Redmi 4 – Best in its league- Review
Last year Xiaomi introduced the Redmi 3S and 3S prime. Redmi 3S prime turned out to be a good choice for the budget conscious buyers who are looking for a quality smartphone experience. Earlier this year, Xiaomi launched the Redmi Note 4 and then the Redmi 4A. The Redmi Note 4 replaced the Note 3 and the 4A replaced the Redmi 1s as the Redmi 2 never made it to India. Now the Redmi 3S and Prime has been sitting there for a while and Xiaomi decided to revamp that product line with the Redmi 4.
So now we have 8 Redmi Phones in India starting from Rs 5999 and going all the way upto 12,999. That is roughly one variant of a Redmi phone every 1000 Rupees. From a consumer’s point of view, Xiaomi has a mobile to fit everyone’s budget.
The Redmi 4 is priced at Rs 6999 for the 2 GB variant and the top end variant with 4 GB DDR3 RAM and 64 GB of storage would cost you Rs 10999. This is the cheapest mobile with 4GB/64GB combination in the current market. Our review unit is the 3 GB RAM variant with 32 GB storage. It costs Rs 8999. Let us dive in and check out if the Redmi 4 is a worthy successor for the Redmi 3S.
Design
To give you a rough idea of the dimensions of the mobile, the Redmi 4 is a 5 inch mobile with 4100 mAh battery. At the bottom you would find the microUSB port with dual speaker grills housing one speaker and a mic. The top has the 3.5 mm audio jack and IR port. The left side has the hybrid sim slot while the power and volume buttons are on the right. The back has the fingerprint sensor below the camera. The navigation keys are not backlit. Locating them on my black color unit was a bit difficult, until you get used to it. The body is made of anodized metal giving it a solid feel. It is mildly slippery, but due to its size, you may not end up dropping it.
The design is elegant and you would not have seen such a refined design in a mobile priced at under Rs 10000. The ergonomics are great and overall, the Redmi 4 is a finely crafted piece of gadget.
Display
Redmi 4 has a 5 inch display capable of 720p HD resolution. It has good viewing angles and direct sunlight readability. The brightness is good but the contrast is not great. The black levels are not deep and the gamma correction reads an average value of 1.5. The white balance is also a bit warm. There is a setting to change the white balance and I still found it to be warm under standard and warm setting. Under cool setting, it is supposed to be a cold, but still there was a hint of warmth. Color saturation is good. The display glass is curved and though it looks beautiful, finding a good tempered glass is going to be an issue. Also it is not protected by any branded toughened glass. Under normal conditions, you will find the display to be satisfying.
Hardware and Performance
The Redmi 4 in India is powered by Snapdragon 435 with Adreno 505 GPU. The mobile comes in 2 GB/3GB and 4GB RAM variants with a combination of 16/32 GB or 64 GB. The hardware is perfectly optimized for the software and I did not find any noticeable lag in the UI. Apps load fast and switching between apps was also instant, though I had the 3/32 GB RAM variant. I threw in about 40 apps and 5 resource intensive games. The mobile got warm by about 6 degree after 30 minutes of continuous gaming. The games did not show any signs of lag or frame drop in medium graphics setting. Quality of graphics and gaming experience is better on the Redmi Note 4, owing to a better processor and GPU. For an entry level smartphone, the Redmi 4 has impressive performance.
The fingerprint sensor at the back is fast and accurate. It can detect a valid fingerprint from any direction. The mobile has all the usual set of sensor like the Gyroscope for VR, magnetometer and compass for maps, etc… GPS locked with about 8 satellites in under 30 seconds while the sky was clear. The loudspeaker is loud enough to play your ring tone and is good for listening to music or watching movies while you are indoors. Redmi 4 does not ship with any earphones out of the box. I tested with multiple earphones and headphones and found the mobile to output good quality music.
The mobile is a good telephone as well. I did not experience any call drops while using Jio, Airtel and Vodafone. Network latching was spot on and the call quality was also good. Overall, Redmi 4 would delight the buyer with its performance across multiple department.
Camera
Redmi 4 has a 13 MP camera on the rear and a 5 MP sensor on the front. The rear camera can shoot full HD videos. I do not expect any fireworks in the camera department and the mobile meets my expectation out of an entry level mobile. Under ample light conditions, the mobile can shoot good pictures with great amount of details. The exposure is spot on and the contrast is good. It has decent dynamic range and the HDR mode helps to an extent. As the light drops, the shots gets grainy. Low light performance of the camera is poor. This holds good for the front camera as well. I am not a fan of Xiaomi’s skin smoothening algorithm. Under low light, the selfies are useless. But then this is an entry level mobile. For a mobile in this price range, the camera performance is above expectations.
Software
This mobile runs on Android 6.0.1 with MIUI v8.2.4 while I am reviewing it. MIUI is known to get frequent updates and I do expect the mobile to be upgraded to Android Nougat soon. MIUI has always been my favorite ROM and a UI skin. MIUI 8 adds a bunch of features like dual apps, second space, child mode, easy mode, one handed mode, scrolling screenshots, quick ball, etc. With MIUI, the list of features are endless and the list of bloatware does not exist. On the Redmi 4, MIUI is fast and responsive.
Battery
Redmi 4 has a 4100 mAh beast of a battery. I get a screen on-time of over 10 hours on an average. Under normal usage, the mobile lasts for more than 2 days and on intensive usage, it lasts of over 24 hours. With the provided 2A charger, the mobile can charge from 20-100% in about 2:30 hours. Battery life on the Redmi 4 is impressive.
Verdict
You pay Rs 8999 for the Redmi 4. In this price range, there is very little competition which has a similar performance. The Moto G Play has been sitting for a while in this segment. While the Moto G Play has its strengths for being a sturdy mobile with stock Android experience, it does not have a good camera and battery life. Apart from a few other lesser known brands, there is not much competition for Redmi 4. It has a decent display, highly refined design, average camera and a great battery life. This is the best entry level smartphone as of today and the Redmi 4 walks away with that title, head held high.