With the announcement of Xiaomi Redmi 3, the Chinese manufacturer has added yet another device to its lineup, and will take its place amongst a category that does not break the wallets of consumers and provides them with a fairly decent mobile computing device. There are several cool hardware features of Redmi 3, and for its affordable price of $107, that is hard to believe. However, the company has followed a business model that is paying off for it since a very long time so without further ado, here is everything you need to know about Xiaomi Redmi 3, right down to the software bit.
Design, screen size and display
Xiaomi is known as the ‘Apple of China’ because it has accumulated a reputation of shamelessly copying the tech giant for all of its smartphones, particularly those that are present in the premium category. Xiaomi Redmi 3 is no different from its lineup, because its design is just echoing the design that Apple uses for its iPhone family. The smartphone features an ‘all metal’ body, with a net, or grill type design present at the rear side of the handset. In this way, it looks appealing to the eye and allows you to grip the smartphone without making it feel like a bar of soap.
We have also listed additional details of the smartphone, including dimensions and weight.
- Dimensions: 139.3 x 69.4 x 8.5 (all measurements are in mm)
- Weight: 144 grams
The screen size is 5 inches, which will make it relatively easy to hold for several consumers, but here is an interesting thing about the smartphone. It is not rocking a 1080p display, but a 720p IPS panel, and we will explain why. For a $107 smartphone, you will obviously have to cut corners, and this is the first on Xiaomi Redmi 3’s list. However, a 720p display is not necessarily a bad thing, since it is all subjective. For example, a 1080p resolution on a smartphone might look extremely pleasing to the eye but uses up more battery life, while a 720p display will do the complete opposite, and in the era of smartphones, we feel that battery life should definitely be on the higher chain of your requirements in a mobile device.
All the internal hardware of Xiaomi Redmi 3
Here is where we will explain all the details of what exactly is present in Xiaomi Redmi 3 and how it will affect your overall experience.
Chipset, RAM and memory details
For its $107 price tag, Redmi 3 actually features a fairly impressive chipset from Qualcomm and it is a Snapdragon 616. It might not be the most powerful chipset around, but for $107, you definitely have no cause for complaining. During the time Qualcomm unveiled its Snapdragon 810, it was met with severe criticism due to its overheating issues, forcing manufacturers to dial down its clock speed in order to prevent over temperature issues and thermal throttling. These problems eventually branched out to the remainder of the company’s chipsets, which included Snapdragon 615.
Now, with Snapdragon 616, the company has thoroughly improved its design, otherwise, it would have to face the wrath of several of its partners that spend a chunk of money to have the company’s chipsets running in their mobile devices. For performance, Snapdragon 616 is running an octa-core Cortex-A53 processor ARM, which has been divided into two quad-core chips running in unison. Their clock speeds have been listed below:
- 4 x 1.5GHz Cortex-A53
- 4 x 1.2GHz Cortex-A53
The pairing of the two processors is actually a decent one, and we expect that with the latest software updates, the experience will eventually improve with time. Unfortunately, the handset does not provide support for Quick Charge 3.0, and will only be compatible with the company’s Quick Charge 2.0 technology. We have added a video at the bottom if you want to learn more about the fast charging technology and if you want to learn more about the processor and all of its really cool features then you can visit the official specifications home page of Snapdragon 616.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Rhu2YGxeQ Complementing the octa-core processor is 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM. With high-end smartphones sporting LPDDR4 RAM, it is justified that Xiaomi Redmi 3 will have LPDDR3 RAM chips inside it otherwise having high performing RAM chips will unnecessarily increase the costs for the company. While we were hoping to see 3GB of RAM in order to give the smartphone the extra edge in gaming, multitasking and additional features that require a hefty amount of RAM, having 2GB is not such a bad feature considering the price you are getting it at.
Coming to the internal storage details, Xiaomi Redmi 3 features 16GB of on-board memory. This is a very small of internal storage and small price tag or not, we sincerely hope that in the near future, 32GB becomes the bare minimum to be present in smartphones. In spite of this setback, Redmi 3 does sport a microSD card slot that enables you to expand your storage up to 128GB. With such an expansive storage option, it is always a great idea to invest in a high capacity and fast storage card that will match the read and write performance present inside the phone. Though such storage cards will cost you quite a bit, you can be confident that such cards will deliver high read and write speeds, and they will also last you for a considerably longer period.
