I don't know why, but the guys at Xiaomi save the good stuff for the Chinese market.
I got the Redmi 4 Prime a while back ago for less than 200€ (postage included)... but it seems to be out of stock, now:
https://www.honorbuy.com/1000-xiaomi-red...-gray.html
What's on there?
- FHD 5" screen
- Snapdragon 625
- 3GB RAM
- 32GB ROM
- 4100mAh battery - consistently lasts me 2 days and I keep the wifi on all the time.
- Gets a GPS lock in seconds (provided open sky... takes a while more when surrounded by buildings and doesn't work very well under tight tree coverage)
- Fingerprint scanner on the back - handy for index finger. Not so good when the phone is lying on a table.
- Dual LED flash for a more yellowish (natural light) flash experience. It is powerful.
- Works on all European carriers I've tried it (Portugal and UK only
)
The downside: chinese ROM. It carries only Chinese and English languages. Some built-in apps are fully in chinese. The default app-store is chinese. It carries no google apps... although the guys at honorbuy did load those in for my convenience. Still, if you try to update an app because it says that it knows of a new update (and the play store hasn't yet provided that update) the phone will try to find that update through the chinese store... and fail, of course. Of course, all you need to do is open the play store and perform the update through there, but I can understand the inconvenience for some.
- One other potential downside... it is a downside for me. The stock launcher. the Xiaomi guys developed their own android version called MIUI and replaced many features with their own. Some are well ahead of the stock android experience, some are just trying to mimic iOS. And the Launcher screams iOS all over with its absence of an app drawer.
- Last, but not least, the back and menu buttons are swapped relative to the position proposed by Google. They are in the same location as you'll find on Samsung phones - back button on the right side of the home and menu button on the left side.
Bonus feature: IR blaster. It can mimic many remotes. I've tried with my Samsung TV and it works wonderfully.
I got the Redmi 4 Prime a while back ago for less than 200€ (postage included)... but it seems to be out of stock, now:
https://www.honorbuy.com/1000-xiaomi-red...-gray.html
What's on there?
- FHD 5" screen
- Snapdragon 625
- 3GB RAM
- 32GB ROM
- 4100mAh battery - consistently lasts me 2 days and I keep the wifi on all the time.
- Gets a GPS lock in seconds (provided open sky... takes a while more when surrounded by buildings and doesn't work very well under tight tree coverage)
- Fingerprint scanner on the back - handy for index finger. Not so good when the phone is lying on a table.
- Dual LED flash for a more yellowish (natural light) flash experience. It is powerful.
- Works on all European carriers I've tried it (Portugal and UK only
)The downside: chinese ROM. It carries only Chinese and English languages. Some built-in apps are fully in chinese. The default app-store is chinese. It carries no google apps... although the guys at honorbuy did load those in for my convenience. Still, if you try to update an app because it says that it knows of a new update (and the play store hasn't yet provided that update) the phone will try to find that update through the chinese store... and fail, of course. Of course, all you need to do is open the play store and perform the update through there, but I can understand the inconvenience for some.
- One other potential downside... it is a downside for me. The stock launcher. the Xiaomi guys developed their own android version called MIUI and replaced many features with their own. Some are well ahead of the stock android experience, some are just trying to mimic iOS. And the Launcher screams iOS all over with its absence of an app drawer.
- Last, but not least, the back and menu buttons are swapped relative to the position proposed by Google. They are in the same location as you'll find on Samsung phones - back button on the right side of the home and menu button on the left side.
Bonus feature: IR blaster. It can mimic many remotes. I've tried with my Samsung TV and it works wonderfully.
