Most Indians may have never heard of Xiaomi — but with their keen sense of paisa vasool, they do recognise a good bargain when offered one because one lakh of us committed Rs 13,999 each for the Xiaomi Mi3 smartphone last week, within 39 minutes of bookings opening at Flipkart, bringing the online shopping site crashing for the first time in its history — without ever seeing the product.
Well, we got our hands on an Mi3 — and we can only agree with the keen Indian sense of a great value product. This is almost everything that one can hope for in contemporary high-end smart phones — at almost half the price of competitors.
Also read: Xiaomi Mi 3 Review
An Android phone with the latest 4.4.2 OS; a 5-inch IPS screen that displays full 1080 p HD with surround sound; a 13MP camera; a quad-core Qualcomm chip with 2 GB of RAM; a full day of Internet and talk time. There’s also 2G, 3G, Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi and NFC.
Little has been localised, except providing an India-themed screen and icons which you can download only after registering. The mains plug is made for China; the instruction book is in Chinese — but once you swipe down to unlock the phone and select language, the rest is fairly easy: Xiaomi has its own user interfaces on top of Android.
Sadly, there is no microSD slot though the on-board storage is only 16 GB. (The Mi4 which may take a few more months to reach India has a 64GB option). The music belting out of the metallic grill at the bottom of the phone is enhanced by surround sound and coupled with the HD screen.
