out of it.
Videos?
You can take 1080p30 video using the rear camera and 720p30 video using the front camera, with sound enabled in both cases. You can apply additional effects like B&W, chrome, etc. to it, which is no big deal. The videos from the rear camera come out real nice and beautiful. The detail level is high enough, and the color, contrast, etc. attributes are the same as the still camera (Read: Good).
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See my own Sample Videos:
*www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfzA8d8My4o&list=UUki6unA_Myn0OMHlk82BXZQ (Good light)
*www.youtube.com/watch?v=fALPlPwcr6w&list=UUki6unA_Myn0OMHlk82BXZQ (Low Light)
Talking about the sound in videos, the volume is less. But the quality is good. Its not as good as Nokia Lumia 1020 or Nokia 808, but it is quite close to these mobiles, in comparatively silent environments. There doesn't appear to be silenting algorithms in the Redmi, related to silenting wind noise, hand movements, etc. But otherwise, the sound is clear as you can hear from the sample videos I've uploaded to Youtube.
Overall, the videos left a solid impression, even on a Nokia 808 Pureview user like me. You can put the same video setup in a phone costing Rs. 25k and its quality will still be praised, that's how good it is. No worries here.
Gallery:
Gallery classifies images on the basis of folders they’re put in. Its a convenient way. Images can be edited from the gallery and videos can be cropped.
Firstly, it shows only camera recorded content. Then, there is a tab showing “Local Images” and “Cloud Images”. Clicking on Local Images shows us the other content on the memory of the phone & card memory too. Working speed is good, but thumbnails may load slower on multiple new images/ videos.
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After clicking Local images, you see:-->
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Seeing my images:-
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Seeing my HD & FullHD videos:-
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Default Video player plays most content, but there’s a notable problem with older mp4s, and 3gp files. They run, but they run improperly with missing frames, stop-go jerks, etc. There are options for volume, brightness, scrolling, etc. Also, this video player continues a video from where you last left, which may be a convenience or an irritation both, depending on how you like it.
Video app has provision to show video details.
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Alternatives you might consider:
This was a tough one. For a phone this unique & economical, can there be viable alternatives? Well, there are some close alternatives based on specifications.
Huawei Honor Holly is about Rs. 7000, and is a Dual SIM phone with 3G on 1st SIM, and gives you a lightly larger screen at 5", but slower processor. But it runs stock Android 4.4 in case the RAM issue of Xiaomi is getting on your nerves.
Asus Zenfone 8 GB is a close alternative. This one has an Intel Atom Dual Core 1.6 Ghz processor. Screen is 5". I am waiting to see how its ZenUI performs on the Android. But it is costly, at around Rs. 10,000.
Going up the price chart, Moto G (Second gen) is a good alternative, with better specs at some places, but the costing to customer is Rs. 13k.
Security:
This is one aspect I can't be completely sure about. Considering India's cold-natured relations with China, would we be safe using Chinese phones, from a company headquartered at Beijing?
We very well know how China created its own more accurate GPS system Beidou, to compete with Americans. So, are they creating an NSA like agency to spy on us? Maybe not.
And why do they sell phones for that cheap when the demand is high and they can easily add 25-30% to its price and still sell all the phones? Are they doing it to make headlines only, is there no other reason behind it? Coming to the point, let's remove such "hypothetical" questions and let's deal only with known facts.
Known facts are that we know that Redmi uses Android 4.3 skinned with MIUI 5. Android isn't known for its impenetrable safety, but if you're used to Android, it helps to keep safe.
Secondly, there were news about Redmi sharing some info with a chinese IP. Xiaomi later clarified that yes, it was User Experience data shared with Xiaomi and that user has agreed to it, at phone startup and the user can opt out of it, and there's nothing of sensitive nature in it. So, matter was closed then.
BUT! Again, later on, there were reports of how Contacts, SMS'es, Gallery items, notes, call log, recorded audio, etc. were sent to Xiaomi servers in China. This was heavily shocking, as this meant compromise of user data. Xiaomi later clarified that MiCloud is a feature for Mi phone owners, which can backup sms, contacts, etc. on the chinese server as a backup.
