Xiaomi Mi3 Review

I never knew that I would love the Mi3. I have seen this phone carried by Badong of Manila Bulletin as early as April but I just ignored it. I also saw it in Lazada website selling for P14,990 — this was the time that Xiaomi brand was only rumored to be coming to the Philippines and perhaps Lazada’s inventory was coming from China. I have seen and heard news about Xiaomi as the “Apple” in China. But I kind of just ignored it. Until they launched Mi3 and I started to monitor their social media accounts. I was amazed about their marketing strategy and the price points of their phones. I can’t believe a flagship phone selling for only P10,000+.

Unboxing

Even packaging looks really simple. Mi3 is packed on a brown box, no fancy decoration. Just a brown box with the labels Mi3 at the back.

Inside that brown box is the Mi3. When you pull it out, there is another package that contains the tools you need. The SIM tray removal tool is tucked inside together with the Mi3 booklet.

There is another small box inside that holds the charger and the USB connector. The entire package looks sleek and simple.

I was not included in the first batch of bloggers who had the Mi3 review unit first. It was only after a week or two when I got the review unit. I had to return the the review unit twice because I had trouble with the SIM tray. I could not insert my microSIM with adapter to the first unit, and when I tried with the adapter only, it was stuck there and I can’t remove the SIM tray. The second review unit has a defective SIM tray, I had to return again. Finally, I got a working unit and the rest is all history.

Build and design.

Mi3 is very slim at only 8.1mm, it is also very light weighing only 145 grams. You will find the microUSB port at the bottom part on the left and beside it is the speakers, on top of the phone is the 3.5mm audio port and the SIM card tray. On the right side is the power button and the volume rocker.

XIAOMI MI3 uses regular SIM card.

I don’t know if this kind of an advantage or disadvantage, but Mi3 did not use what the rest is using now, a micro SIM. That is why I had to use a SIM adapter to install my microSIM.

There are no physical buttons in front, it has the usual capacitive LED buttons like Menu, Home and Back button. The body of the Mi3 is curved make it easy to hold, but because it is housed on a metallic plastic finish, it might be recommended to buy a casing so that it won’t slip accidentally off your hand.

User Interface and Apps.

Mi3 has MiUI version 5 on top of the Android Kitkat. MiUI is one of the cleanest custom ROM I have ever seen. While a stock Android Kitkat looks promising to others the MiUI offers simple layout and really fast. You will be glad it has no bloatwares installed. Xiaomi pre-installed theme store (a feature I liked so much), asecurity app, and Mi Talk – a chat app for Mi users.

There is also a secret Inbox. I don’t know if I will promote this but it can save secret SMS. To do this you have to continuously pull down the screen in the Inbox and then a screen will come up showing the secret messages.

Xiaomi even created a Philippine theme which is also awesome.

Other say Mi3 copied the iPhone UI, this is because of the absence of the app drawer. All apps that you install goes directly to your home screen. To organize your apps, you have to put it in a folder.

Mi3 is very pretty but its not perfect.

I say its Mi3 is not perfect, I encountered apps that would crash from time to time.

Benchmark

Antutu gave a high score of 31,490.

Call Quality and General Peformance

I can give a high score of 9/10 to Mi3. While I got few apps that crash, 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core CPU , 2GB RAM, and Android KitKat performed very well. I did not experience reboot, hang up or anything that would be really annoying.

Calls are crystal clear because of the noise cancelling feature.

Battery Life

I am not a heavy user now, because I rely most of the time in my home broadband for my Internet needs. I just turn on my data when I go out for coverage, press conferences, meetings and night outs. With the WiFi on the whole time, Mi3 gave me almost almost two days straight. With WiFI on, I would casually check on Facebook, post photo in Instagram, do few Tweets, check email. But with 3G/data turned on, Mi3 gave me more than 12 hours of use.

Camera

I always like a smarpthone that has really good camera. Mi3 has proven to have a really nice camera. Here’s our sample shots.