Xiaomi has set new standards of success with the Redmi series, and they feature in most of our lists of budget smartphones. The new Redmi smartphone will not only intensify competition in the market, but it will also be under pressure to replicate its previous variants. And talking about specifications, this is definitely an upgraded variant. Let us know whether the new Xiaomi Redmi 4 lives up to the expectations in terms of price or not?
xiaomi redmi 4 design
When we first saw the Redmi 4 in our office, we mistook it for a ‘Lite’ or smaller variant of the Redmi 4. The design of these two phones is quite similar. At the pre-launch event of the Redmi 4, Jai Mani, Product Manager, Xiaomi, told Gadgets 360 that the look of the Redmi 4 is inspired by the larger Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Review). The all-metal rear of Redmi 4 is polished and the phone looks more premium than the previous variant. However, there is a risk of the phone slipping and during our review, it ended up falling several times while trying to take pictures with the phone.
There has been no major change in the basic formula of the Redmi series. Just like the Redmi 3S, the Redmi 4 has a 5-inch screen. The new model however feels a little thicker with a thickness of 8.65 millimeters and a weight of 150 grams. The thickness of Redmi 3S was 8.5 mm and its weight was 144 grams. Overall, despite the increase in thickness or weight, the Redmi 4 hasn’t changed much as the phone is easy to use with one hand.
We never faced any problem in using the fingerprint sensor. The phone has just a Mi logo on the rear, but it says ‘Designed by Xiaomi/Made in India’ in small print. We liked the protective ring around the camera lens.
The phone has power and volume buttons on the right side. And the phone is easily accessible during one-handed use. A micro-USB port is provided at the bottom of the phone for charging and data transfer. There are grilles on the other side, although only one of these is a speaker. At the top there is a 3.5mm audio jack and infrared ammeter.
The phone has navigation buttons just below the screen but these are not backlit, which means they will be difficult to use in the dark. There is a notification LED just below the home button and it’s bright to alert the user to incoming notifications. Like other Redmi smartphones, the new Redmi 4 smartphone comes with a dual-SIM tray, which means users will be able to use two SIM cards and one SIM card or one microSD card simultaneously. Redmi 4 smartphone will be available in Champagne Gold and Matte Black color variants. And we got the matte black color for review.
The retail box with the phone will come with a manual, a data cable, a power adapter and a SIM projector tool.
xiaomi redmi 4 specification and software
Xiaomi Redmi 4 sports a 5-inch HD (720×1280) IPS display with 2.5D curved-edge glass. It seems that Xiaomi has used 2.5D glass for the first time in a Redmi smartphone under Rs 10,000. The phone has a 4100 mAh non-removable battery. The company had used the same capacity battery in the previous Redmi 3S smartphone and this is being said to be the biggest feature of the phone. The phone has an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 processor clocked at 1.4 GHz. There are three variants of Redmi 4 – 2 GB RAM / 16 GB storage, 3 GB RAM / 32 GB storage and 4 GB RAM / 64 GB storage. Our review unit was with 3 GB RAM / 32 GB storage. The storage of Redmi 4 can be expanded up to 128 GB via microSD card.
This phone has a 13-megapixel rear camera with aperture F/2.0, PDAF and an LED flash. For selfie, the phone has a 5 megapixel front camera with aperture F/2.2. The new Redmi 4 smartphone will support connectivity features like 4G and VoLTE. When using two SIM cards simultaneously, only the primary slot will support 4G calls and data while the secondary SIM slot will support 2G only.
This phone runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, on which there is Xiaomi’s MIUI 8.2 skin. This is a stable build that we saw on the Redmi Note 4 and Redmi 4A. Which means the Redmi 4 has a lot of software features that we’ve already seen. These also include dual apps, through which two accounts of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp or any other app can be used. One-handed mode lets you shrink the display to one corner, making everything easier to reach. The phone also has a scrolling screenshot feature that allows you to take a screenshot of an entire web page. Child Mode lets users lock apps, and Second Space lets users create two profiles to keep business and personal data separate on the same device.
The MIUI skin looks cleaner and more polished than the previous version. You can read detailed information about the software in our previous reviews of Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 and Xiaomi Redmi 4A.
Talking about previous Redmi phones, Redmi 4 comes with many pre-installed apps like Music, Mi Pics, Mi Community, News, Security, Notes, Recorder and Weather. Through the Theme app, users can select themes, wallpapers, ringtones and fonts from a store. The device also has a Mi Store app through which one can purchase Xiaomi products and accessories. We feel that the MIUI interface could be lighter if it did not have so many apps. But not all of them can be deleted and they consume a lot of storage on the device. Some third-party apps come pre-installed on the phone such as Amazon, PhonePe Wallet, Flipkart, Facebook and SwiftKey.
On signing in with Mi account, users will get free 5 GB of Mi cloud storage. This storage is separate from the 15GB of free cloud storage provided by Google when you sign in to Gmail.
