TechyLH: XIAOMI MI 4i, the RM749 phone!

Xiaomi just keeps on growing and growing...

Launched in India as part of Xiaomi’s strategy to expand beyond China, The Mi 4i is actually quite a surprise. Many would have thought that the first truly global smartphone by Xiaomi would either be a totally new flagship on similar level to Mi Note and Mi Note Pro. What Xiaomi offers is like a 5C option to the iPhone 5S to sort of fill the gap that the Mi 4 set when it wasn’t able to deliver globally (LTE bands) but still all is set aside when the pricing and improved specifications were revealed.

Sporting colourful poly-carbonate backs not unlike the 5C and the Meizu Note, this new phone is an alternative to the Mi 4 (since the official device released here has only 3G capability not the full 4G) and is a more global phone as it supports more LTE bands. Surprisingly certain colours doesn’t make the Mi 4i look cheap. Colours such as black or white actually looks good when compared to 5C and Meizu Note which can sometimes feel like toys in the hand. Honestly, the pictures are not doing justice to the phones, you have to see the hands-on video. I personally prefer this back as compared to the 5C, Meizu Note and even the Mi 4.

Source:amanz.net

It’s also a dual-SIM LTE phone, gets a 5-inch Full HD (441 ppi) display supplied by Sharp/JDI (strengthened with Corning Concore OGS) with what Xiaomi is calling the ‘Sunlight Display’ that brightens up individual pixels to make the screen more visible outdoors. The display now has a wide viewing angle of 178⁰. All of these are packed into something that’s slightly smaller than the iPhone 6 but with more screen estate (iPhone 6 has a 4.7-inch display, 326ppi).

Meanwhile the Mi 4i gets the 13MP f/2.0 rear shooter by Samsung/Sony with dual-flash something that is becoming a norm now with smartphones and a 5MP f/1.8 front shooter. When tested, the Mi 4i seems to provide very good macro and HDR photos compared to other 13MP shooter from other smartphones. (See the video review in the link below) Here are a few samples for you to judge yourself.

It has a mid-range Octa-core Snapdragon 615 (2^nd generation) 64-bit processor (quite rare in a phone at this price range) with 2GB RAM (LPDDR3). The OS on the other hand is the latest Android 5.0 with MIUI 6. Internal storage is offered at 16GB for the moment with no room for expansion. The battery is also quite big, coming at 3,120 mAh supplied by Sony or Samsung and is said by Xiaomi to be the most packed battery available and should last more than a day of usage.

To add icing to the cake, the Xiaomi Mi 4i has Wi-fi 802.11AC capability and supports dual-band! The latest standard in Wi-fi technology that is supposedly 3x faster than other Wi-fi. Trust me, this is a feature that only flagship smartphones get. Not what you would expect from a sub RM1000 phone.

All of this is rumoured to be under RM800 which is quite a steal and normal of Xiaomi making good phones at cheap prices. In Malaysia, this should definitely be a big thing.
Price is confirmed to be RM749, even cheaper than expected.

Sources: xiaomi india, lowyat.net, soyacincau.com

3 features that make the Xiaomi Mi4i the most advanced phone below RM800 right now