Another thing we might add is that Xiaomi Redmi 3 also provides support for inserting two SIM cards (keep in mind that you will only have one SIM card slot available if you use the other one to insert your storage card), so this feature will definitely be useful if you happen to be carrying around two devices carrying different numbers at the same time.
Camera
Smartphone camera technology has become quite impressive over the years, and it has become enough to rival that of ‘point and shoot’ cameras. We are certain that improved sensor tech will find its way to entry level and mid-ranged smartphones, making them even more capable for capturing images and shooting videos than ever before. Coming to Xiaomi Redmi 3, we have listed its camera specifications below.
Rear camera: 13MP
- Aperture: F/2.0
- Other features: 0.1 seconds Phase-Detection Autofocus with LED flash, HDR and panorama
- Video recording: 1080p at 30FPS
Front camera: 5MP
- Aperture: F/2.2
- Video recording: 1080p at 30FPS
Due to the fact that both camera sensors do not feature an OIS, or optical stabilization chip (to save costs again), you will have to be extra careful when you are busy capturing images or even footage, or they will end up becoming blurry. Sure, there must be some level of Electronic Image Stabilization, or software stabilization, which kicks in once you fire up the camera application, but it is not as effective as physical OIS chips present in majority of the high-end smartphone cameras. While both cameras will be able to take decent images, we don’t expect you to experience extraordinary results from both cameras because you will be left disappointed. If you want to check out the results for yourself, here are some camera samples that were present on Xiaomi’s website.
We hope that with future software updates, the camera app also becomes better overtime and adds more control to the application.
Battery capacity
Currently, Xiaomi Redmi 3 has two primary selling points and apart from its extremely affordable price tag, its 4,100mAh battery is something that you do not see even on high-end smartphones, so a two thumbs for Xiaomi for going the extra distance and incorporating a large sized battery. According to the company, you will easily be able to rake out two days of battery life depending on your usage, but we feel that the 720p resolution and future software updates will greatly contribute to that life even further.
Connectivity
Before you ask, Redmi 3 does feature an LTE modem and we have listed additional information so that you do not run into compatibility once it arrives in your region.
3G: HSDPA 850/1900/2100 CDMA 1x
- TD-SCDMA 1900 / 2100
- CDMA EV-DO
4G: LTE band 3(1800), 7(2600), 38(2600), 39(1900), 40(2300), 41(2500)
In addition to featuring an LTE modem, the device also features the following components:
- Bluetooth 4.0
- 11n Wi-Fi adapter
- GPS
- microUSB 2.0 interface
We should not have any reason to complain over such features, but we were looking for an 802.11ac Wi-Fi adapter instead of an 802.11n one, but it is only fair to say that you get you pay for.
Software
This category has left us confused, because the phone is going to be officially available later in the year, and we are not if it will sport Android Lollipop 5.1.1, or will it come with Android Marshmallow 6.0 pre-installed. We do know that whatever update the smartphone is running, it will definitely be running MIUI 7.0 on top of it, so our biggest guess to make here is that it will most probably be running Android Lollipop 5.1.1, and will be updated to Android Marshmallow later in the year.
Specification listing
Since there are several details of the smartphone, we have decided to list them altogether right here in order to make it much easier for you to view:
- Chipset: Snapdragon 616
- Processor: 4 x 1.5GHz Cortex-A53 and 4 x 1.2GHz Cortex-A53
- GPU: Adreno 405
- RAM: LPDDR3
- Screen size: 5 inches IPS
- Resolution: 1280 x 720
- Battery capacity: 4,100mAh
- LTE capable: Yes
- Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.0
- Wi-Fi: 802.11 b/g/n
- GPS: Yes
- OS: Android Lollipop 5.1.1 or Android 6.0 (currently not confirmed)
- Camera: 13MP for rear and 5MP for front
With the latest smartphones from Xiaomi being Redmi 3 and soon to be Mi5, the company is definitely moving with significant pace in order to make sure that it effectively targets every segment of the smartphone market. We will update you on more details regarding smartphones, but this is going to be available to purchase on Tmall and Xiaomi’s official website on January 12. There is no word whether or not it will be coming to the international market, but looking at its price tag, it will be hard for retailers to ignore such a blatantly amazing offer.
Regardless, tell us what you thought of the smartphone, and also tell us if it is worth the $107 price tag.
[socialpoll id=”2323221″]
