Intro
Of late, the Redmi Note is selling like hotcakes here in Malaysia. 15k units sold within minutes while the Mi3 has lost it's momentum probably due to the launch of the Mi4. The power banks are still selling like crazy though. Why not? These products from Xiami are worth every cent spent. Simply said, they are value for your money spent.
Specs War
While the major players out there are competing specs with specs, who has the most processor core, fastest clock speed, biggest ram, camera megapixels and so on, up goes the cost to manufacture those flagship big brothers. At the end of the day, consumers are the one bearing the costs. Seriously, does your phone really utilize all the muscle power built into it? Not like it'll be running CAD programmes..
This is where Xiaomi took a different approach. Without compromising specs, they used less "premium" brands for their components to produce cost effective products. The Redmi note's overall design and built is great. Specs aside, it is the software namely the MIUI that is something to boast about. I guess apart from its attractive price, the MIUI also helped much with boosting their sales.
Well Designed Themes
Worth mentioning is the MIUI themes library. Most of the themes can be downloaded for free with the built in theme browser. Themes availability differs from region to region. Apparently, the China ROM have more variety of themes available for download. (You can always flash to the China ROM if you know how). The themes used in this blog entry is called, Brave Legend. There is an option where you can display the current connection speed at the top of the screen. It may prove useful to some people. It is the current connection speed similar to BitTorrent download / upload speed and not the link speed of the connection.
What I like about MIUI themes is that I don't see "laziness" all over its design. Meaning to say that, the icons, layouts, buttons, etc are all nicely designed and drawn. For other phones where you download the themes via the world wide web, most of the themes come with poorly designed 2D icons and most of them are counter intuitive. It takes some time (and brain juice) to figure out what does the icon mean, not with MIUI themes! Take a look at the "tools" screenshot below. Having them for free is a bargain!
Managing the home screen like arranging icons, grouping icons, deleting icons, etc is like a stroll in the park. For instance, to move an icon to the next page instead of dragging to the edge of the screen and waiting for the page to flip, you can hold the icon with one finger and flip the page with another finger. That's so much more intuitive the dragging to the edge and wait. There's also a way to delete multiple icons easily. These "tips & tricks" will not be discussed here as it can be found all over the Internet.
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| Phone Screen - Clean Design |
Security Tools
The security tools that are built into MIUI are self explanatory and it is surely a good to have. I particularly like the data usage and power tools to monitor data and battery usage respectively. Again, the interfaces are intuitively and nicely designed. The security and cleaner tools can be used to optimize and clear unwanted cache and ad files that may linger in your phone. I have not a clue about their effectiveness, though.
Tools
These are the ordinary tools or apps that usually come with other phones. It is the graphical interface that makes MIUI stands out from the crowd. Have a look for yourself. I think they look better than those found on iPhone.
MIUI Updater
The MIUI updater also made it easier for users to update their phone to the latest software available. User can choose to check for updates and update over the air or they can download the latest ROM available from xiaomi's website and flash it to their phone using the updater. More details -> here <- Such a blessing in disguise.
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| Voice Recorder - Shape of a cassette - Old school but nicer than iPhone's microphone |
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| Compass with LAT LON position |
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| Torch - I particularly like the design of this.. |
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| Music Player |
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| Voice Call Recorder - Not unique but great to have! Don't forget your promises made!! *grins* |
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| MIUI Theme Library |
Verdict
The Redmi note is a Made-In-China phone. People perceives made in China products as a "NO-NO" these days. Here in Malaysia, when we are buying things that are made in China the sales person will always tells us this,
"Nowadays, everything also made in China but made in China also got good and got bad. Then they'll start quoting this product that product (famous brand) also made in China."
Yes, I've seen many horrible made in China fake copy phones before but the Redmi Note along with the other xiaomi products are non alike. That being said, to be fair there are also other players in the market who is fairing quite well in Malaysia such as huawei, oppo and vivo but their sales are still lacking behind xiaomi. Guess, xiaomi's marketing strategy plays a big part in boosting their sales. You put limited number of phones for sale every week and let them sold out every time. Then the mass public will perceive it as "everybody wants it" and then they also tries to follow the crowd and "fights" for one. What xiaomi is better than Apple is that,
1. They don't make people que in front of the store for the whole night just to buy a phone. Instead, you can "fight" for one at the comfort of your home or office.
2. They control their sales that is maybe 15k units every week. Predictable, instead of a sudden release of units then goes out of stock for an indefinite amount of time. By then you've already lost some of your fishes.
Don't know about other countries but at least that's the scenario in Malaysia.
