Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime Review: Balance And Style on a Budget

With numerous mid-range phones stacking up in the market, Xiaomi has made a comfortable spot for its products. Summing up to its pile of mid-range phones, today we have the Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime which is priced at Rs.23,500. Let’s find out if Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime could be your next phone.

Key Specs of Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime:

• 5" IPS display of 1080p resolution; 443ppi
• Snapdragon 625 chipset; 14nm process, 2.0GHz octa-core Cortex-A53 CPU
• Adreno 506 GPU
• 13MP f/2.2 main camera with hybrid PDAF; 1080p video capture at 30fps
• 5MP f/2.2 front-facing camera; 1080p at 30fps video recording
• MIUI 8 based on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow
• 32GB of built-in storage, 3GB of RAM
• Hybrid DualSIM/microSD card slot (up to 128GB)
• 4G LTE Cat.7/13 (300Mbps down/ 150Mbps up); Wi-Fi a/b/g/n; Bluetooth 4.2; GPS, GLONASS and Beidou; FM radio
• IR port
• Dual-microphone active noise canceling
• Rear-mounted fingerprint reader
• 4,100mAh non-removable battery, fast charging

Design:

The first thing that impressed me about the Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime is its metal body. Although a mid range device, the phone feels premium with full metal body and chamfered edges on sides. The phone comes in a compact form factor and has a typical Xiaomi design. Sporting just 5-inch display, it is comfortable to hold and I could reach almost anywhere on the phone with one hand.

If you are a minimalist, you’ll love the design of the phone as the back holds only the Mi branding, left is clean with an incognito SIM tray and the right holds volume and power button. Up front, it has capacitive navigation keys which have pretty wide sensing surface, so you won't miss those touches even if you slightly miss the buttons marking, and this is important because the buttons aren’t backlit.

Display:

The Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime comes with a 5-inch Full HD display with the pixel density of 441ppi, that’s a lot of pixels for a 5-inch screen thus resulting in a sharp display. The screen is bright and saturated resulting in punchy colors. The viewing angles are great and I didn’t notice any color shifting.

The outdoor visibility is good as I could use the phone in direct sunlight without any issues. But when you open the camera on direct sunlight, you can hardly see anything on the screen, as it becomes really reflective at that time. But that's not the issue here, the one and the only issue I had with the display are those thick black borders. These are pretty distracting at first, but with time you’ll forget about it, but, it’s still there. An edge-to-edge display would have made this device a whole lot better for the eyes. Also, Xiaomi hasn't included any kind of scratch protection in the display, so we suggest you snap a tempered glass once you buy the device.

Performance:

Coming down to performance, the Redmi 4 Prime is powered by Snapdragon 625 Octa-Core processor (Octa-core 2.0 GHz Cortex-A53, 14nm Process) and coupled with that comes the Adreno 506 GPU. For normal daily usage, there’s nothing it can’t handle. Even with heavy usage, there were no hiccups with its performance. I was able to push the device per my usage without any issues. With 3GB of RAM, I was able to multitask between 5-6 apps without app restart and if you are concerned about the memory, there’s usually around 600MB of RAM free with loads of app open and 1.3 GB when cleared all of those.

On the Gaming Front, I could play high-end games like the Asphalt 8 and Modern Combat 5 at reasonable frame rates with no frame drops and lags anytime soon. Having said that, the phone does get warm on the back, but it's nothing serious.

Software/UI:

The phone is running on MIUI 8.2 which is based on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. I have favored stock android for a long time over any skinned UI, even MIUI before. But the new MIUI 8.2 seems completely refreshing, it is pleasing to the eyes, colors and icons look playful and there are just bunch of interactive animations which makes using the phone a whole lot fun.

But what makes MIUI fun is those little details incorporated all around the UI, like the Reading mode to cut off blue lights, double tap to wake up screen, app lock with fingerprint unlock, dual apps where you can use two same apps with different accounts, junk cleaner to clean cache and junk files, quick ball: an assistive touch that provides you with options of navigation & screenshot, three finger swipe for screenshot, and notification light customization where you can assign different colored light for different types of notification, lite mode to make things way too easy and to save the battery life, and the list goes on and on.

