The Xiaomi Mi 4i turned out to be a bit of a disappointment after all the hype, mostly because of the resource heavy ROM.
TCL have a phone with pretty much the same specifications but a lighter price tag on sale. What should also be light besides the price is the ROM, which could make a lot of difference to the overall usability.
Just to recap the specifications of the TCL 3S, if you aren’t aware; the phone has a 5-inch 1920 x 1080p display, a Snapdragon 615 octa-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of ROM, a 13 mega-pixel rear camera and an 8 mega-pixel front camera. As mentioned, this pretty much echoes the specs sheet of the Xiaomi Mi 4i… with a difference in the generation of the SoC: the Mi 4i uses the second-gen Snapdragon 615 while the TCL 3S appears to be using the first-gen model clocked at 1.5GHz.
READ: Xiaomi Mi 4i Review
The Xiaomi Mi 4i just had its kernel sources made public, so that should help. Nonetheless, how the TCL 3S performs will be something you’ll probably be very interested in knowing. The Mi 4i is around US$205 in the markets where Xiaomi is selling the phone; resellers are offering it for US$250 and upwards.
The TCL 3S, on the other hand, is listed for US$140 on Everbuying.net. That does seem like quite an attractive price for a phone like that; we’ll try and get our hands on one for review.
Meanwhile, let us know which one you’d rather go for — the Xiaomi Mi 4i or the TCL 3S (or something else altogether?).
Thanks for sharing Yash, that TCL phone is really tempting me to be honest with you. I am just waiting for more reviews to know if there is any heating issue with the Snapdragon 615 Soc. That being said, the phone has an amazing screen resolution and it seems that its UI is a bit buggy. Maybe that will be fixed with software updates. Thanks for saving me from buying the Mi4i. Also Xiaomi has released a MI4 with 2GB RAM and 32GB ROM TDD-LTE, I hope to see a FDD LTE in black color soon so I could buy it.
Highly unlilely to be any heating issues with the Snapdragon 615 as it just has some A53 cores which don’t use a lot of power and the GPU is also not too power hungry.
The real problem are the A57 core, especially when clock too high ( over 2GH )
Shoud I buy the TCL 3S considering that I will play games casually? I am not a power user at all, I mean I am looking for a phone with pretty decent specs. I wanted to buy the Mi4i but changed my mind after reading Yash review. I was also tempted by the Siswoo Cooper I7 but didn’t buy it because of its battery and poor wifi signal. Meizu MX5 is really tempting me but with shipping costs and resellers price it will be around 400€ so too expensive for me. My better bet would be the Mi4 with 2GB RAM 32GB ROM (if released in FDD LTE) or the Redmi 2 Pro (has poor CPU) or TCL 3S or Nubia Z9 Mini.
Well the Mi4 and anything with a Snapdragon 801 for that matter is a good phone and should handle games quite well.
I think a MTK6752 or MTK6753 might actually be better for games than this because the GPU in this one I quite weak ( I think, we could look at Antutu scores for the GPU ).
If you’re not in a hurry I’d wait for the Helio X20 which should be a real beast while also using little power when not heavily used.
Thanks, I am not a heavy gamer and I believe that I will get the TCL 3S or the Nubia Z9 Mini (at $250). Xiaomi Mi4 could be very interesting if only they upgrade the phone with 32GB ROM. I won’t be able to get the Meizu MX5 which will be sold above 350€ after resellers.
What type of games do you play is the better question? If it’s simple puzzle games like Candy Crush or Temple Run even the worst SoC’s today can handle those.
Hi Balco, thank you for your comment. Well, as a casual player I would for sure play FIFA15 and maybe a few other games. Ibuygou said that Xiaomi has released a Mi4 with 2GB Ram & 32GB Rom TDD-LTE, apparently they might release also a FDD-LTE version but I really don’t know when the phone will be available in the market. I really like the Meizu MX5 but it will be sold above 350€ after resellers plus shipping costs plus a few accessories final price will reach 400€ which is above my budget. So bad that Xiaomi did not choose a better SOC for the Mi4i, it would have been the phone of the year. I mean I am not looking for a killer spec phone, a mid range device with pretty decent specs would be so fine for me. All the best!
Well it depends on what you call heating issues, many phones get hot after heavy usage and some manufacturers cheat in benchmarks like Antutu which makes the phone get even hotter.
Still given the cores uses and the GPU coupled with the 28 nm manufacturing I doubt the SD615 gets too hot. Of course it’s probably up to the phone manufacturer how high the clock the SOC and what kind of cooling they design.
I have used the Mi4i and I am a Xiaomi fan. There are severe heating issues depending on your usage. If you use it for the basics with a few apps running it is the normal heat that Xiaomi fans all have. If you run anything SoC intensive you better be wearing gloves.
OK that does sound bad and I’m surprised because the SOC doesn’t seem like the kind of SOC that would cause these heating problems… someone messed up somewhere… either Qualcomm with the design, TSMC with the manufacturing or even Xiaomi with the cooling design.
It’s not just the Mi4i either, owners of other phones with the 615 are complaining of overheating problems as well. Qualcomm was completely unprepared for 64 bit SoC’s. The 410 is underpowered and the 615 and 810 are both portable heaters. They are just poorly designed chips