Here’s How Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Beats Every Other Smartphone At This Price Range
Xiaomi is back again in India with two powerful new smartphones - the flagship Mi 5 and budget king Redmi Note 3. When Xiaomi first entered into the Indian market, its budget friendly smartphones were the devices that made it popular in India. But things are different now. As the competition is high now, more and more Chinese brands have now entered the Indian market and every is just trying to win the affordable section of the Indian market.
With that saying it’s necessary to find out what makes the new Redmi Note 3 different from its rivals. Because mere differences in the technical specifications on the paper doesn’t make Redmi Note 3 best in all. So, let’s talk about why Redmi Note 3 is better than the other smartphones in the market.
Xiaomi has released the Redmi Note 3 in two different variants. One packs 2GB of RAM with 16GB of Internal Storage, while the second one packs 3GB of RAM with 32GB of Internal Storage. The phone also comes in variety of different color options which include Gold, Silver and Grey. Before we talk about what makes Redmi Note 3 a best smartphone under Rs. 10000 ($150), let’s have a look on its highlights.
Display: 5.5-inch, 1920x1080 IPS LCD Display with ambient contrast leveling
Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 650(2x 1.8GHz Cortex-A72 + 4x 1.2GHz Cortex-A53) and Adreno 510 GPU.
Memory: 2GB RAM with 16GB storage/3GB RAM with 32GB storage + microSD support.
Rear Camera: 16 megapixel rear camera with PDAF, f2.0 aperture, dual LED flash
Front Camera: 5 megapixel front camera, f2.0 aperture
Extras: Fingerprint sensor, Aluminum Uni body
Battery: 4050mAh High density battery with quickcharge 2.
Connectivity: Dual SIM(2nd SIM slot can be used as MicroSD slot), LTE, Dual Band Wi-Fi 802.11n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1, IR, microUSB 2.0.
OS: Android 5.1.1 with MIUI7
Price: Rs. 9,9999
The above mentioned specs does make Redmi Note 3 surpass its rivals and also cheaper than its current competitors, but as I said earlier, specs doesn’t tell the whole story. The strongest rivals of Redmi Note 3 are Letv le 1S, Huawei Honor 5X and Lenovo K4 Note. While all challengers are also from Chinese manufacturers and just like Xiaomi, they have also made a lot effort in making their handsets a master piece, not every smartphone can win the top position.
Ergonomics and Hardware
In terms of build quality and durability, metal chassis is considered to be better than the plastic build. That is the reason most of the manufactures now a days prefer to go with metal build even when the price of their smartphone is just Rs. 10,000. The Redmi Note 3 has an Aluminum Uni Body design which is nicely smoothen by sandblasting; metal body really gives it a premium look as well as durability. Due to this uni body design paradigm the internal components are protected and the device can easily take accidental falls.
In terms of thickness profiling, Redmi Note 3 doesn’t score much but is still sleek with 8.65 mm width and 164gm weight, while the Le 1S is 7.5mm thick and weighs 169g.
The Le 1S as well as Honor 5X feature metal build, but the K4 note is plastic build. And all three pack a fingerprint reader, which is installed at the back beneath the camera module.
The Redmi Note 3 scores top in performance at this price range. And thanks to the high-performance Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 SoC inside, it can even outperform smartphones priced under Rs. 20,000. The Snapdragon 650 is a hexacore CPU with two A72 cores and four A53 cores. It is the first processor to opt Cortex A72 cores. This SoC has made the Note 3 a fast performer and also battery saver. The CPU is clocked at 1.8 Ghz max frequency and Adreno 510 GPU makes every game butter smooth.
What’s new with the Display?
Xiaomi has now made the display better than previous and now uses a 1080p resolution LED Display that automatically balances the brightness as well as contrast according to the surrounding. The Redmi Note 3 display offers dynamic ambient adjustments which brightens the darker shades in the display without increasing the brightness of the whole display which increases the display legibility upto a new extent. Moreover you can also choose to adjust the color temperature of the display with the 3 presets including warm, neutral and cool.
This 5.5 inch display has good visibility under direct sunlight and viewing angles. To help Redmi Note 3 take the advantage of the large display, Xiaomi has also included a reading mode in the smartphone. This reading mode lowers down the display upto 10cd and eliminates the blue hue that creates strain in eyes so that you can easily read even in dark.
Camera
In this year's Redmi Note, Xiaomi has decided to upgrade the camera 3MP more, making the total pixel count to 16MP for the back, while the front packs the same - 5 MP. Both the camera modules are with f2.0 aperture, but the rear camera module is coupled with phase detection autofocus, two-tone dual LED flash and is capable of recording upto 1080p video and slow-mo videos in 720p.
The quality of the images taken from the secondary camera is not as good as that of Mi4i and Mi4 but is arguably good for the amount of price that you gonna pay and is really quick in focusing due to PDAF. The still shots have noise despite of large 2.0 aperture and unwanted sharpness which lower downs its bars but a software update might kick a little more life to the image quality. The video quality is also quite good but lacks OIS. But expecting that much seems to be little below the belt.
While if we look to its rivals, Le 1S seems to outperform the Redmi Note 3 with its 8MP front and 13MP rear camera with UHD Video Recording, but that too does proves it offers better results in terms of overall quality.
Performance and Battery Life
Snapdragon 650 is one of the fastest processors offered by the Qualcomm and is relatively equivalent to Apple’s A8 processor which powers the iPhone 6. It deliberately handles all tasks you throw on it and is also power efficient due to its 14nm process. Comparing to its rivals, it easily surpasses each of them.
The fingerprint sensor works really fast and is integrated to the Note 3’s UI entirely. Apart from encrypting the device you can also lock individual apps and settings (in case you want to lock any individual app in your device.)
The Redmi Note 3 has a 4,050mAh battery. The battery is non-removable with on-screen time of 6-7 hours every single day. Means a normal user with an hour of call, music and game can stretch the battery for two long days. On the software side, MIUI offers its own battery saver mode that lets you make your own battery plans, editing the location and network access of background apps. One negative thing in this handset is that it doesn’t supports quick charging. So, it takes around 2.5 hours for full charge and 1 hour for charging to 50%.
Wrap-Up
Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 comes in two versions 2GB RAM with 16GB storage and 3GB RAM with 32GB storage which are priced at $148 (INR 9,999) for the 16GB model and $178 (INR 11,999) for 32GB model.
The device has great design and build quality, good display, great performance, fingerprint sensor, and an excellent battery life alongwith such luring price, which makes it somewhat ideal for investing Rs. 10,000. But lack of fast charging and old version of Android are a few down side of the handset.
Overall, the Redmi Note 3 easily beats all the other smartphones at this price range. So, Yes! the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 is the best smartphone which you can get under Rs. 10,000.