Another benefit of this is cloud messaging, which means if you and your friend both use Mi phones (and both are connected to internet), you can send SMS's over the internet automatically, so they won't be charged into your phone bill as SMS, because MIUI will use internet for this purpose. And MIUI needs your contacts list to know their "online" status.
Earlier it was compulsory. With update #v45, using this Mi cloud is optional, plus it is encrypted data now. You can turn it off. So, this again clarified this argument. But the truth doesn't change. Chinese servers have my & many other Indians' contacts and sms's now, in an encrypted form though.
Even Indian Air Force have warned their personnel to stop using Xiaomi phones at all. You can google this for more info. Clearly, IAF doesn't make a joke like this. They're serious and that too for a reason.
There's no guarantee of no one using your data maliciously, except trust on Xiaomi... Here's hoping that a multi million dollar chinese company won't give your data to its socialist government. Socialist government that takes decisions without taking permissions.
In other issue, one day I was shocked when a pop down menu notification told me "Distance to my home" when I was out. Heck, GPS was off, and I didn't turn it on till then, so how did the phone know about it? Later on, I came to know that google allows other apps to access your location. But till date, which app used this, is unclear to me.
If you're not too sure about all this, but are an old timer when it comes to Android, you can choose to root it, or remove MIUI and install stock Android, but I'm not sure if its possible. After rooting it, you can unroot it too, in case you need the warranty.
Let me be honest:- I do feel there is something quite fishy. The low available RAM, the MIUI, the automarking of one of my locations as "My home" that too accurately without GPS turned on, the unnecessarily low battery, etc... I hope I don't get in trouble later on.
Conclusion:
Its a good phone for a good price, the hardware is up there with the best, not in speed & performance though, but in terms of quality. Camera and Audio quality is the unbeatable combo of this phone.
But the software portion is where most of the complaints have arisen and will arise in future.
An update to Android 4.4 is promised by the end of year. We're not sure if it will solve the problems or not.
Still, its difficult to ignore a Rs. 6000 phone with good camera and audio quality, plus the most famous OS the world has seen. You know what, after owning the Nokia 6670, Nokia N91, Samsung INNOV8, Nokia N8 and Nokia 808 Pureview, this phone was my cheapest so far. And its one of the best too.
I will recommend this phone to you, specially if you’re not so much into OS, but more into Media Quality (music and camera). Oh, and by the way, do switch off MiCloud after getting it. You can switch it on, after understanding how it works, if you wish so.
(+) Plus Points:
* Very good image quality in both the cameras. They match much expensive phones too.
* Speedy camera, doesn't delay in startup, and takes approx. 90 full resolution shots in a minute.
* Very good sound quality in headphones/ earphones.
* Fluid time saving interface. MIUI has all the items on desktop only, no Menu.
* Very economical price.
* Extensive feature set. USB OTG is supported.
(-) Minus Points:
* Weak security. Your Personal Data may be compromised. Highly NOT recommended if you serve the National Forces, or are in a secret or top placed government department, or in a business corporation of MNC level.
* RAM too low. Plus, the MIUI too doesn't leave too much free RAM for apps and games.
* The heating issue is solved by Firmware update 45, but the processing speed is reduced and when you exit an app or a game, you see a loading launcher message before the desktop appears.
* Battery life not too high when using it properly as a smartphone is used. Idle/ Standby times are good though.
* Average to weak loudspeaker.
* Supports only Mi wired headset system, for telephony. Nokia headset doesn't work. Samsung headset doesn't work. Xiaomi doesn't supply one officially, so you can only purchase & use a good headset from Mi, like the Mi Piston 2.
(NOTE: Please understand that I’m not a professional reviewer, nor is this my full time work, so things may not be upto mark. Sorry for that. You may ask questions if you feel something is left out.
As usual, What's my next review?
Well, I’m planning to get the Xiaomi Yi Portable Camera, which is a GoPro rival, but its priced at around $66, which means it should cost around Rs. 4000 to us.
