Xiaomi Mi 4i: A decent performer that won't break the bank

Overview

Mention "Xiaomi" and "affordable devices" is probably the first thing that you would associate with the brand. But the Chinese device maker has been hard at work to prove that it can compete with more premium smartphones. The Mi Note, which was unveiled in January this year, has shown that Xiaomi is fully capable of producing something for the more discerning smartphone user.

Now, Xiaomi is releasing the Mi 4i, a 5-inch, Full HD smartphone packed with technology sourced from top suppliers like Sony, Sharp and Samsung. The Mi 4i is actually based on the already existing Mi 4 (which isn't available in Singapore), and was designed specifically for the India market (thus the "i"). Despite being designed specifically for India, the Mi 4i is not exclusive to India and it will be made available in several markets, such as Singapore. 

Compared to the Mi 4, the Mi 4i uses a different processor (Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 instead of Snapdragon 801) and only has 2GB RAM instead of 3GB. It also uses a slightly different camera module with a lower tier build. Launched locally for just S$279, these dampened specs should still hold up reasonably and that's what we intend to ascertain in this review of the company's 'affordable' flagship for the masses. If you've read our detailed hands-on article from a few weeks back, jump to the later half of this page where we touch on audio/video matters along with notable updates on the user interface.

Design

The Mi 4i has a minimalist rectangular body with rounded edges and a smooth soft-touch matte finish. Constructed from a single piece of polycarbonate, the Mi 4i feels light and well-made - in other words it doesn’t feel like a plastic toy. At 7.8mm thin, the phone isn't the slimmest around, but it feels about right, and gives the Mi 4i a thick enough profile so that it sits comfortably in the hand. Interestingly, compared to the more 'premium' Mi 4, the Mi 4i is slightly thinner and also 19g lighter.

Flip the phone around and you'll see the camera and dual LED flash at the top left corner, and the speaker grille at the middle-bottom of the phone.

Xiaomi has shown five different colors for the Mi 4i - yellow, white, blue, pink, and grey - but for now, only the white version will be available in Singapore. According to Xiaomi, the other colors may be available, depending on demand. We honestly expected a minimum of white and grey given the universal appeal of both colors; here's how the grey edition looks, but unfortunately there's no word on when we might get this color.

Unlike some other phones, the sides of the Mi 4i are relatively uncluttered. The volume rocker and power button sits on the right side of the phone.

As with most of Xiaomi's phones, the Mi 4i  supports dual micro-SIM cards, and the SIM tray can be found on the left of the phone. The Mi 4i will support both FDD-LTE and TDD LTE so it will work with our local 4G frequencies.

The headphone port can be found at the top of the device, while the micro-USB port sits at the bottom of the device.

Display & Audio

Like the Xiaomi Mi 4, the Mi 4i sports a 5-inch display with a Full HD 1,920 x 1,080 pixels resolution (441ppi). Clarity is excellent and both text and pictures look crisp and clean. Viewing angles were also fairly good. One area where the Mi 4i improves over the Mi 4 is its color reproduction. The Mi 4i is capable of displaying up to 95 percent of colors found in the NTSC palette, compared to just 84 percent on the original Mi 4. This puts it on par with the display found on the Mi Note, as well as other flagship devices. The display is protected by Corning Concore glass. Unlike Gorilla Glass that's a discrete layer by itself, the Corning Concore integrates the touch layer within and as such is custom-made for specific device vendors while having the same toughness as Gorilla Glass 3.

Colors on the Mi 4 were generally accurate, if slightly more vivid than we would like, although they're still not anywhere near as vivid as some of the older Samsung AMOLED displays. Having said that, both color and contrast on the Mi 4i can be adjusted, so if you prefer a more neutral look, it's easy to achieve. The default contrast was quite decent, although the blacks aren't quite as deep as an AMOLED display.

Audio on the Mi 4i comes from the single speaker located on the phone's rear. At full volume, the speakers on the Mi 4i are loud enough to be heard from across a small room but struggles to be as loud as some other phones like the HTC One M9. The sound also lacked depth and the treble was a tad on the high side so we wouldn’t recommend blasting it at full volume if you can help it. Plugging in our earphones revealed that the Mi 4i does pretty well at reproducing details in our 320kbps MP3 files, and you can always tinker with the equalizer to get the desired sound. 

User Interface

As with all Xiaomi devices, the Mi 4i runs on a custom skin of Android called MIUI. MIUI is at its sixth iteration and looks pretty similar to iOS in terms of looks and function. It’s responsive, and the large colourful icons make it easy to use. The main difference between MIUI and stock Android is the removal of the apps drawer. Instead, all apps are displayed on the homepage screens (just like iOS). We've covered more on MIUI 6 in our review of the Mi Note.

One thing to note about the Mi 4i is that it lacks expandable storage, and the only variant currently available in Singapore is the 16GB version, which may be insufficient for users who are accustomed to storing a large number of music and video files on their phones. Also, if you install lots of apps, there's not much going to be left for your media. MIUI and its pre-installed apps take up about 2GB, so the phone has just 11GB available right out of the box. Let's hope Xiaomi decides to release the 64GB storage capacity Mi 4i here in Singapore.

Performance Benchmarks

As previously mentioned, the Mi 4i is powered by a Qualcomm second-generation 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 615 processor and an Adreno 405 GPU. The processor has four cores running at 1.7GHz and four power-saving cores that run at 1.1GHz which help to handle tasks that are running in the background. The Mi 4i also comes with 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM and 16GB of internal storage.

For this review, we will be comparing the Xiaomi 4i to the Xiaomi Mi Note, Xiaomi Redmi 2 as well as the slightly more expensive ASUS ZenFone 2. 

