The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 is a highly recommended smartphone in its price segment, especially if you are looking for a smartphone that offers top notch performance and class-leading battery life.
Highlights:
Excellent performance across the board
Class-leading battery life
Good screen quality
Value for money package
Good camera performance under normal light
Average low-light camera performance
No heating issues, even after prolonged usage
Runs on Android Lollipop out of the box; Marshmallow update expected soon
The Experience:
The Redmi Note 3 offers a metal body with a curved back that features smooth, matte finish. In terms of form factor, it is well proportioned and is comfortable to use for a device with a 5.5-inch screen. The smartphone does look more premium in comparison to previous Redmi Note devices, but the extra smooth finish at the back makes it a bit slippery and prone to accidental falls. In terms of build quality, the device feels solid, and the use of metal lends a sense of ruggedness and quality to the device. Having said that, the shiny front metal edge is scuff-prone, the paint does come off rather easily, and impacts the looks of the smartphone. The 5.5-inch display on the Redmi Note 3 comes with Xiaomi’s own glass protection layer, though it doesn’t use the popular gorilla glass protection found in most smartphones today. During our test, the glass appeared to be resistant to light scratches but the touch performance in terms of smoothness isn’t the same as a smartphone with gorilla glass protection. Coming to audio performance, the speakers are placed at the back of the device, and Xiaomi has introduced a new design element to prevent sound from getting muffled when the device is placed on its back. This slight elevation does help in improving the sound output in terms of loudness and quality. The 5.5 1080p IPS display on the Redmi Note 3 is actually quite good in terms of brightness levels, colour quality and viewing angles. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 offers ’Sunlight Mode’ that was first introduced with the Xiaomi Mi 4i. The Sunlight Mode does work in terms of adjusting the contrast at pixel level under bright light conditions, but it doesn’t make a huge difference when the screen is viewed under direct sunlight. The display has a slight bias towards blue, making it appear a tad more ‘cooler’ than what we prefer. However, the extra colours and contrast tweaking options offered in the settings menu do come in handy in tweaking the colour tone of the display, as per preference. On the call quality front, we never faced any major call quality issues during our review of Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 - the voice reception and transmission were mostly glitch-free. The Redmi Note 3 supports VoLTE, offering high call quality on networks that support VoLTE.