Xiaomi says that their Mi 4i is a ‘flagship level phone’. In fact, the Mi 4i launch was one of the grandest as far as Xiaomi are concerned, and it was the first device from the company to have been launched outside its home country of China.
The phone has a brilliant form factor, and is made out of materials that haven’t been used on $200 phones before. Does this mean the phone is the best in its range? Lets find out.
Xiaomi Mi 4i Review: Design
The Mi 4i is, according to me, the best designed Xiaomi phone yet. Of course, if you’re a phablet guy you’d disagree; but if you prefer one handed smartphone usage, the Mi 4i is like a dream come true. It hardly feels like a 5-inch phone, and with the comfortable and grippy back, the phone fits your hand like a charm.
In more ways than one, the Mi 4i will remind you of the iPhone 5C. It’s made out of polycarbonate, and is second to the Mi 4 just like the 5C is to the 5S. But of course, the Mi 4i is MUCH cheaper and it runs Android (albeit with a skin that reminds you of the iPhone anyway).
The Mi 4i is lighter and thinner than the metal clad Mi 4, and you’ll realize that within a few seconds with the phone.
As usual for most phones, the entire front is covered in glass. Xiaomi don’t specify this to be Gorilla Glass, but maintain that it is made in close co-operation with Corning (makers of Gorilla Glass). I’m assuming this is the same Corning Concore glass that the Mi 4 uses. Nonetheless, the glass doesn’t seem as scratch proof as the Mi 4; I’ve already managed to find a little scratch on the screen.
Besides that, the front of the phone is really elegant, yet simplistic. I’ve been using the white version of the phone, so the ‘panda effect’ of a black front and white rear looks really attractive. There’s not a lot of black though, it’s only on the top and bottom of the screen — and the size bezels of course.
The earpiece grill is rather tiny, which goes well with the design in my books. Compared to the Mi 4, the Mi 4i certainly looks and feels much better, there’s no two ways about it. Xiaomi did sort of get it wrong with the Mi 4 on the design, some would feel.
Coming back to the Mi 4i, the rear of the phone is a scaled-down rear of the Mi Note. The camera positioning has changed from the Mi 4’s center, and is now on the top left — which again, looks better in my opinion. Also noticeable are the dual LEDs, both of which throw different tones of white light.
The rear also makes home for the speaker grill, right below the Mi logo.
Xiaomi Mi 4i Review: Screen
It’s pure coincidence that you’re reading about the screen of the Mi 4i right after its design and build, for these are the two best things about the phone. The screen is perhaps the best I’ve seen on a 5-inch phone; the OPPO Find 5 comes to mind among other phones with screen almost as good as the Mi 4i’s.
It’s a 5-inch 1920 x 1080p panel if you aren’t aware, same as the Mi 4, yet better. The color reproduction on the Mi 4i is a little more saturated than the Mi 4, but not enough to make it oversaturated. Xiaomi have found the recipe to making a brilliant display with the Mi 4i. Also, quality control seems to be right up there; there’s no bright spots, light bleeding or dead pixels on the screen.
In general, the screen is a complete treat on the Mi 4i, and is something which will invariably leave you surprised, at least at the first look.
Xiaomi Mi 4i Review: Performance
The last one year or so has been about this new category of phones that you know as the mid-range flagships. The Mi 4i is perhaps the best specimen from that category, with a flagship-level design and form, and mid-range processing.
As you may have guessed from my previous statement, the performance of the Mi 4i isn’t really flagship-level. In fact, I found the Snapdragon 615 (second-gen) to have a performance that tends more towards poor than average. On paper, the Snapdragon 615 might look like a competitor to the MT6752 or the MT6732, but it’s a completely different story in the real world.
But then again, the Yu Yureka uses the same chipset (in fact, the older generation thereof) and yet manages to impress with the performance. Does this mean that the resource-heavy MIUI ROM is taking a toll on performance? Yes. MIUI is full of animations and other intuitive features that make it very usable, but at the cost of performance.
So if you only use your phone for things like taking pictures, surfing the web and say some IM, the Mi 4i would probably suffice for you. However, if you remotely use multiple apps at once, I’d strongly recommend you to look elsewhere, unless you’re open to flashing custom ROMs on the device.