Sunspider Javascript

SunSpider JavaScript helps measure the browsing performance of a device when processing JavaScript. It not only takes into consideration the underlying hardware performance, but also assesses how optimized a particular platform is at delivering a high-speed web browsing experience.

The Mi 4i didn’t perform as well as some of the other phones, but general web browsing and opening and exiting apps weren’t too sluggish. It did score better than the Redmi 2, probably due to the 2GB of RAM in the phone, as opposed to the 1GB of RAM found in the Redmi 2.

Quadrant

Quadrant is an Android benchmark that evaluates a device's CPU, memory, I/O and 3D graphics performance. The Mi 4i provides the option to either use the ‘Performance’ or ‘Balanced’ mode when running any processor-intensive task such as benchmarks or games, so we went along with the Performance mode in order to see what the Mi 4i was capable of. The Mi 4i’s second-generation Snapdragon 615 processor fared very well for this test, as it surprisingly beat the rest of the phones we pitted it against, including the Mi Note.

3DMark (2013)

Originally developed as a PC benchmarking tool, 3DMark is now expanded to support multiple platforms including Android OS. The Ice Storm benchmark is designed for smartphones, mobile devices and ARM architecture computers.

For an in-depth understanding of 3DMark for Android, do head over to our article, "3DMark - Android Device GPU Performance Review." In a nutshell, it is an OpenGL ES 2.0 benchmark test that uses fixed off-screen rendering to run two graphics tests designed to stress the GPU performance of your device and a physics test to stress its CPU performance. The benchmark consists of three test portfolios:- Standard (720p resolution rendering), Extreme (1080p resolution rendering with higher quality textures and post-processing effects) and Unlimited (disabled v-sync, display scaling and other OS factors that make it ideal for chipset comparison).

As all recent flagship smartphones have been maxing out the scores on the Standard and Extreme tests, we will only be looking at the scores for Ice Storm Unlimited.

The Mi 4i didn’t perform as well as we thought even though we used the Performance mode, as its Adreno 405 GPU couldn't keep up with either the Mi Note's Adreno 330 GPU or the ZenFone 2's PowerVR G6430 GPU.

Imaging Performance

The Mi 4i is armed with a 13-megapixel rear camera module which uses the same 1/3.06-inch Sony Exmor RS IMX214 CMOS sensor found on the Mi Note and Mi 4. The actual module is slightly different from the Mi 4, which has a six-element lens construction and an f/1.8 aperture, whereas the Mi 4i uses a five-element lens construction with a f/2.0 aperture. Like the Mi 4, the Mi 4i has a Philips dual-LED warm/cold flash.

A new technology found only on the Mi 4i is called Sunlight Display, which uses hardware-level algorithms to automatically adjust the contrast and midtones of a picture whenever you’re using the phone under harsh or really bright light conditions so the display doesn’t wash out.

As with many phones, the volume button doubles up as a shutter button. Holding it (or the onscreen shutter button down) will allow you to shoot in burst mode up to 99 frames.

Imaging quality wasn't too bad, but noise reduction gets very smudgy even at relatively low ISO settings (the below shot is taken at ISO 420).

Battery performance

Our standard battery test for mobile phones includes the following parameters:

• Looping a 800 x 480-pixel video with screen brightness and volume at 100%
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on
• Constant data streaming through email and Twitter

The Mi 4i is armed with a huge 3,120 mAh capacity battery, which is huge for a 5-inch smartphone. Despite this, actual battery performance was slightly disappointing, and it managed to last just under seven hours (the exact timing would be 6 hours and 51 minutes) in our battery test. This still puts it ahead of the Redmi 2, but slightly behind the ASUS ZenFone 2 and way behind the Mi Note, which actually has a smaller 3,000 mAh battery.

Portability

We measure the portability of a device by calculating its battery life to (weight x volume) ratio. As the second thinnest phone among the competition and with decent battery life, the Mi 4i does pretty well here.

Conclusion

The Xiaomi Mi 4i brings a competitive package to the table with an affordable price (S$279) combined with reasonable performance and good build quality. While it's not a phone you would consider if you're very into mobile gaming (since it didn't do very well in the 3DMark benchmark), the Mi 4i performs reasonably well in common tasks such as surfing the web or checking your email, and its 5-inch Full HD display rivals any flagship smartphone out there. In terms of battery life, it will never be a road warrior, but it will probably get you through your work day on a single charge.

Having said that, the biggest drawback to the Mi 4i, and we can see it being a deal breaker for many, is its lack of expandable storage combined with just 16GB internal storage. If you install a lot of apps, and take lots of pictures, you'll quickly run through its 11GB of usable storage (forget about loading it up with all of your favorite Korean dramas). And while Cloud storage can provide a partial solution, it's not always an option.

Despite this critical limitation, compared to the Redmi 2, the Mi 4i is still worth paying an extra $100 as it provides a more premium look and feel, as well as better overall performance, handling and feature like a better screen and camera.

At its price point, the only other phone in the industry that comes close to rival the Mi 4i is the ASUS ZenFone 2 - both the the ME550ML and the ZE551ML (2GB) variants. The former costs only S$299 and has a microSD expansion slot, but its 5.5-inch screen is only 720p in resolution. The more expensive ZE551ML (2GB) phone comes with a Full HD 5.5-inch screen and 32GB internal storage along with expandable memory for S$349. So while the Taiwanese counterpart doesn't necessarily go head-on with the Xiaomi Mi 4i, it still offers a tangible option with a slightly better overall package and gaming performance if you can afford to spend more.

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