Camera:

Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime comes with 13MP Rear Camera with Phase Detection Auto Focus for faster autofocus, F2.2 aperture lens, and Dual tone Dual LED flash. The Camera UI is similar to other Xiaomi phones and comes with shooting options like panorama, scene, tilt-shift, Manual Mode and HHT or Hand-Held Twilight Mode for low light.

Images throughout the daytime were pretty okay and looked natural for the most part, but typically the images look warm, lacks sharpness and details and this was resolved to some extent by turning on HDR mode.

Dynamic range is fine, but not excellent. During twilight, you can adjust the exposure by sliding up or down to get suitable lighting on your photos. At night time, the images come out all right with plenty of grains but turning on HHT mode helps to some extent. It can shoot Full HD videos at 30fps and it was terribly bad. With no image stabilization, you get really shaky videos with constant exposure shifts and they pretty much lacked details. The front facing 5MP Camera is okay, you get clean and clear photos in daylight and indoors but at night time it’s just full of grains.

Connectivity:

For Connectivity, the phone comes with dual SIM slot, where the 2nd slot supports Micro SD Card extendibility. Wi-Fi networks and data was stable and I had no problems while calling. And on top, it also comes with an IR-Blaster and a supporting Mi Remote App which is pretty handy simple and straight forward. The call quality was excellent, so was the audio coming out from 3.5mm headphone jack.

Fingerprint Sensor:

Redmi 4 Prime has a fingerprint sensor on the back which is very fast, it instantaneously unlocks the phone. Besides unlocking the phone, the fingerprint sensor can also assist in taking photos and app lock. I typically like fingerprint sensor up front, as it is easier to unlock the phone while it's on the table but when held on hand, the back is where your fingers normally rest enabling easier access.

Battery:

The battery on the Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime is one of the best feature. The 4100mAh battery lasted for 2 days of heavy usage. From taking photos & videos to playing games and chatting all day long, the Redmi 4 Prime can go on and on. Talking about the screen on time, I got somewhere around 7 to 8 hours, as the battery optimization is great on the MIUI and the phone uses a power efficient 14nm Snapdragon 625 SoC. If you want to extend the life further you can either turn on battery saver or the lite mode. It took almost 3 hours to completely charge the device even though it has fast charging capabilities.

Verdict:

It isn’t often that a midrange comes with a short list of flaws and Redmi 4 Prime is one of those phones. So during my period of review, these are the things I liked and disliked about the Redmi 4 Prime.

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT XIAOMI REDMI 4 PRIME:

• The first and foremost thing is undoubtedly the battery life. It feels amazing to be carefree about your battery life when it lasts for two whole days.
• Then comes the premium design. Although I was carrying a sub 25k phone, I never doubted for a second it was any less premium than the flagship phones. Also, the compact size of the phone makes it really portable and easy to use.
• The display is sharp, bright, and has good contrast.
• The performance, even with SD 625, I wasn’t limited to just basic use and could go overboard and do some high-end power use with it. The addition of fingerprint sensor is a boon and the MIUI has pretty great ways to make more use of it.

WHAT I DISLIKED ABOUT XIAOMI REDMI 4 PRIME:

• Loudspeaker is average
• The display has black borders which could be really distracting.
• The display lacks scratch resistant glass and hence scratches easily.
• Poor video quality along with average image quality (considering the price)

IF YOU WEREN’T IMPRESSED BY THE XIAOMI REDMI 4 PRIME, HERE ARE SOME OTHER OPTIONS YOU CAN CONSIDER:

ZTE Axon Mini 

Priced at Rs. 25,999, the Axon Mini sports a 5.2-inch 1080P AMOLED display with Gorilla Glass 3 protection and forced touched display. It houses a 13MP rear and 8MP front cameras. It is powered by an older octacore Snapdragon 616 processor, 3GB RAM, and 2800mAh battery. It is running on an outdated Android 5.1 Lollipop.

SAMSUNG GALAXY J5 PRIME

Another great device in Redmi 4 Prime’s price range, the Samsung Galaxy J5 Prime comes with a better 13MP shooter. It is currently available at Rs. 22,990 and sports a lower resolution 720P display, quad-core CPU, and only 2GB of RAM.