Gizchina News of the week
As you might already have read, the phone does heat up quite a bit too. Xiaomi keeps pushing updates every now and then, which claim to ‘fix overheating issues’, but not a lot of progress has been made on that front. Clearly, the Mi 4i isn’t one for the power user.
Here’s some benchmark scores that the Mi 4i manages.
- AnTuTu: 37,350
- Quadrant Standard: 24,234
- Geekbench 3 Single Core: 700
- Geekbench 3 Multi Core: 2,692
Xiaomi Mi 4i Review: Camera
The Mi 4i inherits the camera tech from the Mi Note, so it is supposed to be pretty good. You will be happy to know that it is quite a good camera; I haven’t used the Mi Note enough to tell if the Mi 4i has a camera as good, but it’s a mighty fine camera phone in itself.
Just to run through the specifications of the camera – the rear is a 13 mega-pixel Sony/Samsung camera with a 5 element lens, an f/2.0 aperture and dual tone flash. Sure, we’ve had phones with f/1.8 and even larger apertures, but somehow the Mi 4i still manages to perform pretty well even in low lights. On the front, the phone has a 5 mega-pixel f/1.8 shooter with an 80-degree wide angle.
Almost any decent phone will give you good results in daylight, but what sets a good camera apart from an average one is the low light performance. As you see from the samples below, the Mi 4i does a great job in the night and other low-light scenarios too.
Xiaomi Mi 4i Review: Battery
If you aren’t aware yet, you might be surprised to know that the Mi 4i comes with the largest smartphone battery Xiaomi have ever shipped. This means that the Mi 4i has a bigger battery than the Mi Note AND the Mi Note Pro, which is pretty weird. And impressive, for the Mi 4i.
It’s a 3120mAh non-removable cell which performs really well. Somehow you don’t get OnePlus One-levels of battery performance, but what the Mi 4i does with the 3120mAh cell is something you wouldn’t really mind, and perhaps like if you’re one who knows what to expect from a $200 phone.
With non-hardware intensive usage, you’ll get close to 6 hours of screen on time with every charge, which is pretty impressive for a phone that doesn’t cost a bomb. I’m also pretty sure that if Xiaomi manage to fix the heating problems (up to an extent), the battery life would get even better, as Le Chatelier’s principle states.
In general, the Mi 4i will last you a day pretty much regardless of how you use your phone. In my case (virtually no gaming), I got close to a day and a half on a single charge on most days.
Xiaomi Mi 4i Review: Reception
Cell radio, WiFi and GPS reception isn’t usually a problem with companies like Xiaomi. In fact, from the Xiaomi phones I’ve used, I’ve come to realize that the company uses some of the best antennas on its phones, and the Mi 4i is no exception. WiFi performance is pretty strong despite having a lot of WiFi interference. GPS and cell radio reception too, are satisfactory. GPS did take a while to get its first fix, but since then performance has been much better.
Xiaomi Mi 4i Review: ROM
This is where I believe the problems of the Mi 4i lie. A brilliant phone otherwise, the device is let down by stutters every now and then along with apps being force closed. 2GB of RAM should usually be enough for usual daily activities, but that doesn’t really seem to be the case with the Mi 4i.
Besides the stutters and FC’s, the MIUI 6 ROM (based on Android 5.0.2 Lollipop) is a visual treat as usual. Of course there is the iOS inspiration, but MIUI is a ROM born out of the need to incorporate more features, while on the other hand, makers (especially Chinese) have been dishing out new ROMs just for the sake of it.
Xiaomi do provide regular OTAs, but it looks like some of them are pushed in a hurry. For example, the OTA update to MIUI 6.5.5.0 literally rendered the front camera unusable for those who did install the update.
For example, take a look at the picture below, taken on the front camera of the Mi 4i (it wasn’t particularly a low-light situation). The issue is quite a massive one, and its surprising the testers didn’t report this to Xiaomi before the update went live. More info on the issue can be found on the MIUI forums.
This isn’t something you expect from a company like Xiaomi.
