Xiaomi Mi Note: Not just one of the best value phablets, one of the best phablets, period
PUBLISHED ONJanuary 27, 2015 9:00 AMByJames Lu
Overview
Xiaomi's latest phone is something of a departure from its usual fare. The 5.7-inch Mi Note phablet is a cut above the wallet-friendly offerings Xiaomi has offered in the past, and its premium design, build and specs put it in the same league as the flagship phones from Apple, Samsung and other smartphone giants.
But can Xiaomi compete at the very highest level?
Xiaomi CEO, Lei Jun, certainly thinks so. He wasn't afraid to take more than a few jabs at Apple during his unveiling presentation, declaring "Our phone is lighter, thinner, narrower and shorter than the iPhone 6 Plus. But we have a bigger screen."
To be fair, maybe Lei Jun has a right to boast. Backing him up is an array of impressive features, including a 13MP Sony camera with optical image stabilization (and without the protruding camera bump visible on the iPhone 6 Plus), a 3,000mAh capacity battery, a dual- nano and micro SIM card tray slot, and an onboard ESS ES9018K2M stereo DAC (digital-to-analog converter).
So far, it sounds impressive. But is the Mi Note more than just an impressive spec sheet?
The Mi Note will be available in two storage capacities - 16GB and 64GB - and priced at 2,299RMB (~S$495) and 2,799RMB (~S$600) respectively. Both models will be on sale in China on 27th January, with international availability expected in Q2 this year.
Here's a closer look at the Mi Note's specs:
Design
While Lei Jun was quick to compare the Mi Note to Apple's iPhone 6 Plus, to the surprise of many, and to the credit of Xiaomi's design and engineering teams (and unlike some other Xiaomi devices), the phablet isn't actually a complete Apple ripoff (although we imagine Samsung can't be too happy about Xiaomi hijacking the 'Note' brand name). The overall design of the Mi Note actually borrows elements from many places - the rear glass resembles the iPhone 4 and 5, or Sony Xperia Z line, the chamfered bezels look like older iPhones or newer Samsung phones, and the curved glass back reminds us of the display on the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge. Ultimately, while there will be no awards for design innovation here, there's enough to make the end result feel new and fresh.
For a more in-depth visual comparison of how the Mi Note compares to the iPhone 6 Plus, refer to this article.
The front of the device is dominated by its 5.7-inch display. True to Lei Jun's word, despite boasting a larger screen size, the Mi Note is indeed narrower and shorter than the iPhone 6 Plus. The phone measures 155.1 x 77.6mm, making it 3mm shorter and 0.2mm narrower than the 6 Plus. Impressively, it also has thinner bezels, and it's about 11g lighter too. The Gorilla Glass 3 front panel is very slightly curved at the edges, just like the iPhone 6 Plus, but it's harder to appreciate on the Mi Note as the glass runs right up to the chamfered bezel.
An aluminium frame with chamfered bezels runs around the edge of the device, tapering down to about 4mm at the sides, and widening out to 6.95mm at the top and bottom edges. At the thickest section, this makes the Mi Note 0.15mm thinner than the iPhone 6 Plus (which is insignificant) and 1.55mm thinner than the Galaxy Note 4 (which is).
The back of the device is arguably more interesting than the front. Xiaomi's '3D curved glass' rear panel has a dramatic taper, curving drastically at the left and right edges - the curve actually reminds us a lot of the front of the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge (without the underlying display of course). In hand, the rear curve feels good and handles well. It's somewhere between the blocky slab feel of the Galaxy Note 4, and the often slippery, rounded edge of the iPhone 6 Plus. Comparing all three phablets, we would say that Xiaomi has actually found the best balance between aesthetics and handling: curving just the back edges of the device gives you a soft, ergonomic curve for your palm to wrap around, and yet still leaves a flat side edge for your hand to grip onto.
With glass on the front and rear, there are understandably concerns regarding the durability of the Mi Note, but the phone feels solid enough, and both the front and rear panels seem sturdy and strong. Additionally, during Lei Jun's presentation, he showed a video clip of the phone being dropped and having a steel ball dropped on it, which should help allay some fears. Nevertheless, Xiaomi is offering users a 199RMB annual insurance to cover screen damage plus glass damage for both sides of the phone, as well as accidental liquid damage for clumsy users.
At the bottom of the Mi Note, you'll find the speaker grille, which looks a bit like the old iPhone 4 and 5 speaker grille, comprising of rows of small holes. You'll also find the micro-USB port here.
Unlike the iPhone 6 Plus, the headphone port can be found at the top of the device.
Both the volume rocker and power button can be found on the right side of the Mi Note. The rounded, oblong buttons are thinner than the buttons on the 6 Plus (to fit into the skinny side edge) but are otherwise very similar in style, although the Mi Note does use a one piece volume rocker, rather than the individual up/down volume buttons favoured by Apple.
