The Xiaomi Mi 4i may have been lauded for being the compact and good looking device that it is, but it seems like it isn’t all about outer appearance for the phone.
A teardown by Hugo Barra himself for PhoneRadar reveals that the phone looks as good on the inside. It is mentioned that due to the super-compact nature of the internals, addition of a microSD slot was made impossible. The narrator rightly adds that the second SIM slot could double up as a microSD slot, an answer to which we’re still looking for.
Nonetheless, take a look at the Mi 4i teardown video here:
As I mentioned before, and as you can see from the video, the components on the Mi 4i are indeed quite tightly packed. In fact, the motherboard that sits inside the Mi 4i is the smallest that Xiaomi has ever produced for a smartphone!
DON’T MISS: Xiaomi Mi 4i Hands On
Meanwhile, if you’ve paid attention, you’ll realize Barra once again confirms that the 13 mega-pixel sensor on the Mi 4i is indeed the one that is found on the much more expensive Mi Note. This means that the Mi 4i should have better picture taking abilities than the more expensive Mi 4.
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No one gets excited like Hugo!
I think I found my next work phone.
I like everything about this phone except the fact that Hugo thinks this phone will only be used in the first world countries. Cloud Memory requires 3G/4G which isn’t cheap at all over here. So what the hell was he thinking?
On one hand they are giving us an excellent camera and on the other hand they are saying, “Oops we forgot to include enough memory for you to use that camera and take pictures, so take pictures and delete the old ones immediately”
I think he is thinking this is a midrange phone intended for people who don’t need a lot of storage space.
People in India who heard about or would buy a Xiaomi phone are young people. People who are nagging about lack of external SD are those exact same people who are probably under 30 years old.
So, it was a bad move for Xiaomi, just look at all the blogs,youtube videos and articles where Indians are saying this exact thing over and over again.
It is like releasing a phone for the US and not supporting 4G. The phone would work but people would miss out the higher speeds.
Within 15 seconds of the sale going live Xiaomi sold 40,000 units. Like I said its more than just youngsters who buy phones.
Don’t forget resellers that want to take a piece of that cake 🙂
Anyword on the 64 GB version of this phone ? that will be quite nice.
Personally I don’t see a 64 GB version coming out. That is based on nothing other than opinion there has been no official word one way or the other as far as I know.
Wow! Amazine! Just can,t wait to see how Mi5 looks like.
I’m a big fan of MT6752 phones and I always thought SD615 were crap comparing to them.
This phone is starting to tickle me though.
Obviously it’s going to be hard to compete with mediatek options below 200$ but I think it might steal some customers from the premium build ones like the Meizu.
I think that Barra is a douche but I have to admit he’s the right man at the right spot.
Don’t forget though this is the 2nd generation SD 615 which is brand new and hasn’t really been tested out yet fully. The 6752 will most likely still be a better SoC, but Qualcomm appears to have closed the gap some with initial benchmarks.
Yes, I didn’t forget that. That’s why I’m changing my mind about it.
I think it’s a good alternative for premium phones like this one or vivo for example.
Yea i want to see some hands on and reviews first but I am seriously considering this as my new phone instead of the Xshot I originally intended to get. I ordered the P7000 as well. One will be my personal phone, one will be work.
I was tempted by the p7000, but I really can’t deal with preorders, I’m too impatient.
Ye, probably best then, for some reason I’ve got a strange feeling that the p7000 won’t live up to the hype…
I was thinking of getting one to replace my misses zp999 but I’ll wait I think for some real reviews of it…
I actually ordered two lol. Probably give the second one to my coworker.
10Mb sized pics on a 9Gb non expandable memory.
Sure will be fun managing 9Gb.
Why are your pics so large? My biggest pictures are usually around 4mb.
Even so what many people are forgetting is there is a very easy way around the no SD card problem: OTG. Flash drives are incredibly cheap these days. I bought a 64 GB flash drive + an OTG cable for about 10 USD.
You are thinking inside the box. People in India travel a lot in trains and buses and it is very easy to lose a USB drive. It is a lot easier to carry a Phone with increased memory, rather than carrying a phone and a USB drive.
Just google the term “buses india” and “trains india” using “Google Images” to figure out how jam packed the trains and buses are there. They made the phone cheap so that people who don’t own a private car can use it, why isn’t it obvious to them that the segment of people they are targeting with this price point aren’t the USB+OTG cable carrying type. I hope you get my point.
I just don’t like the idea of regularly having a OTG dongle and USB drive hanging off my phone. It’s atheistically unpleasing to my eye and if you need to regularly use one (by that I mean daily or every other day) then it means you probably bought a phone that doesn’t meet your needs.
I really find hard to picture a scenario where you have to stay plugged to a USB drive.
6gb of music, 6 of recent pictures and videos.
Who does carry videos of vacations of 15 years ago?
Why do you have constantly have it plugged in? The Mi4i has 12.90 GB’s of available space, according to initial reviews, how much storage space do your really need at one time? You transfer what you need for that trip over and store the cable and flash drive in your pocket.
Obviously he was suggesting a workaround.
Lot of Chinese phones are not perfect. They might miss a SD card slot, they might have some Chinese “feature” in their software, they might miss LTE bands.
If you can deal with some of those missing than u can save few bucks comparing to regular brands like Samsung, LG etc..
I live in Bangkok I know how congested trains and buses can be which is why I never attach my OTG + Flash drive when I am on either. Before I get on said train or bus (when I don’t drive) I swap over whatever files i need to the phones main storage. It literally takes about 30 seconds.
As for the “typical” person who will buy this phone, there is no such person that exists. Everyone has different needs and requirements when buying a phone. For some people 10GB is more than enough space, for others it is not. SD card is easier but this phone doesn’t have one, so your only other options are OTG + Flash or Cloud Storage.
I don’t think there is any country in the world where youngsters meaninglessly don’t carry a tonne of useless files with them. On top of that they only released the white version in India today and who knows when different colored ones will be available. 🙁
That’s a BS from Xiaomi that I’ll never understand.
They wait until the phone gets obsolete to finally release the black version
That may be true but cell phones are bought my more than just youngsters.
this is why I hope we get a 64 GB version of this phone
No memory slot, no buy. 😀
It actually has more bezels than their flagship which Btw is almost a year old. I mean what’s the big deal, it’s not as if they made any major step forwards design wise.