Xiaomi Mi 4i Review: Conclusion
The Mi 4i scores heavily on build, display and camera, but is unfortunately let down on performance. At the first look, the phone is bound to impress you with all its glitz, but as you start using the phone and install your usual suite of apps, the disappointment slowly creeps in. It wouldn’t be unfair to say that the US$110 Elephone P6000 with the MT6732 feels a lot smoother in performance than the Mi 4i.
For the first few hours with the phone, I truly believed I was looking at my next ‘daily driver’; but as it turns out, there’s going to be more waiting to do.
Xiaomi still have the opportunity to make it up with frequent and effective software updates, which they seem to be doing. Nonetheless, if you are looking for a 5-inch phone in the market and want a Xiaomi, the Mi 4 with the reduced prices, in my book, is a much better bet despite a lower quality screen and perhaps a camera that doesn’t quite match the Mi 4i’s.
International buyers in countries where the Mi 4i isn’t available can purchase via HonorBuy.com, who are offering the phone for 265 Euro with free shipping.
[Mi.com]
TCL 3S is absolutely the same spec with minus 100$.
The TCL also has the added bonus of an SD card slot. TCL makes some very good phones.
Hi balco, would you recommend to go for the TCL 3S sold at $139 on jd.com or the Nubia Z9 Mini sold at 250$? Thanks.
I haven’t seen many reviews of the TCL yet but I have had a little experience with their devices and they are all very good phones. I only had one Nubia, a Z7 and it was very good phone let down by poor software.
It was a great phone in theory but Xiaomi’s insistence on using SD SoC’s is this phones downfall. SD’s 64 bit SoC’s have been a mess. The 410 is vastly underpowered and the 615 and 810 are portable heaters. If this had the 6752 or a Exnyos chip inside it would be in contention for phone of the year. The Mi4 was one of the best phones available last year and many resellers sell it for only slightly more than this model. If you want the Mi experience your best bet is either Mi4 or the Redmi 2 both which are excellent.
Just right in energy efficiency.
The heating isn’t incredible btw!
Mediatek has low-end GPUs even in flagship SoC
Using powervr g6200 with 2560 resolution is just ridiculous
According to Gfxbench database,
MT6752’s GPU Mali-T760 MP2 on par with SD615’s Adreno 405 and MT6735’s far superior than SD410’s Adreno 306.
MT6795’s PowerVR G6200 faster than MT6595’s and almost same as fast with Adreno 330.
MT6753’s Mali-T720 a bit slower than SD615, and MT6735 still faster than Adreno 306.
At similar costs probably Mediatek chips does offer more powerful GPUs or same performance at less costs.
Shh! You can’t use real world facts and common sense in a MTK vs SD battle. Personally I don’t play sides I think they both make good and bad SoC’s but there is no debating the current 64 bit SD’s are terrible. The Samsung produced 820 can’t get here fast enough for Qualcomm.
i heard it could hit the market this fall with Xiaomi MI5
I would sincerely hope so. There’s also that rumor from little over a month ago (read here), stating that Xiaomi is also prepping up a Mi4s to be released prior to the Mi5.
they are all rumors, but at this point i wouldn’t be surprised of anything anymore.
It’s not a secret that Qualcomm’s “mistake” of this year messed the production line of several brands:
I mean, look at HTC,LG and Xiaomi just to name few of them.
i guess we’ll see what’s gonna happen soon, but whatever it is i hope they drop the 16GB formula for a “flagship” phone and they start with 32GB at least.
oh… and give us a black phone for God’s sake!!
Haha true, please Xiaomi put 32GB storage instead 16GB (minest 4gb for the system) and make the black version available first!
Yes, t760 mp2 is the same crap as Adreno405
but low-end g6200 is about TWO times weaker than 2 year old Adreno330, 76 vs 158 gflops
It is just so ridiculous that we are offered to buy top CPUs with low-end GPUs
And I am not saying that Mediatek uses an obsolete 28nm process while 14nm is available!
Give them some time.
They have been known for low and mid range SoC and they are pretty good at it.
If Qualcomm is working on making better SoC is also due to the competition with Mediatek.
the more they compete, the better quality products we will get, and for a better price.
Mediatek has been lacking on providing a good GPU, that’s true, it could be for marketing reason.
it seems they are listening to their customers demands and soon they will provide high end SoC with performant GPUs.
New Mali are not bad, they simply need more than 2 cores.