It is waterproof & weatherproof, when inside its supplied case. It has a Sony based sensor, a wide angle lens and it does 4K30fps, 1080p60fps, 720p120fps and 480p240fps videos, and its just a matchbox’s size. Yi Camera has just launched, so its not reaching India anytime soon, seeing how even Redmi 2 didn’t reach till now, months after its launch. But once on sale, it should blow the competition away.
Sounds great? Interested? Well, let’s see...
- - - Updated - - -
CURRENT REVIEW STATUS: Incomplete.
Some screenshots have been added.
1. Adding more screenshots.
2. GPS performance is also to be posted,
3. Misc. text to be added,
4. Browser performance,
5. Camera's sample images, also need to be added,
Will try adding more tomorrow. (5 March).
Guys,
As promised in the Mi 5200 Review thread, I am writing a review of Xiaomi Redmi 1S.
Thanks to my college’s corporate level Fibre-optic internet, I passed through the Redmi 1S flash sale in first attempt itself.
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To know more about Xiaomi or the concept of Flash sales, please go through my earlier Xiaomi Portable Charger REVIEW.
Right now, its been about 3 months using the redmi 1S, so I believe its the right time to talk how it performs in the long term. So, let’s get to it....
Present Accessories: Mi 5200, Mi 10400 portable chargers, Mi Piston 2 earphone, back replacement cases (China Red, Coral, Blue), plastic add on protective covers (transparent, black, blue, etc.) 64 GB Sandisk high speed memory card, 2 SIM adaptors (free with mobile), Screen guards (free), other older earphones, etc.
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The original package was given with two unique gifts:
A.) 3 sets of Good quality Screen Guards, (I have one of them on my set now, its useful)
B.) 2 Mini SIM to SIM adaptors. These are useful if you have a Mini or Micro SIM and want to fit it to the phone. In case of microSIM, it won't fit closely into the SIM sized adaptor, so you will have to stick it using cello tape.
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Feel & Handling:
Redmi at 160~ grams, feels heavier that some mobiles, but not once you get used to it. It feels sturdy, although not in the metal body kind of way. The construction is good for a plastic phone and there are no creaks or any other deficiency apparent. The rear cover opens by pulling it out. It exposes the 2 SIM Card slots (big sized SIM, not micro or nano), the memory card slot (which supports upto 64GB, tested by me) and the orange colored battery (which is 2000 mAh).
*i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag255/samarth619/IMG_7351_zpsaoekumzd.jpg
The rear cover is dark-grey in the original package, but you may replace it with back replacement covers from Mi, with attractive options like china red, coral (pink), sky blue, pitch black, etc. By the way, I have all of these and I use mostly all except the original dark-grey. They all look beautiful & the color change is a good option for a user. They costed Rs. 470 on Flipkart for some time, and then for a brief while, they were discounted to Rs. 49 too, which is when most owners decided to get the entire back replacement cover range...
*i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag255/samarth619/IMG_7344_zpsmlpewnuy.jpg
Variety of add on covers (from Mi itself & other companies too) are also available for additional protection, and they help in case the set falls, and they also avoid accidental button presses, specially the unlock key.
The mobile overall seems slippery, though nothing one can’t handle. I was used to a 4 inch Nokia 808 Pureview, and this phone was slightly bigger but its still better than Notes and Phablets out there, so one can manage it easily, unless the hands are really small.
USB slot is at the bottom. 3.5mm jack is at the top. Volume keys and the unlock/ power key below it, are all of the right side. Left side is blank. Below the screen, there are 3 touch sensitive keys for Options, Home and Back, the typical Android setup.
Phone Department:
Redmi as a phone is good enough overall. There are some weak points though. Loudspeaker is mono, but even then, it could be much better in terms of volume. It sounds distinctly lower than my Nokia 808 Pureview’s speaker.
Sometimes, when I try to pick a call with a fast swipe, the call ends up being shown as a missed call, while the caller hears that I’m busy, or I’ve hung up. This needs to be solved in a firmware update.
*i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag255/samarth619/Screenshot_2015-03-03-22-51-00_zpsexdhktqk.jpg
A v50 update is seeding with some minor bug fixes, but I’m waiting to go all out with a MIUI update which could be out any moment.