The Redmi 4 smartphone does not run on Android 7.0 Nougat nor does it support Google Assistant at the time of review, which disappointed us. Long pressing the Home button opens the search box based on the Now on Tap feature. Xiaomi says that Redmi 4 will get update for Android Nougat. And before that Google Assistant can be available but the company has not promised any date.
xiaomi redmi 4 camera
The 13-megapixel rear camera focuses quickly thanks to its phase detection autofocus feature. The camera app has a face recognition feature that is easy to use. Compared to the Redmi 3S Prime, we found the autofocus on the Redmi 4 to be faster. The pictures coming from the camera are detailed and sharp, while the colors remain vibrant. Colors are accurate most of the time in landscape photos.
But, with HDR mode on, images are captured and processed very slowly and this is our biggest complaint with the device. With HDR mode on, the user has to keep his hand steady to get a good picture.
A lot of noise is visible when taking pictures in low light with the rear camera. Some shots taken in low light turned out very bad. The Redmi 4 takes good pictures at night but only when the subject is well lit.
The Redmi 4’s camera app is simple and easy to use. The app has many settings and features. HDR mode launches with just a single tap. The phone has live filters. Videos up to 720 pixels and 1080 pixels can be recorded from the phone and the video quality is also excellent.
Selfies coming from Redmi 4 are fine. But the image is processed slowly. In our desire to take a quick selfie, we ended up taking blurry selfies many times.
Overall, the camera of Xiaomi Redmi 4 is better than the previous Redmi 3S Prime (Review) if we look at focus and performance. The camera has problems like poor quality in low light and slow processing in HDR mode. We hope this problem will be resolved with the update.
xiaomi redmi 4 performance
The general performance of the Xiaomi Redmi 4 was excellent and the device handled most tasks with ease. The MIUI interface seems sluggish at times but app performance is not affected by this. We played games like Asphalt 8 and Cut the Rope 2 easily on the phone. During the review we did not see any major problems with the phone. Nor did the phone get excessively hot.
We reviewed a unit with 3 GB RAM and found only 1.2 GB of memory free in the phone. Which means that Xiaomi Redmi 4 with 2 GB RAM variant may have problem in multi-tasking. Even though the memory was around 1 GB empty, we did not find the phone slow. But we would advise you to spend a little more money and get the 4 GB RAM variant.
The voice quality in the phone was excellent and the phone supports VoLTE. A headset is not available with the phone, so we tested our earphones, which impressed us with the sound quality.
The 5-inch IPS display is bright and text looks sharp. The screen is crisp with great viewing angles. However, this is not the best HD display we have seen on a Redmi phone. Color reproduction was good, but in our opinion Redmi 3S proved to be better in this matter. The screen can be read and used in direct sunlight. Watching movies and playing games with the 5 inch display on the phone is a good experience. The phone has a reading mode.
The phone scored well in benchmark testing. From this phone we got figures like a smartphone with Snapdragon 430 processor.
The battery of the Redmi 4 smartphone lasted 14 hours and 20 minutes in our HD video loop test, which is good. We’ll attribute the performance in the battery loop test to the low-HD resolution screen. With regular use, the battery lasted for a full day. The phone has a power saving mode which helps the phone to last longer on a single charge. The phone does not come with a fast charging adapter but Xiaomi’s Jai Mani told us that the phone supports fast charging. We hope Xiaomi will also sell a fast charging adapter for the Redmi 4 as an additional accessory, or you can buy one from a third party.
our decision
In the past too, Xiaomi’s Redmi smartphones have set standards for other smartphones in this price segment. And the Redmi series exposed the potential of a budget smartphone. The same applies for Redmi 4. Xiaomi’s latest entry-level Redmi is the perfect package in terms of performance, battery life and design. Camera quality is one thing where the phone disappoints, but expecting too much from a phone at this price is pointless.
Xiaomi Redmi 4 will replace Redmi 3S (and Redmi 3S Prime) after some time and will be the main phone in the sub-Rs 10,000 category. The company has priced the 2 GB RAM/16 GB storage variant at Rs 6,999, the 3 GB RAM/32 GB storage variant at Rs 8,999 and the 4 GB RAM/64 GB storage variant at Rs 10,999. Talking about the middle version, we got 1.28 GB memory free all the time. We would advise people to buy the slightly more expensive but more storage variant. Redmi 4 smartphone will compete with Samsung Galaxy J2 (2016), Lenovo K6 Power (Review), Oppo A37. But the biggest challenge to it will be from Xiaomi’s own Redmi Note 4, which has a better processor, bigger screen and a better camera.
Availability of these smartphones is a big issue. The previous Redmi 3S (Redmi 3S Prime), Redmi 4A and Redmi Note 4 smartphones have been extremely difficult to purchase in stock. Whereas these smartphones have been sold on Flipkart and the company’s Mi online store.