What was your expectation for mid-range instead to T760 MP2 or Adreno 405?
And again that low-end* G6200 in MT6795 as fast as Adreno 330 according to Gfxbench. 2 times GFLOPS doesn’t translated to 2 times performance in the real world. Where do you get the idea it’s 2 times weaker other than that? Also what was your expectation for upper mid-range?
Pls links to gfxbench
Even it is so, graphic benchmarks measure not only GPU, but also CPU
So, having something like adreno330 this mediatek will be much better in terms of graphic performance
I am just saying that putting really low-end (g6450 is mid range, while g6650 is flagship) and 2 gens old GPU to the top processor is not OK
I was expecting that today´s mid range SoCs will be more powerful than two year old s800 because they have new technologies like 64 bits, but they are not. S800/801 is way more powerful than S615.
Xiaomi Mi4i or ZTE Nubia Z9 mini?
Nubia has a cutting edge camera module and metal frame but.. After z5 and z7 broken after few months I wouldnt like to advice it
So I chose Xiaomi Mi4 as it has better design, much better GPU, IR blaster and costs 20 bucks lower
Asus Zenfone 2.
I bought it.
-the best screen ever seen
-design and quality A+++
-laggy interface and BAD CHOICE the 615!
-Battery NOT good for 3200 mAh (maybe a day of life, same as my 5s)
-camera awesome in high light OR flash but BAD QUALITY in low.
-mt6735 would be better, in combination with price.
Waiting the new rom to solve the smoothness ettc
–
Yash, what do you mean by poor performance? is the rom laggy?
what do you mean by using more than an app at once? can you provide us an example and the behavior you noticed?
thanks
The ROM isn’t laggy per se, but once you have a few apps running in the background it does start acting up. By ‘few apps’ I mean (in my case): Chrome, WhatsApp, Telegram and maybe YouTube. Of course I don’t expect the phone to switch between them at the blink of an eye, but even with a lot of patience I don’t think I’ll be able to live with the phone. Every MT6752 phone has been better than this.
wow, that’s not even a heavy use scenario since a couple of apps you listed are idle and maybe take some ram.
this year has been a disgrace for Qualcomm.
what a shame
I had some hands on time with one and I can confirm what he is saying. I had Facebook, Chrome and Line open and it was very slow switching between them. It reminded me of the older MTK chips that were terrible in design.
i didn’t doubt what he said, i wanted him to be more specific so i could understand what i WAS going through buying it.
i wanted to get it for my wife but at this point I’ll pass.
she’s a light user but it seems this one can’t even handle the basics.
the heaviest workload would be browsing something while on Skype.
I’ll wait for something better.
no rush, her contract expires this September.
Have you considered the Meizu M1/2 Note for her? Or even the Redmi 2.
she wants a 5″ with a good camera
It’s a lot of money but the Vibe Shot has an excellent camera. Have you checked out the Blu Life One? It’s selling on Amazon for $99, has a Sony IMX 135 and looks pretty good. I’ve used a few Blu phones before if your not a power user they are very good.
I’m considering the Vibe Shot, I’m waiting for more reviews.
another demand is a clean rom without gimmicks
Won’t find that in many Lenovo phones lol. They are a hive for bloatware.
Are you ok?
LOL 😀
Do you like?
Lol !
Mi band for eweryone!
if mt6752, would buy in a heartbeat.
TCL 3S is absolutely the same spec with minus 100$.
The TCL also has the added bonus of an SD card slot. TCL makes some very good phones.
Hi balco, would you recommend to go for the TCL 3S sold at $139 on jd.com or the Nubia Z9 Mini sold at 250$? Thanks.
I haven’t seen many reviews of the TCL yet but I have had a little experience with their devices and they are all very good phones. I only had one Nubia, a Z7 and it was very good phone let down by poor software.
It was a great phone in theory but Xiaomi’s insistence on using SD SoC’s is this phones downfall. SD’s 64 bit SoC’s have been a mess. The 410 is vastly underpowered and the 615 and 810 are portable heaters. If this had the 6752 or a Exnyos chip inside it would be in contention for phone of the year. The Mi4 was one of the best phones available last year and many resellers sell it for only slightly more than this model. If you want the Mi experience your best bet is either Mi4 or the Redmi 2 both which are excellent.
