The Xiaomi Mi 4i bridges the gap between the flagship Mi series and the Redmi lot, a likable gadget but not in the sense of a pet - it may be an affordable phone but not underpowered and full of compromise. No, on paper everything seems near perfect for the Mi 4i.
And for the most part, the Xiaomi Mi 4i lives up to its promise. Its 5 1080p screen is great and the imaging department is quite capable as well. Both the 13MP primary unit and the 5MP selfie cam produce good images with great detail and subtle processing. The thoughtful design results in a great handling experience, the connectivity options are above average, and the battery backup is solid.
Among the few things the Mi 4i didn’t get right video recording stands out, alongside the speaker quality and loudness. The higher clock speed of the CPU cores is causing some excessive heating. Occasionally, the Mi 4i would get dangerously hot and Xiaomi must’ve been aware of that. A firmware update arrived while we were testing, which did slightly improve the situation although at the expense of some performance.
This is the first Xiaomi phone to run Lollipop, but the MIUI 6.0 skins it inside out, so you’ll be hard-pressed to spot many differences compared to, say, a Mi Note running KitKat and MIUI 5. The new stuff is under the hood, battery and performance optimizations. The OS is silky-smooth, while the latest MIUI is beautiful and capable.