On the left side you'll find the dual- micro and nano SIM card tray. While dual-SIM phones are nothing new, a 2-in-1 micro/nano SIM card tray is fairly novel. Both SIM card slots support TDD-LTE and FDD-LTE cellular systems, so you'll be able to use Singapore's LTE network using either SIM card. Within the settings menu, you can toggle between SIM cards or turn each on/off individually.
Display & Audio
The Mi Note boasts a 5.7-inch Full HD 1920 x 1080 (386ppi) pixel resolution display made by Sharp/JDI. The negative LCD panel boasts a 95 per cent NTSC colour gamut and a contrast ratio of 1,400: 1. It's even capable of local tone mapping at a per pixel level. As a result, the screen is crisp, and pictures look fantastic, with deep contrast and vivid but not over saturated colors.
Both colour and contrast can be adjusted in the settings menu, although unfortunately, there are no slider options, so you can only pick from a few preset options. If there's one complaint we have with the display, it's that viewing angles could probably be a bit better. Head on, the screen is blindingly bright, but that falls off quickly when viewed off angle.
Surprisingly, Xiaomi has paid a lot of attention to the audio capabilities of the Mi Note. Inside, you'll find an ESS ES9018K2M stereo digital-to-analog converter (DAC), dual ADI ADA 4896 op-amps, dual Texas Instruments OPA1612 op-amps, and two independent 44.1kHz and 48kHz clock oscillators. All of this makes the Mi Note a very capable high-res (24-bit/192kHz) audio player. Paired with a reasonably decent pair of headphones (my Audio-Technica M50x's) and some 192-bit AAC music tracks, I was very impressed by the sound quality coming out of the Mi Note. While I'm certainly no audiophile, the difference between the Mi Note and my iPhone 6 was readily apparent.
As for the actual speakers on the Mi Note, audio is impressively loud, but lacks depth and bass. The one-directional quality of the audio also makes it less than ideal for landscape-mode movie watching.
User Interface
The Mi Note runs on Android 4.4 KitKat with MIUI 6 installed. MIUI 6 also seems to take several cues from iOS 7, in terms of design, functionality and app layout. Drag down from the top of the screen and sure enough, there's a notification center with a pseudo transparent screen effect. Even specific apps like the calendar and calculator bear a striking resemblance to Apple's own. Nevertheless, MIUI 6 actually works really well. It's fluid and responsive, and everything is easy to navigate and use.
As with many phablets, there's also a one-handed mode that shrinks the size of the display. Just swipe left or right on the Home button to shrink the screen and pull it closer to that side. You can select from 3.5-inch, 4-inch, and 4.5-inch screen sizes.
It's worth noting that unlike Xiaomi's other devices, the Mi Note doesn't offer any expandable storage. On the plus side, even with MIUI 6 installed, Android 4.4 is fairly lightweight, so even on the 16GB model, you have about 11GB storage left to play with. Having said that, if you can afford it, you're better off springing for the 64GB version.
Performance Benchmarks
The Mi Note is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 2.5GHz quad-core processor with 3GB RAM. This should give it performance equal to other flagship smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S5, Sony Xperia Z3 and LG G3. We expect the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 with its Snapdragon 805 processor to be slightly more powerful.
We will be comparing the Mi Note against the following competitive flagship phablets:
Sunspider Javascript
SunSpider Javascript helps measure the browsing performance of a device when processing Javascript. It not only takes into consideration the underlying hardware performance, but also assesses how optimized a particular platform is at delivering a high-speed web browsing experience. The Mi Note performed very well in this test, falling about halfway between the untouchable iPhone 6 Plus and our other two android phablets. In terms of real world performance, we found Xiaomi's MIUI browser to be fast, smooth and responsive.
Quadrant
Quadrant is an Android benchmark that evaluates a device's CPU, memory, I/O and 3D graphics performance. When running a benchmark, game or other processor-intensive app the Mi Note gives you the option to switch between 'Performance' or 'Balanced' mode. To see the full capabilities of the Mi Note, we opted for Performance mode. The Mi Note performed surprisingly well in the Quadrant test, vastly outscoring the Snapdragon 801-equipped LG G3, and comparing very favourably against the more powerful 805-equipped Samsung Galaxy Note. For the record, the Mi Note scored 15903 in Balanced mode.
3DMark (2013)
Originally developed as a PC benchmarking tool, 3DMark is now expanded to support multiple platforms including Android OS. The Ice Storm benchmark is designed for smartphones, mobile devices and ARM architecture computers.
