Xiaomi
Redmi Note 3
The
latest addition to Xiaomi's Redmi Note family, the Redmi Note 3, has just been
unveiled at the company's "Grand Finale" event, which took place in
China. All in all, the Redmi Note 3 is quite an interesting device, as it is Xiaomi's
pioneering device in a couple of rather interesting areas.
For
starters, the new Redmi Note is the first Xiaomi device to sport a metal build.
Well, it's using a new material, but the phone's design language is not
strikingly new; on the contrary, the Note 3 employs a refreshed design language
that is somewhat similar to the one of its predecessor for the most part.
The edges are more rounded, similar to the designs Meizu has been
pulling off lately. The new entrant is ever so slightly thicker - at
8.65 mm.
Up front, we have a 5.5-inch
1080p display, laminated with Gorilla Glass; right beneath it, one can find a
2.0 GHz Helio X10 MediaTek chipset paired with either 2 or 3 GB of LPDDR3 RAM.
The former version comes with 16 GB of native storage, while the 3 GB one has 32
gigs right out of the box. There's no microSD card slot in the mix.
At
the back, there's a 13 MP camera with phase detection autofocus as well as the another highlight of the
device - its large, 4,000 mAh battery. The Redmi Note 3 is also the
first Xiaomi device to come with a fingerprint scanner. It's a circular one and
is positioned at the back, just beneath the camera and its flash. Xiaomi says
that the user can unlock the phone in 0.3 seconds and also use the scanner for
mobile payments.
Connectivity-wise,
the phone comes with two SIM card slots, both of which are LTE-compatible. The
Redmi Note 3 arrives with the seventh version of Xiaomi's in-house MIUI
firmware, which is based on Android 5.1.1.
