Mi-grating to the Xiaomi Mi4i

I’ve been using the new Xiaomi Mi4i for just over a month now, migrated from my Samsung Galaxy S4.

First, a little backstory. I had always wanted to keep my Galaxy S4 as long as possible, but of late it has been getting slower and slower, and a particular problem with the screen locking up recently really frustrated me. One day I dropped the phone, and the LCD went kaput, so I had no choice to repair it (for RM700 plus GST, no less) in order to turn the phone back on and save the data inside.

So my search for a new phone started. Almost immediately, I narrowed it down to either the new Galaxy S6, Galaxy Tab 2, or the Xiaomi Mi4. The Galaxy S6 is almost obscenely expensive (I can buy THREE Mi4s at that price). I liked the Tab 2’s large screen and good camera, plus they had this offer at the time where you could trade in your old smartphone for rebates up RM500. But on the other hand, I realized that I were to stick to a Samsung phone, I’m effectively looking at a lifespan of 1.5 years. Anything beyond that is a bonus.

So I decided to take a more serious look at Xiaomi. I had used Patrick’s Mi3 for a few days when my old phone was being repaired, so I knew the functions and features. But buying the Mi4 was a problem. I tried DirectD’s website for a few weeks, it was always out of stock. then there was concern that the current batch of Mi4’s were not for Malaysia market, putting some doubt of its LTE capabilities.

anyway, one day I checked Mi.com/my/ (the Malaysian website for Mi) and saw that they had just launched the NEW Mi4i! ONLY RM749!! What the heck, I said, I’m buying one.

So anyway, that’s how I got my phone. So after a month of using it, how does it compare to Samsung?

First the good points:

Price – well, the best thing going for it is the price. At RM749, I don’t mind if it lasts me a year, I can anytime buy another one, and it won’t cost me the price of a notebook. I think this will the first thing anyone considering to change phones should take into account.

Themes – like how they make changing themes very easy. Sure, you can do it for Samsung too, but here, its only a few taps and you can view the millions of user created themes.

Battery – their standby time is definitely longer than my old Samsung, and it charges very fast.

And the now the cons:

The smart cover feature doesn’t work! Whenever I close the cover, I need to click the power off button or the screen will still be active. Maybe I still haven’t gotten the setting correct, but I notice Patrick’s Mi3 had this same problem. Hmmm.

Calculator – I can’t get the thousands comma separator to appear! Can someone help me?

Camera – well, have to say they lose out to Samsung and the iPhone in this area. the camera is just OKAY, but not impressive. and it has less features.

Browser problems – the browsers freezes up frequently and exits automatically, especially if I’m opening from FB. this can be easily be remedied by installing a third party browser, but they should fix that.