Display:
The display is good in color quality and accuracy. I've used Nokia 808 with AMOLED display and this seems slightly less saturated, but its a surprise how IPS LCD's are so much better than traditional LCD's in terms of quality. Its a 1280x720 pixels display with 16 Million colors, which should be great for a low-mid range device like this.
Brightness setting is a bit of a hassle. Auto brightness sometimes seems lesser and in manual, you have to go inside Menus, or choose from 3 levels in drop down menu.
Another problem is display visibility in bright sunlight. It comes nowhere near Nokia 808 in this matter. On maximum brightness, it somewhat shows what's on the display. The highly reflective Asahi Glass Company (AGC Dragontrail) screen isn't too helpful either, it just reflects a bit too much to clearly see the display. In dark to medium-lit areas, its great to use.
OS:
This mobile comes with Android 4.3 Jellybean skinned as MIUI 5.0. An update to Android 4.4 is promised by March, which is any day right now. Despite a 64 GB Sandisk high speed card, the phone hasn’t notably slowed down a bit. Its every bit as fast, although I should mention that around 28 GB is still empty in the card.
MIUI has a flat structure, which means that any and every software, game and settings icon is displayed on the desktop only and there is no Menu. Its time saving and convenient in my opinion. If you’re not ok with it, you can organise icons in folders and place them on the desktop so it works like a Menu, or the non-regular items may be put in folders.
*i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag255/samarth619/Screenshot_2015-03-03-22-51-12_zpsblygvpds.jpg
Additionally, upto 5 icons of your choice can be kept stationary at the bottom of all the desktops. I keep important ones, which are Call, Contacts, Camera, Messaging and Whatsapp. However, there can only be one wallpaper which is panned horizontally as you shift desktops. Drag and Drop of icons is supported and apps are uninstalled by dragging them to the top of the screen where a Recycle Bin is visible. A large number of desktops can be created, I normally use 6 desktops, but I’ve created upto 15 desktops once.
MIUI has its own wallpaper source which works over the internet, and downloads a JPG file straight to the device. It has categories too, although the content is too much chinese: In People, there are mostly Chinese ladies and girls, maybe their actresses or musicians, who knows?
*i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag255/samarth619/Screenshot_2015-03-03-22-51-36_zps6nwtcj6m.jpg
There are unique touches to MIUI, like clicking and swiping up the Music Icon, brings up a smaller music player widget which is more quick at playing the music, its basically a now playing screen.
One more feature is Cloud messaging, which enables you to send SMS’es over internet, thus avoiding SMS charges, if both the sender and receiver have MIUI, and have enabled cloud messaging with a data plan too. I’ll come on this later, because I feel its a security threat, due to the amount & nature of information it uploads to Xiaomi servers to make this feature work. Its optional so you might want to turn it off in starting itself, until you understand its working better.
*i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag255/samarth619/Screenshot_2015-03-03-22-51-55_zps5ajxksjq.jpg
Drop down menu provides the regular updates and toggles, and has 2 choices, Bar and Page. Desktop swipes has many attractive options like slide, swing, curtain, etc..
The speed is good, and while every site (including GSMArena, Mobile-Review, etc.) has posted performance figures, let me tell you something else.
In the starting it was on a version of v36, where it was fast but it used to overheat. In v45, the overheating was gone, but it became slightly slow. Slightly slow means slightly slow only, which is not normally noticeable.
*i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag255/samarth619/Screenshot_2014-11-26-16-42-08_zps4xtf4ocz.jpg
It can run almost all games aimed for low-mid range devices. I have installed Cars, Fashion Icon, Angry Birds (Seasons, Stella, Space, etc.), Candy Crush (both), Temple Run, Subway Surfer, Gun & Blood, etc. I once installed a sniping game, which I don’t remember, but it was the only game that gave me framerate issues. All others run very well.
*i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag255/samarth619/Screenshot_2015-03-03-23-01-38_zpshvtqqef4.jpg
My internal memory is now only 1 or so GB free, but its still running fast and smooth, even with 40+ Apps & games installed. Play Store works flawlessly after you get a Google ID, or log in. There is a file manager, which you can use to install .APK installations directly from the memory.
