Blockbuster phone 2014: Xiaomi Mi 3

It is no doubt that current fashion in today marketing world is fancying about flash online sales and release in minimum quantity that low enough to attract the crowd to buy online yet high enough to cover the sales operation cost plus a little bit marginal profit. This technique works well. Look at how Xiaomi did on its flagship phone, Mi3, which recently made to the cover page of many news and digital magazine with its flash sales started from Singapore, secondly came to Malaysia and then Philippines and now India, which Xiaomi make that only can buy Mi3 online. Although Xiaomi has suspended its Mi3 sales in India due to current focus on Redmi 1S, Xiaomi still created the phenomenon on India's media. (update 15/10/2014: The Mi3 still can be seen on Flipkart but the online sales registration is closed now. Not sure when it will open for people to buy online)

Side view of Mi3 - the power and volume button

There is a lot to talk about Xiaomi and its incredible sales technique, but today I will mainly focus on Mi3 spec and its review in this article. Although I own a Mi3 currently, I do consult and make reference to many review sites such as gsmarena, techradar, cnet, engadget, etc. Here I summarized key points that most user concerned about XIaomi. Ok, here we go.

Xiaomi's Mi3 first introduced in China in year 2013. The market gave the name of "Apple of China" to Xiaomi and "iphone 5 of China" to Mi3. It is not only hinting that Xiaomi is good in replicating and modifying as well as refining other people's technology and idea into own invention, Xiaomi actually build a nice quality of low cost phone which is good value of money. When it comes to technology, some people just don’t find it reasonable to spend crazy money on a gadget that gets old in just several years. But those same people still want the full smartphone experience, the apps, the speed and the quality. Here is when Xiaomi's Mi3 came in.

Back view of Mi3

Mi3 as a Xiaomi's flagship phone, it has a beautiful aluminum-magnesium chassis, which solid build quality, almost can compare with the Apple's iphone5 which is on crazy price tag. The Mi-3 1080p screen, which is sourced from LG, is extremely responsive and the resolution very clear. I often used it to watch blue-ray movie on it without any noticeable lag. It is worth to mention that I experiaced the lag on my desktop computer when watching the same .mkv movie file. As the Mi3 runs on either Nvidia Tegra 4 or Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processors, its performance is super high-speed. With the design pleasingly thin and angular, a squared-off look from the front accompanied by curved plastic sides, which seamlessly round into the unibody casing and the very responsive user-interface which called Miui 5, thanks to the design team behind it, you will thought it is an iphone 5 when it is on your hand.

Second mic for noise cancellation, Sim card tray and 3.5mm ear-piece hole

Despite the Xiaomi Mi3's seductive styling and powerful list of components, there are a few details (or lack of them) that keep my excitement for the phone in check. This phone however lacks LTE connectivity, and with no microSD card slot means you'll stick to the on-board 16gb storage for whatever photo, video and apps you have, forever. As I'm not taking a lot of photo and video, this volume still work fine with me. But if you are the type of people who take few hundreds photo or video a weeks, certainly is an "oh-no" to you. But thanks to the miCloud service, which allow you to back up your photo and video to the cloud, this issue can considered it solved. If you don't need 4G LTE, and you can get hold of it, this is one of the best smartphones you can buy in for a relatively low price, you should go for it. 

Base speaker

One thing I must mention is the Base speaker easily muffled, especially when playing games in landscape mode, but this also can be resolved by using the Xiaomi's piston in-ear-type headset, which offer premium sound quality if you use the correct sound setting.. Although the still photo quite impressive, with the 13 MP camera, it surprisingly failed my expectation when it comes to HD video taking, which you can notice the lag easily. 

Although Xiaomi's current high-end model is the Mi4, but before then it was the Mi3 and it offers specs similar to those of most of 2013's flagship Android models, combining a 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 chipset (as seen in the Nexus 5, LG G2, Xperia Z1 Compact and many, many more top-spec mobiles) with a 13 MP camera, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage and a 5-inch 1080p resolution display. Minimal and futuristic looking, if not more than a little reminiscent of the Nokia Lumia 900. It does manage to avoid the common fate of looking like a Samsung Galaxy clone that afflicts many budget smartphones.

Also, despite Xiaomi market that the Mi3 comes with an "aluminum-magnesium alloy frame, coated with 3 layers of thermal graphite", it feels like it's made from plastic, decent and solid plastic, yes, but perhaps not quite up there with Apple and Sony in terms of impressive, premium feel.

The main negative here is the decision to use capacitive touch buttons instead of using Android's on-screen software buttons that have been widely used for a couple of years now. It feels like these buttons are organised backwards. When holding the Mi 3 in the right hand there's a bit of a cramped squeeze to get to the back key, a button used much more widely than the easier to reach menu. That said, if you hold your phone in your left hand it's ideal. Perhaps Xiaomi has its eye on the left-handed phone market?