Just right in energy efficiency.
The heating isn’t incredible btw!
Mediatek has low-end GPUs even in flagship SoC
Using powervr g6200 with 2560 resolution is just ridiculous
According to Gfxbench database,
MT6752’s GPU Mali-T760 MP2 on par with SD615’s Adreno 405 and MT6735’s far superior than SD410’s Adreno 306.
MT6795’s PowerVR G6200 faster than MT6595’s and almost same as fast with Adreno 330.
MT6753’s Mali-T720 a bit slower than SD615, and MT6735 still faster than Adreno 306.
At similar costs probably Mediatek chips does offer more powerful GPUs or same performance at less costs.
Shh! You can’t use real world facts and common sense in a MTK vs SD battle. Personally I don’t play sides I think they both make good and bad SoC’s but there is no debating the current 64 bit SD’s are terrible. The Samsung produced 820 can’t get here fast enough for Qualcomm.
i heard it could hit the market this fall with Xiaomi MI5
I would sincerely hope so. There’s also that rumor from little over a month ago (read here[END_OF_LINK1]), stating that Xiaomi is also prepping up a Mi4s to be released prior to the Mi5.
they are all rumors, but at this point i wouldn’t be surprised of anything anymore.
It’s not a secret that Qualcomm’s “mistake” of this year messed the production line of several brands:
I mean, look at HTC,LG and Xiaomi just to name few of them.
i guess we’ll see what’s gonna happen soon, but whatever it is i hope they drop the 16GB formula for a “flagship” phone and they start with 32GB at least.
oh… and give us a black phone for God’s sake!!
Haha true, please Xiaomi put 32GB storage instead 16GB (minest 4gb for the system) and make the black version available first!
Yes, t760 mp2 is the same crap as Adreno405
but low-end g6200 is about TWO times weaker than 2 year old Adreno330, 76 vs 158 gflops
It is just so ridiculous that we are offered to buy top CPUs with low-end GPUs
And I am not saying that Mediatek uses an obsolete 28nm process while 14nm is available!
Give them some time.
They have been known for low and mid range SoC and they are pretty good at it.
If Qualcomm is working on making better SoC is also due to the competition with Mediatek.
the more they compete, the better quality products we will get, and for a better price.
Mediatek has been lacking on providing a good GPU, that’s true, it could be for marketing reason.
it seems they are listening to their customers demands and soon they will provide high end SoC with performant GPUs.
New Mali are not bad, they simply need more than 2 cores.
What was your expectation for mid-range instead to T760 MP2 or Adreno 405?
And again that low-end* G6200 in MT6795 as fast as Adreno 330 according to Gfxbench. 2 times GFLOPS doesn’t translated to 2 times performance in the real world. Where do you get the idea it’s 2 times weaker other than that? Also what was your expectation for upper mid-range?
Pls links to gfxbench
Even it is so, graphic benchmarks measure not only GPU, but also CPU
So, having something like adreno330 this mediatek will be much better in terms of graphic performance
I am just saying that putting really low-end (g6450 is mid range, while g6650 is flagship) and 2 gens old GPU to the top processor is not OK
I was expecting that today´s mid range SoCs will be more powerful than two year old s800 because they have new technologies like 64 bits, but they are not. S800/801 is way more powerful than S615.
Xiaomi Mi4i or ZTE Nubia Z9 mini?
Nubia has a cutting edge camera module and metal frame but.. After z5 and z7 broken after few months I wouldnt like to advice it
So I chose Xiaomi Mi4 as it has better design, much better GPU, IR blaster and costs 20 bucks lower
Asus Zenfone 2.
I bought it.
-the best screen ever seen
-design and quality A+++
-laggy interface and BAD CHOICE the 615!
-Battery NOT good for 3200 mAh (maybe a day of life, same as my 5s)
-camera awesome in high light OR flash but BAD QUALITY in low.
-mt6735 would be better, in combination with price.
Waiting the new rom to solve the smoothness ettc
–
i just love the design and how compact it is for a 5-inch. it would be awesome if xiaomi updates this device with a mediatek soc somewhere down the road.
I thought Mi4 camera is better then Mi4i.