MIUI’s Bundled softwares:
The phone came with some bundled softwares, some useful, others not so.
Useful ones: A “Security” app is preinstalled, which acts as a trash cleaner, data usage monitor, data usage restrictor (useful if you want one app to not use data, like whatsapp, etc.), a customisable Blocklist for SPAM content, power manager, virus scan and a permissions manager which is insanely useful if you root your phone later on. Hence, this is one of the most useful apps.
Then there are apps like mail, Gmail, Stock browser, themes, etc. A set of Google apps are also preinstalled. A compass app, a Mi bug report app, a recorder app, etc. were also preinstalled.
*i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag255/samarth619/Screenshot_2015-03-03-23-01-28_zpss0demwvj.jpg
The recorder app records voice memo as well as voice calls conveniently. I've been using it since quite some time now. The compass uses the internal compass hardware to give instant directions. Its screenshot is below:-
*i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag255/samarth619/Screenshot_2015-03-03-22-56-45_zpsh1witper.jpg
Clock is useful enough with Alarm, Normal clock, Timer, Stopwatch, etc. World time can also be added:
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Useless ones, in my opinion are:- A weather app uses the internet to tell you about the weather conditions in your city. I find it rather unneeded, but sadly it can’t be removed without rooting. However, I removed my city data and disabled it this way.
Also, MiCloud is an app which may be useful, but it may be harmful too. We’ll come to that later on....
Plus, GMail may be useless, because you have a stock "Mail" app too, which means you will receive 2 updates from these 2 apps, even if you receive 1 email. Hence, for battery, internet and RAM, its better to remove one email app and I removed "Gmail" app.
Few times, I received some chinese advertisements of Xiaomi products which I didn't understand at all:
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Audio Department:
Hearing the sound through loudspeakers just reminded us of the price of this phone. For such a budget, all you could get is a medium volume speaker, with quality nothing to boast about. The loudspeaker can make you miss calls and messages in high noise environment, like in busy offices, driving, etc.
But wait, there's more to just a feeble loudspeaker. Read on what excites me about this phone....
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The quality through headphones was top class quality! All the acoustic elements are clearly hearable, and the entire frequency range is well covered from the thumping bass to the singer's voice, to the high frequency acoustics.
There is an Equalizer setting you might not spot easily (on clicking the album art while song a playing, you will see 3 tiny icons on it, click the middle one).
The interface is shown below. Can you see 3 icons near the top of the Album Art?
The middle icon of these three, takes you to the section where you can:- Enhance Audio or Apply Equalizer... Most owners miss it, and think their stock player doesn't have it. You don't make this mistake, ok?
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It allows you to "Enhance Audio" based on the earphones you're using, from General earbuds to in-ear earphones to proprietory products from Mi, like Mi earbuds and Piston earphones. Toggling thru these settings, changed the music's attributes like frequency response, stereo wideness, etc.
And below this option, is the option for Equalizer, which is 7 band with 10 presets and the option to create & store your own presets too.
*i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag255/samarth619/Screenshot_2015-01-26-20-48-17_zpsvspe1lc4.jpg
You want to know how good quality it is? Well, you can listen it alongside a iPhone blindfolded and you may not find a difference, its that good audio quality.
To put into comparison, it sounds better than my earlier phones Nokia 808 Pureview & Nokia N8.
Galaxy S4 & Note 3 still sound "slightly" better than Redmi 1S, but remember the cost difference... My friend Rishabh has both of these phones, and they sound slightly better in my perception, but the difference is so little that most users will never notice it.
I have used headphones. I have used earphones. I have used external amplified Creative 5.1 speakers.... All point out to what a fine musician this Redmi 1S is. While using headphone/ earphones the volume levels were average to above average, but I never felt more volume needed ever so far. Use a good ear/ head phone for good volume levels.
Using default music player, I used a set of Philips (non-inserting earbud) earphones costing approx Rs. 400, and was listening to .AAC format songs taken from Nokia Music Store on my earlier phone.
The volume has 15 steps, I found them well spaced. The dedicated volume keys are helpful even when keypad is locked. I kept volume mostly at 10th to 12th step out of 15 total steps. If you keep volume at 15th step, it gets loud, but not deafening for most songs. For some MP3 songs, I had to keep it at Volume Step 8 out of the 15 steps because these songs were loud.
