48 hrs with the new Xiaomi Redmi Note - My first impressions or why China will take over the smartphone market (read this if you are on the market for a new phablet)
Costing less that $130 (or 93 Euros) you are getting a MediaTek Octa-Core SoC @1.4Ghz with a Mali 450 GPU which not only gives you enough performance to manage your everyday tasks, you can even play very demanding games like Real Racing 3.
Yeah, I hear you... this is only a 720p display (5.5-inch btw.) but did I really miss a FullHD resolution? Not at all! 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage sounds a little bit limited and it might even make me wanna upgrade to the version with 2GB RAM and 16GB int. storage (which also sports the 1.7Ghz version of this mighty Octa-Core SoC) but for now I am perfectly fine with the overall performance (check the benchmark results that I've attached).
The 13MP camera on the back is slightly better than the one of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2
and the 5MP frontfacing cam is
perfect for high resolution selfies. Yes, this is of course a dual-SIM phone
which makes it a perfect travel companion for me and with this 3100mAh battery,
it easily got me through the day (and trust me, I am the worst enemy of any
smartphone battery out there)
Don't let me go into too many details, my detailed review will be up by the end of this week but I need to share one important impression with you: Xiaomi devices are not about building dead cheap handsets... these devices are part of an ecosystem and it is damn thoughtful and good looking one.
The iconic MIUI design tells me, that their developers and designers are well aware of the beauty of simplicity and usability. It all makes sense... their shop, their theme store... the cloud backend. This is generations ahead of the sometimes overloaded Android versions from Samsung, HTC or LG. It looks good, it feels good... hell, it is just very impressive and you start to appreciate the amazing development of this company, that got in just 3 years from zero to hero in mainland China.
Yes, I've installed all the Google apps to figure out if how they work on a MIUI platform (and it was actually shocking to realize how many Mountain View default apps I was using), especially because many of the pre-installed apps are in Chinese.
The combination of the Mediatek MT6592 Octa-Core with a 720p display, a 3100mAh battery and MIUI is such a compelling argument, that I would be even willing to pay $299 for the Redmi Note.
If Xiaomi continues to release such premium devices at these price points, they have the chance to take over the western markets by storm. This is absolutely amazing and they are only the spearhead of this new breed of young and adventurous Chinese mobile manufacturers like Oppo, Gionee, PlusOne, UMi or Zopo. They all care about design, materials and satisfied customers...
The Redmi Note is just one example of this disruptive Chinese industry that will shake up the global markets.
Don't let me go into too many details, my detailed review will be up by the end of this week but I need to share one important impression with you: Xiaomi devices are not about building dead cheap handsets... these devices are part of an ecosystem and it is damn thoughtful and good looking one.
The iconic MIUI design tells me, that their developers and designers are well aware of the beauty of simplicity and usability. It all makes sense... their shop, their theme store... the cloud backend. This is generations ahead of the sometimes overloaded Android versions from Samsung, HTC or LG. It looks good, it feels good... hell, it is just very impressive and you start to appreciate the amazing development of this company, that got in just 3 years from zero to hero in mainland China.
Yes, I've installed all the Google apps to figure out if how they work on a MIUI platform (and it was actually shocking to realize how many Mountain View default apps I was using), especially because many of the pre-installed apps are in Chinese.
The combination of the Mediatek MT6592 Octa-Core with a 720p display, a 3100mAh battery and MIUI is such a compelling argument, that I would be even willing to pay $299 for the Redmi Note.
If Xiaomi continues to release such premium devices at these price points, they have the chance to take over the western markets by storm. This is absolutely amazing and they are only the spearhead of this new breed of young and adventurous Chinese mobile manufacturers like Oppo, Gionee, PlusOne, UMi or Zopo. They all care about design, materials and satisfied customers...
The Redmi Note is just one example of this disruptive Chinese industry that will shake up the global markets.
No comments:
Post a Comment