Mmm all other reviwers say the camera was good but that the Mi4 camera was better, this is the first review were the reviewer states the opposite, and the images on Mi4 vs Mi4i reviews seems to favor the Mi4 most of the time, but of course both with great image quality for a phone camera.
Yash, what do you mean by poor performance? is the rom laggy?
what do you mean by using more than an app at once? can you provide us an example and the behavior you noticed?
thanks
The ROM isn’t laggy per se, but once you have a few apps running in the background it does start acting up. By ‘few apps’ I mean (in my case): Chrome, WhatsApp, Telegram and maybe YouTube. Of course I don’t expect the phone to switch between them at the blink of an eye, but even with a lot of patience I don’t think I’ll be able to live with the phone. Every MT6752 phone has been better than this.
I had some hands on time with one and I can confirm what he is saying. I had Facebook, Chrome and Line open and it was very slow switching between them. It reminded me of the older MTK chips that were terrible in design.
i didn’t doubt what he said, i wanted him to be more specific so i could understand what i WAS going through buying it.
i wanted to get it for my wife but at this point I’ll pass.
she’s a light user but it seems this one can’t even handle the basics.
the heaviest workload would be browsing something while on Skype.
I’ll wait for something better.
no rush, her contract expires this September.
wow, that’s not even a heavy use scenario since a couple of apps you listed are idle and maybe take some ram.
this year has been a disgrace for Qualcomm.
what a shame
Have you considered the Meizu M1/2 Note for her? Or even the Redmi 2.
she wants a 5″ with a good camera
It’s a lot of money but the Vibe Shot has an excellent camera. Have you checked out the Blu Life One? It’s selling on Amazon for $99, has a Sony IMX 135 and looks pretty good. I’ve used a few Blu phones before if your not a power user they are very good.
I’m considering the Vibe Shot, I’m waiting for more reviews.
another demand is a clean rom without gimmicks
Won’t find that in many Lenovo phones lol. They are a hive for bloatware.
Are you ok?
LOL 😀
Do you like?
Lol !
Mi band for eweryone!
if mt6752, would buy in a heartbeat.
“Mid-range flagship ” OMFG!!!
i just love the design and how compact it is for a 5-inch. it would be awesome if xiaomi updates this device with a mediatek soc somewhere down the road.
I thought Mi4 camera is better then Mi4i.
Mmm all other reviwers say the camera was good but that the Mi4 camera was better, this is the first review were the reviewer states the opposite, and the images on Mi4 vs Mi4i reviews seems to favor the Mi4 most of the time, but of course both with great image quality for a phone camera.
“Mid-range flagship ” OMFG!!!
Has anyone flashed custom ROMs on the Mi4i? Is there any improvements in performance and heat issues?
Has anyone flashed custom ROMs on the Mi4i? Is there any improvements in performance and heat issues?
Personally I don’t think it’s the snapdragon 615, at the end of the day its not a bad cpu, with the right rom you can even get decent performance out of snapdragon 410. The issue is MIUI V6 and how heavy and bloated it has become in recent times, it also has issues with power and ram management.
Personally I don’t think it’s the snapdragon 615, at the end of the day its not a bad cpu, with the right rom you can even get decent performance out of snapdragon 410. The issue is MIUI V6 and how heavy and bloated it has become in recent times, it also has issues with power and ram management.
The big downfall of the Mi4i is the price, right now the Mi4 is sold at 20$ more, so in my opinion there is no story. Unless one needs the dual sim option.
On the other hand it’s a shame that Xiaomi still sells the Mi4 and the Mi4i only with 16 Gb.
The big downfall of the Mi4i is the price, right now the Mi4 is sold at 20$ more, so in my opinion there is no story. Unless one needs the dual sim option.
On the other hand it’s a shame that Xiaomi still sells the Mi4 and the Mi4i only with 16 Gb.
Hey guys! I planned to buy a new smartphone under 210 Euro soon and I hesitate between the mi4i and ulefone be touch 2. What should I buy ? Do you have others idea ? Thanks
Hey guys! I planned to buy a new smartphone under 210 Euro soon and I hesitate between the mi4i and ulefone be touch 2. What should I buy ? Do you have others idea ? Thanks