First announced by Xiaomi last month, the Redmi 4 continues what its predecessor offers — mid-range performance in a budget and pocketable handset. Here’s our initial impression of the Redmi 4 Prime.
The 4th generation of Redmi still has a 5-inch display which is fairly pocketable by today’s standards. Although, it’s upgraded to a Full HD panel with a higher pixel density of 441ppi. Our unit which has a black front is just striking and elegant to look at. There is a trio of capacitive keys for navigation which are unfortunately unlit. Above the display are the earpiece, the 5-megapixel front-facing camera, and notification light.
To the right are the power/lock button and the volume rocker. There are a couple of visible plastic strips as well for the antenna inside the phone.
On the left is just the hybrid card tray. It accepts two SIM cards at once or swap the second one for a microSD card for more available storage.
There are three circles up top. The first one from the left is the pinhole for the secondary microphone, the one in the middle is an IR blaster, and the biggest one is the 3.5mm headphone jack.
At the bottom is a number of symmetrical holes for the loudspeaker and the main microphone with the micro-USB port in the middle. A pair of screws is also here for maintenance.
Finally at the back are the main 13-megapixel camera with a dual-tone LED flash and the circular fingerprint scanner. A printed Xiaomi logo sits at the lower-end. The chassis of the phone is made out of cold aluminum with a small polycarbonate part above the camera for signal reception. There’s also a strip found at the bottom.
The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage for the Prime variant we have. There’s also a 2GB/16GB version in the market. For comparison, it basically has the same specs of mid-range smartphones like the Zenfone 3 but at a cheaper price tag even if parallel importers imposed their own due to its availability.
It also has a large battery capacity at 4100mAh and 4G LTE. Of course, the phone runs MIUI 8 which is based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The unit we have already features the Global ROM version with Google services and Play Store installed.
Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime specs:
5-inch Full HD IPS display, 441ppi
2.0GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core CPU
Adreno 506 GPU
3GB RAM + 32GB storage (Prime)
microSD up to 128GB (uses SIM 2 slot)
13MP PDAF rear camera, f/2.2 aperture, LED flash
5MP front camera, f/2.2 aperture
Dual-SIM (Hybrid)
4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.1 (Standard)
Bluetooth 4.2 (Prime)
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou
Fingerprint scanner
IR blaster
Gyroscope
MIUI 8 (Android Marshmallow)
4,100mAh battery
141.3 x 69.6 x 8.9mm
156g
The Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime is listed for Php8,700 at Widget City (see listing here). We’ll be doing a full review in the coming days. Stay tuned!
Which is better in terms of gaming and quality? Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime or Asus Zenfone 3 Max 5.5? Thanks for answering!