Xiaomi Mi4i 32GB

The design of the Xiaomi Mi 4i focusses on three key points – a premium look-and-feel, compactness, and quality of components used. It’s the mixture of these three that makes the Mi 4i what it is – a phone that looks stylish and is great for one-handed usage. The 7.8mm thin chassis isn't  the slimmest we've seen, but overall, the Mi 4i has to be one of the most compact smartphones with 5-inch displays.

The 5-inch display on the Mi 4i comes with full HD resolution and a pixel density of 441 ppi. The screen uses IPS tech and boasts viewing angles of 178 degrees. The fully laminated OGS technology keeps things super-slim, and there’s a layer of Corning Concore glass as a safeguard against scratches. In terms of capabilities, it’s superb… with sharp, high-res visuals that are the treat for the eyes. While there’s no glove mode, the touch responsiveness is excellent, with even the lightest of touches garnering a response.

The Mi 4i is the first smartphone from Xiaomi to use Android Lollipop out of the box. However, you’d be hard pressed to find the usual Lollipop interface design elements, since Xiaomi’s custom ROM, MIUI v6, covers all the Material Design aspects of Google’s mobile OS almost completely. Apps from Google’s own suite and other third-party ones that have embraced the Material Design philosophy continue to use the same however.

The 13-meg rear camera on the Xiaomi Mi 4i comes with commendable specs – including a stacked CMOS sensor from Sony / Samsung, f/2.0 aperture, a 5-element lens and a dual-tone flash. There’s a selfie-freindly 5MP shooter at the front. The camera app is minimalistic and comes with a handful of interesting features, including filters with live previews, and modes such as panorama, HDR, refocus, manual and HHT (handheld twilight). The manual mode allows you to tweak parameters such as ISO and white balance, while the HDR option also includes Live HDR that provides a preview of the end result before you shoot. There’s an exposure ring available if you tap on the screen, while the flash options include a torch mode that keeps the LEDs on throughout as you shoot.

Providing horsepower to the Xiaomi Mi 4i is a second-gen Snapdragon 615 processor that comes with two quad-core clusters clocked at 1.7GHz and 1.1GHz respectively. These clock speeds are slightly higher than the first-gen Snapdragon 615 chip. Notably, this processor is 64-bit capable, and since the Mi 4i uses Android Lollipop as base, the device should be able to eke out the performance advantages that come along. There’s 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and in what has to be our biggest, and only gripe… 16GB of fixed storage. Sticking with the same concept as followed by all smartphones in the Mi range, there’s no memory expansion slot on the Mi 4i. However, unlike the Mi 4 and the Mi Note, Xiaomi hasn’t launched a higher storage variant of the Mi 4i, as least not yet. A 32GB variant is in the pipeline we hear, but since there’s no ETA on it, we’d have to rule it out for the time being.