Overall, I'm satisfied with the volume levels through the 3.5mm jack. Never did I feel they should be more than the maximum limit. If I used high fidelity bass intensive headphones, then maybe I might feel the need for more volume. If you still feel volume is low, you can use volume boosters from Play Store. Once installed, they work in the background so your problem is solved!
FM works as promised and it has the regular station auto scanning and saving features, but it also records Radio, which is a good thing if you listen to FM too much. Recording quality is good, depending on the reception.
The Mi Piston 2 earphones is a good combination for both telephony.and good quality music, which is a rare combination in headsets from other companies. The demerit is that Redmi doesn’t support 3.5mm 4 pin Mic-headsets from other companies like Nokia, Samsung, etc. It has its own standard.
Camera Department:
The camera will surprise you too. Just don't expect miracles but yes, for a phone costing Rs. 6000, it will surprise you.
Starting with the capturing speed. I managed 90 images shot in just 1 minute on the latest firmware. This is crazy figure for a Snapdragon 400 phone. How many phones can match this? Not many I know of.
The below is a screenshot for still camera. Modification options are one menu deep, which is not so convenient, but ok anyways.
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Coming on to Image Quality, the image quality is a suprise to a phone of this capacity. The 8 Megapixel images have plenty of details, good contrast, enough saturation, and generally detailed look. Software based sharpness is kept to normal. Somewhere this phone follows the philosophy of Nokia N8, keeping basics strong and ensuring post processing kept to the minimum. White Balance is good in good light, slightly yellowish or blueish in low light but that's not a big problem as it can be configured manually.
If you're still not happy with the image quality attributes, you can always tune the Saturation (Colorfulness), Contrast and sharpness of your images, in the settings menu. I would suggest going against this though, because stock setting is the best overall.
That’s because, excess saturation means more color noise too. Excessive contrast means an attractive look, but you lose details in the highlight and shadow areas of the images. Excessive sharpness doesn't bring additional details, it only makes the lines sharper and the effect is mostly always unnatural.
Macro was a surprise again. Shooting small objects less than 8 cms away from the camera surface is very pleasant. Yes, 8 cms away, as good as human eyes can focus. This is how good this camera is. Even without switching on the dedicated Macro mode, the normal mode shoots good macro images. Macro Focus mode makes the focusing faster so you choose it only when shooting macro only, for a particular duration.
A problem is that while it is easy to get a green box showing a focus lock-on, the macro image is not always in focus. You have to check the viewfinder closely to see if it is in focus. If it appears out of focus, click to focus again until it is in focus. Its more of a problem in low light than good light though.
The 1.6 MP front camera was surprising because it had all these qualities too, expect for maybe autofocus and image detail which was deliberately kept low for that smooth-skin-selfie look. And may I say, it looks good. So the front camera does its job well for selfies, but don’t expect too much detail out of it.
Videos?
You can take 1080p30 video using the rear camera and 720p30 video using the front camera, with sound enabled in both cases. You can apply additional effects like B&W, chrome, etc. to it, which is no big deal. The videos from the rear camera come out real nice and beautiful. The detail level is high enough, and the color, contrast, etc. attributes are the same as the still camera (Read: Good).
*i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag255/samarth619/Screenshot_2015-03-03-22-54-51_zpsrqwneonq.jpg
See my own Sample Videos:
*www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfzA8d8My4o&list=UUki6unA_Myn0OMHlk82BXZQ (Good light)
*www.youtube.com/watch?v=fALPlPwcr6w&list=UUki6unA_Myn0OMHlk82BXZQ (Low Light)
Talking about the sound in videos, the volume is less. But the quality is good. Its not as good as Nokia Lumia 1020 or Nokia 808, but it is quite close to these mobiles, in comparatively silent environments. There doesn't appear to be silenting algorithms in the Redmi, related to silenting wind noise, hand movements, etc. But otherwise, the sound is clear as you can hear from the sample videos I've uploaded to Youtube.
