Xiaomi Mi 4i is a nice device but it’s far from a flagship

The Xiaomi brand has been successful for delivering top end performance at an amazing low price. Their Mi 3 that was launched in Malaysia for RM889 was a serious disruptor, making everything else look ridiculously overpriced.

After discontinuing the Mi 3, Xiaomi has been focused mostly on the lower end devices with the Redmi series. Their last flagship, the Mi 4 had given Malaysia a pass due to its limited 4G LTE support. Finally after a year since Xiaomi has entered Malaysia, they have introduced the Mi 4i which they consider to be their new flagship smart phone for the global market.

Read on for our review of the Mi 4i.

Is the Mi 4i a flagship?

Looking at the spec-sheet alone, the Mi 4i is clearly a notch below its original Mi 4 flagship. Xiaomi wants you to believe that the “i” post fix stands for international, and in some ways it is true since it is only sold outside of China. In reality, the “i” stands more for “Lite” or a lower spec version as it runs on a mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 Octa-Core processor with just 2GB of RAM.

So why Xiaomi believes the Mi 4i deserves a flagship title? Well for starters, the display itself is a 5″ screen which is improved over the current Mi 4. While it pushes the same Full HD 1080 resolution, it gets additional Sunlight Display technology which automatically make adjustments on the pixel level to maintain visibility in sunny conditions. In our usage, it delivers as advertised and undramatic as it seems, we didn’t have any issues using the device outdoors at noontime.

For the battery, the Mi 4i packs a higher capacity 3,120mAh battery which is their biggest ever fitted on a Mi smart phone. That’s more than their current top of the line Mi Note Pro and Xiaomi claims that this is the 2nd device to use this new efficient and dense battery type after the Galaxy S6. They added that the Mi 4i should last up to 1.5 days on a single charge and that’s made possible with its power saving optimisation with MIUI.

[nextpage title=”Design and Build Quality”]

As far as looks are concerned, the Mi 4i is quite a simple no nonsense looking device. Compared to its Mi 4 flagship, there’s no fancy metal frames or special back covers to stand out. Instead it gets a polycarbonate unibody which is available only in White right now in Malaysia. Come to think of it, it looks and feels like the Nokia Lumia 630 without the slanting edges.

In the hands, the Mi 4i is nice to hold thanks to its compact size and a matte finish which is dirt and smudge resistant even against marker pens. From the photos, it looks like another plain vanilla Redmi smart phone in white but the Mi 4i is definitely better built. You get the usual volume rockers and power button on the right side with a metal like material, while the headphone jack and microUSB charging ports are placed on the usual locations.

The 3 navigation buttons below the screen (Recent Apps, Home, Back) are back lit and the entire front glass gets a clean and full all-black appearance when the screen is off. Like the rest of Xiaomi flagships, there’s no microSD slot and the slot on the left side houses a tray to support two micro-SIMs, both with 4G LTE.

[nextpage title=”MIUI and Usability”]

Out of the box, the Mi 4i runs on Android 5.0.2 Lollipop that’s layered with Xiaomi’s own MIUI 6 interface. Despite having the latest Android OS, the MIUI interface is different from stock Android. There’s hardly any material design references and MIUI features its own flat UI which looks more like iOS. Like most Chinese Android devices, there’s no app drawer which means all your apps and shortcuts are shown on the home screen like an iPhone.

MIUI does come with some delightful touches like the ability of moving multiple apps/shortcuts one go, switching on the torch light by press and holding the home button immediately after waking the screen and a bunch of themes which deeply changes the way your phone looks. In the recent apps view, you can exclude selected apps from being killed by swiping upwards. This will lock the app when you close all running apps on your device. In the security app, there’s a built in optimiser where it cleans up your storage, RAM utilisation and it even scans your device for possible malware.

Speaking of storage, the Mi 4i gets just 16GB on-board and out of the box, there’s 10.95GB available. After installing our essential social apps, Spotify and Asphalt 8 game, we are left with about 6GB of storage remaining, which could easily fill up if you take a lot of photos and videos.

