Xiaomi Redmi Note 3

I have the Pro model with 32mb and 16mp camera and Snapdragon chip. My first impression was wow what a beautiful phone, it was displayed next to an iPhone 6S plus that was 4x as expensive and the Xiaomi stood out not just for its looks, but it was so much more compact for the same size of screen. Picking it up after handling the iPhone was even more astounding, it was light and felt much better in the hand. I spent a while comparing the two and there was very little difference in speed and the screens seemed much the same. Although I was not shopping for a phone I bought the Note 3 out of sheer curiosity.

It took me an hour or so to find out the idiosyncrasies of the interface and setup the phone how I like it to be, installing Apex Launcher and all my favourite apps. Once this was done the phone was a joy to use. Fast, smooth still felt great in the hand and looked fantastic. I am a heavy user and was very happy with the battery life. On heavy days it got me through the day with room to spare and on easy ones it could get me through two. Charging was fast, not as fast as my S7 Edge but much faster than an iPhone for example. Connectivity, and call quality was excellent as good as anything I have used. Internet speed was great, I have had no crashes or reboots and everything has worked very well including the excellent finger print scanner.

I am not an avid photographer so for my usage photos were fine, not up to my S7 standards especially in low light, but good enough. The video surprised me, that was better than expected. The speed and easy access to features did impress me though.

Everyday this phone keeps surprising me, the IR blaster has proved very useful, the memory features mentioned are excellent and overall it would be a brilliant phone at double the price for the real cost it is amazing. It may not have the features and functionality as my S7, but you are not losing that much compared with the cost saving. Compare it, as a piece of hardware, to an iPhone 6S plus and overall it is a better phone, not quite as good for speed or camera, but it outperforms it in almost all other areas and feels so much better in the hand due to the more compact package.

I would thoroughly recommend this phone, for the price it is hard to beat and has the features and performance to beat most phones costing significantly more.

Bought the Note 3 32 GB and 3 GB of RAM version, and the review is based on it.

The great value is the strongest pro of this phone. It gives you everything you need at just 200 bucks. The Fingerprint reader works fantastic, and there's no lagging in using throughout the day. Also, battery life are awesome and it charges pretty quickly.

But, camera is not good enough and having trouble in focusing on close objects (macro). If camera is a big deal for you, maybe you should think about more expensive phone. Build quality is not like an iPhone - but the price is accordingly. Another con to me is the cheinese bloatware, and especially the App store. There are other apps that can provide themes, ringtones and more that are good - but all the content is in cheinese. The bloatware wouldn't annoy if it would have English contents and UI, or if it could have been uninstalled.

The bottom line is: it's probably the best budget phone you can have - it has it own downsides, but they almost dissappear in day to day usage - that is great.

Beautiful smart, good build. An excellent display, good sound in my beats studio wireless 2, MIUI interface is user-friendly. Weak camera in low light. Super fast finger scanner. Build a good and hearty.