Android Xioami Mi4i - Unibody Construction, 5", 1080p, 2nd Gen SD 615, 2GB LPDDR3, 16GB ROM

So didn't know where to post this. Anyway, got an invite for the Xiaomi Mi4i launch. Was scheduled for today. Registrations were supposed to start at 2:30pm, reached at 1:45 and there was already a queue of about ~400 peeps. All of us waited in the afternoon sun while the queue got bigger and bigger. Finally registrations started and we went in collecting our goodie bags.
The goodie bag had a Mi tee which the employees were requesting us to wear while going inside the auditorium (it was in Siri Fort Audi).
By the time it was 4 (the scheduled time for the event to start), ALL the seats were full. AFAIK, the Siri Fort Audi has a seating capacity of about 1600-1800 people, and nothing was vacant. There was a queue of about 200 outside, which I guess they had to return back due to non availability of seats.
Hugo took the stage and as expected, charmed the **** out of everybody.
- The Mi4i was soon introduced. First product from the company launching in India ahead of any other market (not even China). Mi4i = Mi 4 India (cheesy, lol).
- Insane crowd. Huge Xiaomi fans. Loud claps and uproar everytime a new feature was announced (and a comparison with iPhone 6 was made. Oh yeah, Barra took loads of jabs at i6 !)
- So it's a 5", 1080p phone with ~ 3100 mah battery. 13mp and 5 mp cams, dual led flash, a "Sunlight screen" which apparently takes care of the super bright and shadowy areas under strong sunlight to give a better picture (a demo was also done, worked beautifully). The back had some coating on which even if you write with a marker, an eraser/cloth can be used to wipe it off (so basically decreasing the fingerprint count). Runs on 2nd gen SD 615, 2 GB LPDDR3 with 16GB of ROM. Will be loaded with Lollipop MIUI.
- A cool new feature is Visual IVR. Basically you don't have to wait for the IVR voice to tell you options before you select one. They preload a menu the moment you make a call at a IVR centre and you can just tap your way through. Much faster. A video will give a better explanation though.
- Also loads of controlled tests were demonstrated to show the strength of the phone. It now features a unibody design. Looks great. 5 colors - Black, White, Sky Blue, Yellow and Pink.
- Barra asked the audience for a fair pricing and mostly everybody responded with a 15k+ tag. Surprise, it's priced at 12999 ! If I'm, not wrong, the crowd kept on clapping for a good 5 mins. Nobody expected it ! Shocker TBH.
- Next was the launch of Mi-Band. Launching at a disrupting price of 999 INR. Exclusive to Mi India website.
- There's a sale on 28th at Mi India site where 1000 units of Mi band will be sold for Re 1 !
- Bigger shocker - EVERYBODY in the audience got 1 Mi Band and an extra strap FREE ! :D


Tried my hands at Mi4i (demo units available). Lovely phone at that price. Feels good in hand, solid construction, fluid UI, snappy. Will be my next buy possibly.
By the time I was done with the hands on, the extra straps were finished. So got the Mi Band wonly (with a single black strap).

Overall, a wonderful event. Hugo's charm and the wonderful audience really made the audi come alive. Made me a fan again ! :)

Some pics of goodies (pardon the pics. low light, high noise)

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Registrations are live at Flipkart. :cat:
 
and he apologizes for the pictures. Damn.

Looks a promising phone.
Feels solid in hand, specially because of the unibody construction. Colors are almost like the iPhone 5C pastel colors. Screen is pretty good, and if the claim is right, has a 95% color gamut (vis a vis 72% of i6). Excellent screen to body ratio, light, zippy, OGS display. It's impressive.
 
The only thing that makes me stop using Xiaomi's phone is the UI. Yes I can throw a launcher but some things you cant change.

Apart from the UI, Xiaomi phones are quite good IMO.
 
The only thing that makes me stop using Xiaomi's phone is the UI. Yes I can throw a launcher but some things you cant change.