Overall, the videos left a solid impression, even on a Nokia 808 Pureview user like me. You can put the same video setup in a phone costing Rs. 25k and its quality will still be praised, that's how good it is. No worries here.
Gallery:
Gallery classifies images on the basis of folders they’re put in. Its a convenient way. Images can be edited from the gallery and videos can be cropped.
Firstly, it shows only camera recorded content. Then, there is a tab showing “Local Images” and “Cloud Images”. Clicking on Local Images shows us the other content on the memory of the phone & card memory too. Working speed is good, but thumbnails may load slower on multiple new images/ videos.
*i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag255/samarth619/Screenshot_2015-03-03-22-55-13_zpsc58fbnxz.jpg
After clicking Local images, you see:-->
*i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag255/samarth619/Screenshot_2015-03-03-22-55-19_zpsjuuij81s.jpg
Seeing my images:-
*i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag255/samarth619/Screenshot_2015-03-03-22-56-24_zpsngmdozy1.jpg
Seeing my HD & FullHD videos:-
*i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag255/samarth619/Screenshot_2015-03-03-22-56-12_zpsu0ukqsd9.jpg
Default Video player plays most content, but there’s a notable problem with older mp4s, and 3gp files. They run, but they run improperly with missing frames, stop-go jerks, etc. There are options for volume, brightness, scrolling, etc. Also, this video player continues a video from where you last left, which may be a convenience or an irritation both, depending on how you like it.
Video app has provision to show video details.
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Alternatives you might consider:
This was a tough one. For a phone this unique & economical, can there be viable alternatives? Well, there are some close alternatives based on specifications.
Huawei Honor Holly is about Rs. 7000, and is a Dual SIM phone with 3G on 1st SIM, and gives you a lightly larger screen at 5", but slower processor. But it runs stock Android 4.4 in case the RAM issue of Xiaomi is getting on your nerves.
Asus Zenfone 8 GB is a close alternative. This one has an Intel Atom Dual Core 1.6 Ghz processor. Screen is 5". I am waiting to see how its ZenUI performs on the Android. But it is costly, at around Rs. 10,000.
Going up the price chart, Moto G (Second gen) is a good alternative, with better specs at some places, but the costing to customer is Rs. 13k.
Security:
This is one aspect I can't be completely sure about. Considering India's cold-natured relations with China, would we be safe using Chinese phones, from a company headquartered at Beijing?
We very well know how China created its own more accurate GPS system Beidou, to compete with Americans. So, are they creating an NSA like agency to spy on us? Maybe not.
And why do they sell phones for that cheap when the demand is high and they can easily add 25-30% to its price and still sell all the phones? Are they doing it to make headlines only, is there no other reason behind it? Coming to the point, let's remove such "hypothetical" questions and let's deal only with known facts.
Known facts are that we know that Redmi uses Android 4.3 skinned with MIUI 5. Android isn't known for its impenetrable safety, but if you're used to Android, it helps to keep safe.
Secondly, there were news about Redmi sharing some info with a chinese IP. Xiaomi later clarified that yes, it was User Experience data shared with Xiaomi and that user has agreed to it, at phone startup and the user can opt out of it, and there's nothing of sensitive nature in it. So, matter was closed then.
BUT! Again, later on, there were reports of how Contacts, SMS'es, Gallery items, notes, call log, recorded audio, etc. were sent to Xiaomi servers in China. This was heavily shocking, as this meant compromise of user data. Xiaomi later clarified that MiCloud is a feature for Mi phone owners, which can backup sms, contacts, etc. on the chinese server as a backup.
Another benefit of this is cloud messaging, which means if you and your friend both use Mi phones (and both are connected to internet), you can send SMS's over the internet automatically, so they won't be charged into your phone bill as SMS, because MIUI will use internet for this purpose. And MIUI needs your contacts list to know their "online" status.
Earlier it was compulsory. With update #v45, using this Mi cloud is optional, plus it is encrypted data now. You can turn it off. So, this again clarified this argument. But the truth doesn't change. Chinese servers have my & many other Indians' contacts and sms's now, in an encrypted form though.
