[Nexus 5 General] vin4yak:
Xiaomi Mi 3 First Impressions / Short Review

I received my Xiaomi Mi3 today morning at 8am (Yeah!! 8!! These bluedart people have gone nuts). I was fast asleep and when my dogs started barking loudly I knew someone had come. Anyways, at least I got it quickly. I've used the device for 4-5 hours and here's my first impression:

1.

Packaging and Contents:

It was neatly packed by flipkart and the cardboard(Sorta) box from Xiaomi is super awesome. It's really attractive. Su 10/10 for packaging for both flipkart and Xiaomi from my side. The box contains the phone itself (lol), a 2A charger, decent sized microusb/usb cable and the usual warranty papers and userguide. Yeah, no headphones on this one! Will have to wait for the Xiaomi Pistons which will probably be available on flipkart itself.

2.

Design:

It is slightly bigger than the Nexus 5 because of the hardware navigation buttons buttons so forget one hand usage. You will need to juggle with it to reach the top and bottom of the scree quickly. The volume rocker and the power buttons are placed on the right side just like the Nexus 5, so turning on/off the device is convenient.

The speakers are located at the bottom (again like the Nexus 5) so you can put the device down and listen to music conveniently. The sim tray was pretty hard to open (at least for me). I had to literally force the pin down to get it opened. It could be that I might have angled the pin incorrectly. The bezels of the phone are rounded so holding the device can be somewhat tricky to get used to. It's not as tactile as the Nexus 5.

The build quality is superb but I really didn't like the finish of the back plate. It feels kinda cheap (at least to me). But it's a Rs. 13999 device, so can't complain much about it.

3.

Pros:

a. Well, first thing you notice is the price. It's unbeatable, and easily puts the Nexus 5 to shame if we compare the specs "one paper". (mind it)

b. It's a 1080p IPS Retina Display but it seems somewhat washed out on some colors when compared to my calibrated Nexus 5's display. You can even adjust the contrast and color saturation of the screen via display settings, So I must say, Xiaomi's MIUI team has done a pretty good job. No need to use custom kernels. However, there aren't much options to choose from (Only 3).

c. The speakers are pretty loud to begin with as compared to "stock" nexus 5's speakers and if I were to install Viper4Android on the Mi3, it would certainly bully the Nexus 5's speakers.

d. Coming to the camera, it's a 13 mp BSI Camera with dual LED flash. However, it doesn't have OIS which is a huge let down. If your hands aren't still while clicking, it's kind of a nightmare. That being said, if you use it smartly, it takes excellent pictures but it doesn't match the HDR+ mode on our Nexus 5. Low light imaging is also kinda crap if you don't focus properly. Video recording is surprisingly solid and outperforms the nexus 5 IMO in various categories. There is also a 2mp front facing camera which outperforms out Nexus 5's 1.3mp camera. It's quite clear in daylight.

e. The processor used is a SnapDragon 800 which is identical to the Nexus 5 and so is the RAM. However, since it's a custom ui, it takes up about 1.3GB of ram all the time. That being said, I haven't faced any lag or stutters even once!

f. The battery on this thing is humongous! It's a 3050 mAh Li-On battery which IMO will last you an entire day easily even if you do some casual gaming every now and then.

g. The software used (MIUI) is simply awesome. It has numerous features (after all it's a custom rom) and it's my favorite android skin after "pure" vanilla android.

h. The LED notification light is situated on the top portion of the phone next to the sensor which is very conveniently located as compared to nexus 5's bottom one.

i. I only installed a couple of games like Leo's forture and Subway surfer and it ran smoothly without a hint of any lag.

4.

Cons:

I really couldn't think of any cons when I was using the device for 4-5 hours but I'll state some of the inconvenient things which I faced.

a. The round bezels of the phone aren't very tactile as mentioned earlier.

b. The power button rattles if we press it firmly but you can get over it.

c. The edges of the phone are kinda sharp and can easily chip if it collides with something.

d. The display as mentioned earlier is kinda/sorta washed out and the viewing angles are not that great. (Viewing angles part could be a pro or a con depending on the situation)

e. It has just 16gigs of storage. (12gb user available) and lacks SD card slot.

f. It doesn't have 4g/LTE connectivity. But we Indians probably don't mind that :silly:

g. Even though the overall build quality is great, but something's not right when you hold it. You can feel it. I can't explain that.

5.

Conclusion:

Xiaomi Mi3 is a high device end with top notch specs on paper and behaves exactly the same in real life usage as well and coupled with Xiaomi's MIUI custom rom, it's a total eye candy. When you look at their pricing strategy you really wonder where Xiaomi has cut corners to push such specs on this device. I guess only time will tell. As of now, I would blindly reccomend it to anyone who is has a low budget, don't care about updates/pure android and want top notch specs.

These are my first impressions on this device and will keep y'all posted if I find anything else to report back.

Have a good day! :D

[MENTION=4686816]rohit25[/MENTION]

[MENTION=2759539]shhbz[/MENTION] [MENTION=5446352]Sukrith[/MENTION]

---------- Post added at 06:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:34 PM ----------

Here are some pics of the same.. Forgot to add it in my previous post.. :silly:

http://www.vinu.info/f/u/82IMG_20140725_083432.jpg

http://www.vinu.info/f/u/67IMG_20140725_083550.jpg

http://www.vinu.info/f/u/20IMG_20140725_083649.jpg

http://www.vinu.info/f/u/69IMG_20140725_083758.jpg

http://www.vinu.info/f/u/55IMG_20140725_085155.jpg

http://www.vinu.info/f/u/10IMG_20140725_175752.jpg