For an in-depth understanding of 3DMark for Android, do head over to our article, "3DMark - Android Device GPU Performance Review." In a nutshell, it is an OpenGL ES 2.0 benchmark test that uses fixed off-screen rendering to run two graphics tests designed to stress the GPU performance of your device and a physics test to stress its CPU performance. The benchmark consists of three test portfolios:- Standard (720p resolution rendering), Extreme (1080p resolution rendering with higher quality textures and post-processing effects) and Unlimited (disabled v-sync, display scaling and other OS factors that make it ideal for chipset comparison).
As all recent flagship smartphones have been maxing out the scores on the Standard and Extreme tests, we will only be looking at the scores for Ice Storm Unlimited.
The Mi Note was again impressive in this benchmark, and was just slightly behind the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, easily beating both the LG G3 and Apple iPhone 6 Plus. In Balanced mode, it recorded a score of 17298.
Overall performance on the Mi Note was good, with performance on the Balanced setting around what you would expect from a Snapdragon 801 device. The addition of Performance mode, which boosts performance up to near Snapdragon 805 levels is a very welcome addition. One minor point to note is that, after running benchmarks on Performance for around 20 minutes, we found the rear glass of the Mi Note to be quite hot to touch, similar to the issue we had previously experienced with the rear-glass on the Sony Xperia Z series. Balanced mode also caused some heating up, but it wasn't as significant.
Imaging Performance
The Mi Note is armed with a 13MP rear camera with a Sony CMOS sensor (highly likely to be the 1/3.06-inch Sony Exmor RS IMX214 that Xiaomi also uses in its Mi4 smartphone) and an f/2.0 aperture. It also has a Philips dual-LED warm/cold flash, and optical image stabilization. Up front, there's a 4MP camera with 2µm pixel size (the same as on HTC's UltraPixel cam), which is ideal for selfies in low light. Like the iPhone 6 Plus, you can use the volume key as a shutter button. Holding down either the onscreen shutter or the volume button will activate burst mode, which will shoot at approximately 8FPS up to a maximum of 100 shots per press.
Despite the Mi Note being thinner and its camera being, on paper at least, higher spec than the iPhone 6 Plus rear camera, the Mi Note's camera module sits flush with the rear of the phone, without the unsightly protruding camera bump found on the 6 Plus.
Xiaomi was very keen to showcase this, and even made a video making fun of the 6 Plus:
Image quality on the Mi Note is very good, and rivals any other flagship phone out there. The optical image stabilization works well, and low light shots retain detail and sharpness.
Battery Life
Our standard battery test for mobile phones includes the following parameters:
Looping a 800 x 480-pixel video with screen brightness and volume at 100 per cent Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on Constant data streaming through email and Twitter
The Mi Note is armed with a 3,000mAh capacity battery, which puts it around the same level as other flagship phablets, including the LG G3 and iPhone 6 Plus. We tested the Mi Note in Balanced mode, and it lasted just under 10.5 hours in our video looping battery benchmark, which is quite respectable, but falls short of the Galaxy Note 4 with its larger capacity battery. The Mi Note did however, last significantly longer than the iPhone 6 Plus.
Portability
We measure the portability of a device by calculating its battery life to (weight x volume) ratio. The Mi Note scored exceptionally well here, thanks to its lightweight, sleek build and reasonably good battery life.
Conclusion
Consider the Mi Note Xiaomi's coming of age party. Previous Xiaomi devices have been 'affordable alternatives': devices with good designs, often similar in style to higher-end products, but with compromises made in performance or features. The Mi Note makes no such compromises. It performs just as well, if not better than many other flagship devices, and boasts an excellent display, good battery life, and a superb camera with all of the features - like optical image stabilization and dual-LED flash - that you would want in a high-end smartphone. And while it's the most expensive device Xiaomi has ever made (close to S$500 for the 16GB edition and about S$600 for the 64GB version), it's still remarkably affordable, at half the price of an iPhone 6 Plus or Galaxy Note 4. With the Mi Note, Xiaomi can now challenge the likes of Apple and Samsung at the highest levels and the upcoming release of the even more powerful Mi Note Pro could very well put Xiaomi firmly on top.
In the four years that Xiaomi has been in business, we've been increasingly impressed with the level of quality coming out of the Beijing-based company. Each device launched has been better than the last, and the Mi Note certainly stands out as the culmination of Xiaomi's efforts. While the company is still guilty of being a bit too carefree when borrowing ideas or designs from competitors (particularly Apple), the Mi Note proves that it doesn't really need that crutch anymore (well, at least not as much as before). The phablet's superb handling, thinner and lighter build, and flush camera module shows that Xiaomi's design and engineering team is already at a world class level; all Xiaomi needs to do now is stop trying to emulate Apple and embrace its own identity.
Local pricing and exact date of availability (Xiaomi only says Q2 for other markets) will be made known at a later date as the Mi Note is first launching in China.
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