After more than a week of use, we fully tested Xiaomi's Redmi 1S! In that sense, it performed great on our benchmarks and daily usage. So for those who are looking for a very affordable phone with great specs this phone is a super solid buy.
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| Review Part 2! |
Check the part 1 of our review for specs, build quality and initial impressions. Click Here
Display
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| The display is great overall! |
With over 300+ ppi Redmi 1S bested other popular models from the local brands. The viewing angles are great, it performed decently even in sunlight and the colors are natural vibrant vibrant looking. It may not be that over 400+ ppi phone, but this one is definitely one of the best displays we've seen from a very affordable smartphone!
Battery
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| Battery Stats |
Based on our observation the battery is good enough to last for a day with light to moderate use. When it comes to occasional games, 3G and heavy usage the phone's battery still lasted more than half a day. At 2,000 mAh Redmi 1S is an optimized device when it comes to battery usage.
Audio
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| Decent audio quality! |
Speaker
Redmi's speaker quality is decent, it's quite loud enough to fill our office room with music with clear audio. For some people Redmi 1S might not be loud enough, but to my taste volume-wise it's just fine. For a phone it's good enough, just don't expect x-mini baby sub-woofer type of audio reproduction.
Audio Output via Headphone
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| The MIUI sound enhancer! |
Redmi 1S turns out as to be one of the performers in this price point. The phone's internal amp and dac is made by a respectable audio company called Dirac. The sound signature of Redmi 1s tends to be on a warmer side. It's specialty is the mids, the vocals are clear enough to hear most of the details. The highs is a little bit lacking but the lows extends deep enough to satisfy bass lovers. Those who have the decent sounding Xiaomi Pistons might want to use the Pistons settings, but for me I liked it better when the sound enhancers is off as it provides more details, better separation, soundstage and a clearer sound output. Again this is not on a Hi-Fi level yet, but the audio quality of Redmi 1S is respectable for a budget smartphone.
Note: To maximize Redmi's sound quality use lossless audio files and pair it with a quality headphone, earbuds or in ear monitors like the Pistons 2.0
Audio Recording
Camera
The shooter of Redmi 1S is more than decent! It produces great color details specially with good lighting and decent low light performance at this price point. The flash of this phone is also quite strong. Overall, it is more than capable of providing us quality photos.
Rear Camera Sample Shots
Selfie Camera Sample Shots
Note: I was not able to take selfie photos with sunlight, but Redmi's Camera performed well in that condition. Lastly, pardon my face LOL! :)
Low Light Video Recording
Rear Camera Sample Shots
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| Who want's some? :) (HDR Shot) |
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| Hello high score! (Low Light Shot) |
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| My Dream DAP ZX1 with Modded Quadbeat 2! (Regular Camera Shot) |
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| Selfie (Low-light) |
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| Moments ago in our Geeky Pinas Office (35 Watts of Lighting on a high celing) |
Low Light Video Recording
PWR Match
Performance
The phone is powered by a 1.6 GHz quadcore Snapdragon 400 and Adreno 305 GPU then you add 1 GB of RAM with MIUI 5 which is very rare for a phone under 6K! Actually for me it is the best phone in this price range both local and international brands. Even with multiple apps opened I can hardly feel any lag especially with the latest update of Xiaomi's firmware.
Note: The older firmware of Redmi 1S have occasionally restarts and crashes. Fortunately, the new update seems to fix that problem already.
Gaming
One game at a time experience was good with Redmi 1S, it was able to run heavy games such as Dear Trigger 2 and Real Racing 3 with no to minimal lag! However, if you have many apps that's opened there are occasional crashes. When tested with lighter games like Zombie Tsunami and Angry Birds the game-play was flawless.
Note: The older firmware of Redmi 1S have occasionally restarts and crashes. Fortunately, the new update seems to fix that problem already.
Gaming
One game at a time experience was good with Redmi 1S, it was able to run heavy games such as Dear Trigger 2 and Real Racing 3 with no to minimal lag! However, if you have many apps that's opened there are occasional crashes. When tested with lighter games like Zombie Tsunami and Angry Birds the game-play was flawless.
Gaming Demo on Redmi 1S (Noob gamer here) :)
MIUI Experience
It's an android with a hybrid experience! The stock UI feels and looks like the combination of Android, IOS and Windows. The interface is very clean and professional looking. There's no more app drawer and all the apps are already in the home-screen. Overall it's a great experience and refreshing compared to the old UI's we often see.
Here's some of the sample screenshots and photos:
Overall MIUI is very easy to use and figure out, though there are just times that people have to to do diligence to access some of the more advance feature of it.
Here's some of the sample screenshots and photos:
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| The toggles! |
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| Just swipe up the icon for quick notes |
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| Lockscreen shortcuts for calls, camera and messaging! :) |
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| My favorite MIUI feature, the one click cleaner to keep your MIUI fresh |
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| just like the notes, swipe up to quickly open the music shortcut |
Benchmarks
For the price, this is where the Redmi 1S stood out of the competition!
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| Almost 21K on Antutu! |
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| Hello 4 Cores! |
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| 57.2 fps is good at this price! |
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| Over 10K via quadrant |
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| 10 point multitouch is rare under PHP 6K |
Pros
- Top Notch Build Quality
- Great Speed and Performance
- Great Display
- Decent Camera
- Good Audio Quality and Recording
- Really really really affordable price!
- MIUI Experience
Cons
- Still at Android 4.3 (However, an update of Project Svelte Android 4.4 KitKat with MIUI 6 will come late this year cheers!)
- Random Restarts and Crashes (Update: it seems to be resolved in the latest firmware update)
Verdict
Xiaomi's got an entry level phone here with near mid-tier specs! In that regard, Redmi 1S is setting the new standard of performance at this price point! So if you're looking for a phone with top notch build quality, great UI, good screen, decent performance and camera but without that much budget Xiaomi Redmi 1S could be perfect for you!
Note: We'll have an announcement on Monday 6pm watch out for it. :) Cheers!
Note: We'll have an announcement on Monday 6pm watch out for it. :) Cheers!
Where to buy this?
Lazada Philippines
Source
Xiaomi's Website