[nextpage title=”Performance and Battery Life”]

Being a flagship Mi, naturally you would expect a certain level of performance to live up to its flagship claim. The Mi 4i runs on a 2nd generation 1.7GHz Snapdragon 615 Octa-Core processor which is said to be improved over its predecessor. However in real life usage, there’s lot to be desired from the Mi 4i. It feels sluggish occasionally and there’s an annoying few seconds delay when launching the camera app. Their previous flagship in Malaysia, the Mi 3 was much smoother than this.

By default, the power setting is set to Balance mode which would help to optimise its battery usage but that’s where it gets really laggy even for web browsing. Most of the time, we would just keep it on performance mode for a more decent experience. Speaking of heat, we tried playing Asphalt 8 for a couple of rounds and it does get hot especially at the upper part of the device on both the glass and the back.

During our week of using it, Xiaomi has pushed 2 software updates which aims to improve its thermal efficiency and battery life. With the current MIUI 6.5.5.0, the battery life has improved slightly giving us about 12 hours of usage on a single charge with 4 hours of on-screen time in Performance Mode. Just for clarity, we tested the Mi 4i with 2 SIM cards running on standby. For a 3,120mAh battery, we expected much more than this and Xiaomi definitely needs to sort out its performance and battery issues quick.

When you’re out of battery, don’t expect anything fancy with its “Quick Charge” feature. You get a standard 2Amp charger and it is nothing like what you get from Samsung’s Adaptive Fast Charger or OPPO’s VOOC technology. According to Xiaomi, it uses Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 1.0 feature that charges up to 40% in 1 hour, which pales in comparison with the current flagships that could do more in half the time.

[nextpage title=”Camera”]

The camera on the Mi 4i is a 13MP f/2.0 main shooter that comes with dual-tone LEDs for a more natural lighting. Xiaomi prides itself for having an incredible HDR that comes in either HDR Live and Enhanced Mode. There’s also a Refocus mode where it takes several shots and you can pick the focus point after the picture is taken. For night shots, it has a HHT (Handheld Twilight) where it combines a couple of burst shots to minimise noise.

For more serious users, you can take advantage of the manual mode which lets you adjust the focus, white balance, ISO (up to ISO 3200) and exposure time (2 seconds max). For videos, it maxes out at Full HD 1080p.

For selfie lovers, the Mi 4i gets a larger 5MP camera up front. It’s loaded with beautification features that applies just the right amount of “make up” based on your age and gender. The age detection seems pretty cool and obviously a frown face would give an older estimation.

You can check out some sample shots below.

[nextpage title=”Conclusion & Gallery”]

So is the Mi 4i worth it for RM749? On paper it ticks the right boxes for having a Full HD display, 16GB of storage and a large 3,120mAh battery in a compact size. However after using it, we are not too sure.

We can forgive it for not having a microSD slot but the performance is the biggest problem. Even the Lenovo A7000 performs better and it is over RM100 cheaper than the Mi 4i. For a mid-range Snapdragon 615 processor, we expected much more but the performance doesn’t feel like its a giant leap from the Redmi 2 that runs on a lower range Snapdragon 410 processor.

Until Xiaomi fixes its performance issues, the Mi 4i not only struggles to live up to its flagship title but also against its competitors in the same price range. Xiaomi is trying to move away from being perceived as a cheap device maker and they have put more emphasis on build quality, high quality components and design. For consumers looking for a bargain, they can forgive not having the prettiest looking design as long as the performance is decent for daily use. For the same price, the closest alternative is the Zenfone 2 (ZE550ML) which gets a larger 5.5″ HD 720p display, 1.8GHz Intel Atom Processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB of storage that’s also expandable with microSD.

It is almost as if Xiaomi has gotten themselves into a spot for creating top spec and low price expectation. Xiaomi was untouchable last year for delivering excellent value for money, but with more players getting into the cheap and good game such as Lenovo, Honor and ASUS, it won’t be an easy win for them.

UPDATE: Xiaomi Mi 4i 32GB is now available in Malaysia. Priced at RM899 on the Mi Store.

Mi 4i Photo Gallery