Even Indian Air Force have warned their personnel to stop using Xiaomi phones at all. You can google this for more info. Clearly, IAF doesn't make a joke like this. They're serious and that too for a reason.
There's no guarantee of no one using your data maliciously, except trust on Xiaomi... Here's hoping that a multi million dollar chinese company won't give your data to its socialist government. Socialist government that takes decisions without taking permissions.
In other issue, one day I was shocked when a pop down menu notification told me "Distance to my home" when I was out. Heck, GPS was off, and I didn't turn it on till then, so how did the phone know about it? Later on, I came to know that google allows other apps to access your location. But till date, which app used this, is unclear to me.
If you're not too sure about all this, but are an old timer when it comes to Android, you can choose to root it, or remove MIUI and install stock Android, but I'm not sure if its possible. After rooting it, you can unroot it too, in case you need the warranty.
Let me be honest:- I do feel there is something quite fishy. The low available RAM, the MIUI, the automarking of one of my locations as "My home" that too accurately without GPS turned on, the unnecessarily low battery, etc... I hope I don't get in trouble later on.
Conclusion:
Its a good phone for a good price, the hardware is up there with the best, not in speed & performance though, but in terms of quality. Camera and Audio quality is the unbeatable combo of this phone.
But the software portion is where most of the complaints have arisen and will arise in future.
An update to Android 4.4 is promised by the end of year. We're not sure if it will solve the problems or not.
Still, its difficult to ignore a Rs. 6000 phone with good camera and audio quality, plus the most famous OS the world has seen. You know what, after owning the Nokia 6670, Nokia N91, Samsung INNOV8, Nokia N8 and Nokia 808 Pureview, this phone was my cheapest so far. And its one of the best too.
I will recommend this phone to you, specially if you’re not so much into OS, but more into Media Quality (music and camera). Oh, and by the way, do switch off MiCloud after getting it. You can switch it on, after understanding how it works, if you wish so.
(+) Plus Points:
* Very good image quality in both the cameras. They match much expensive phones too.
* Speedy camera, doesn't delay in startup, and takes approx. 90 full resolution shots in a minute.
* Very good sound quality in headphones/ earphones.
* Fluid time saving interface. MIUI has all the items on desktop only, no Menu.
* Very economical price.
* Extensive feature set. USB OTG is supported.
(-) Minus Points:
* Weak security. Your Personal Data may be compromised. Highly NOT recommended if you serve the National Forces, or are in a secret or top placed government department, or in a business corporation of MNC level.
* RAM too low. Plus, the MIUI too doesn't leave too much free RAM for apps and games.
* The heating issue is solved by Firmware update 45, but the processing speed is reduced and when you exit an app or a game, you see a loading launcher message before the desktop appears.
* Battery life not too high when using it properly as a smartphone is used. Idle/ Standby times are good though.
* Average to weak loudspeaker.
* Supports only Mi wired headset system, for telephony. Nokia headset doesn't work. Samsung headset doesn't work. Xiaomi doesn't supply one officially, so you can only purchase & use a good headset from Mi, like the Mi Piston 2.
(NOTE: Please understand that I’m not a professional reviewer, nor is this my full time work, so things may not be upto mark. Sorry for that. You may ask questions if you feel something is left out.
As usual, What's my next review?
Well, I’m planning to get the Xiaomi Yi Portable Camera, which is a GoPro rival, but its priced at around $66, which means it should cost around Rs. 4000 to us.
It is waterproof & weatherproof, when inside its supplied case. It has a Sony based sensor, a wide angle lens and it does 4K30fps, 1080p60fps, 720p120fps and 480p240fps videos, and its just a matchbox’s size. Yi Camera has just launched, so its not reaching India anytime soon, seeing how even Redmi 2 didn’t reach till now, months after its launch. But once on sale, it should blow the competition away.
Sounds great? Interested? Well, let’s see...
- - - Updated - - -
CURRENT REVIEW STATUS: Incomplete.
Some screenshots have been added.
1. Adding more screenshots.
2. GPS performance is also to be posted,
3. Misc. text to be added,
4. Browser performance,
5. Camera's sample images, also need to be added,
Will try adding more tomorrow. (5 March).
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