Apart from the UI, Xiaomi phones are quite good IMO.
Had a similar impression. Using a Mi3 since last one year and have come to love MIUI, specially batch icon/app delete/moving to different screen is a life-saver. MIUI 6 has good animations too. Pretty happy with the UI now.
 
difference between MI4 vs MI4i apart from processor?
Mi4 has 3 gigs of RAM (vs 2 gigs here). This one's slimmer though. Mi4 has a 8 mp front cam. 4i has 5 mp.
Mi4i is dual sim (any of those can be LTE) vs single on Mi4. Plus "Sunlight screen" on Mi4i. Mi4i has a tad more battery. Runs Lollipop.
 
MI3 is my daily driver and honestly speaking, Xiaomi makes some kick ass phones for the price they offer at. MIUI is definitely not upto the mark when it comes to usability, a launcher definitely helps. Hope they improve the software at the same pace as the hardware. I have a feeling they will dominate the Indian smarphone market if they keep at it.
 
Was thinking of this but ordered the Zenfone 2 yesterday instead. Need the storage, and a bigger screen was an added benefit for me.[DOUBLEPOST=1429845518][/DOUBLEPOST]Was thinking of this but ordered the Zenfone 2 yesterday instead. Need the storage, and a bigger screen was an added benefit for me.
 
Will there be a black 64/32 gb version or not??
still nothing on the web regarding this..

Also i dont understand why do they manufacture white ones despite knowing black ones sell better
 
Anybody been able to lay their hands on this?

Word on Camera, Battery and UI performance awaited.. :)
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1st impressions: I did try the phone at the recent Xiaomi launch event and it was impressive overall. Build quality is good. No creaks. Feels solid. The screen is now flush with the sides (unlike Mi3). Dual SIM, both LTE capable.
Phone came with about ~51% battery. Updated some 9-10 apps, shot some pics, played with the settings etc and it lost ~9% in the process (OST ~35 mins). It did heat up (but not crazily) and settled down after ~ 25 mins.
Screen is gorgeous. Better than the Mi3. Great contrast. And the sunlight feature ACTUALLY WORKS ! Below are some unedited photographs showing the same (pardon the darkness. Deficient lighting):
Inside the room:

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To mimic external light/sun, shone a torch on the sensor and you can clearly see that brightness has been increased in toto with the objects on the screen. So the keyboard brightness has been bumped up more wrt the rest of the screen. Tried with a couple of other images and the result is fab. This is awesome !

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There was visible lag for the first 20-25 mins till the phone settled down. Smooth now, though I do feel Mi3 is more snappy overall (SD615 vs SD800).
MIUI Lollipop is great and the statusbar colors DO change matching the background app.
Camera is at par with Mi3, clicking crisp pics. HDR mode is the same as well (pics attain a grainy look).
Thinner than Mi3, thinner bezels, bigger LED. I prefer the back of Mi3 though. Buttons are a tad too flush with the body, and they need a firm press as opposed to those of Mi3 (I prefer the Mi3 buttons).
Will be updating with more info as I use it.
 
So used for a day.
Pros:
Lightweight
Thin bezels
White back is great. No finger smudges !
Brilliant screen. Excellent contrast
Sunlight display works wonderfully
Super cam. f-stop is a stop less than that on Mi4. Colors are reproduced naturally. Crisp pics. HDR is thumbs up, specially in good light.
Front cam is also neat. Clear selfies. Beautify (as on other Xiaomi phones) works great
Calls are clear (though the flip-to-silence DOES NOT work)

Cons:
Gets heated up fairly quickly. Heck, it heated up 4-5 times even after sitting idle for an hour ! I think Lollipop MIUI needs optimizations.
If the device heats up (and it will), the UI lags. Not the unworkable lag, but animations stutter a bit.
Some apps keep on crashing (ex Superbeam, which works fine on Mi3 (MIUI Kitkat))
Battery life is OK-ish. There's about ~30% left after an OST of ~3 hours 30 mins. Phone was charged at ~9;30pm yesterday night. Used occasionally to play with some apps, check mails etc. Sync is on. I think it needs to go through a couple of charges before the battery settles down.
Since the speaker grille is at the back, ringtones and music gets muffled badly when kept in the normal position.

Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 also sports similar specs with mostly stock Android (though the launcher is their own) and it seems to run smoother than Mi4i (have only seen videos of Idol 3). Since this was launched with much fanfare, I hope it gets a bunch of optimizations to fix the heating (SD 615, I know :/) and lag issues.
 
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