Gadgetory

hey what's up guys this is Bailey Stein with Android authority and today we're going to take a look at the redmi note 3 arriving just four months after its predecessor the redmi note 3 offers a refreshed design and updated specifications but how well does it perform with everyday use let's find out with our 4 review of the xiaomi redmi note 3 Xiaomi has undoubtedly taken a fresh approach to design with the redmi note 3 constructed of an all-metal curved unibody shell the design is of stark relation to the redmi note 2's matte plastic construction although we never complained about the redmi note twos design we really appreciate the new and improved look and feel especially for the price well the curved edges do make the redmi note 3 easier to hold with a single hand they can also make the phone difficult to grip for those with smaller hands for that reason we wouldn't frowned upon the use of a case given the rears somewhat soft and slippery finish this finish is carefully transitioned into convincingly colored plastic caps on the top and bottom of the phone presumably placed to help with antenna reception the power and volume buttons positioned on the top right side of the phone offer exceptional tactile feedback and responsiveness there's also an IR blaster on the top of the phone which can be used to control anything from a TV to an air conditioner the included me remote app is overall very nice and easy to use but it does lack support for some non-chinese products like Vizio TVs for example do keep in mind that you can download a third-party app to regain support for virtually all other IR compatible products however coming to the front of the redmi note 3 you'll notice three illuminated lv8 dimly capacitive keys on the bottom the first being assigned a bowl to either open the recent apps tray or app menu on the top right there's a multicolored notification LED as well as a 5 megapixel front-facing camera the front-facing camera is nothing to write home about but it does get the job done reasonably well the 5.5 inch 1080p IPS display on the redmi note 3 looks good overall but it is lacking a bit in contrast and saturation in comparison to phones like the meizu m2 note it's not incredibly noticeable on its own but there are definitely phones with better displays the displays sunlight readability minimum brightness level and viewing angles are notably good however the adaptive brightness feature also worked very well during our testing with an octa-core MediaTek Helio x10 processor the l-3 performed surprisingly well for the price mui 7 seems to run very smoothly with this hardware and there's minimal leg and even content-heavy apps like Twitter although the base model redmi note 3 does include 2 gigabytes of ram xiaomi was very kind and sent us the prime model which actually has 3 gigabytes of ram as expected with 3 gigabytes multitasking showed no signs of slowdown while using the redmi note 3 gaming performance was also good while playing in performance mode thanks to the power vrg 6200 the redmi note 3 is able to play casual games like asphalt 8 airborne with little to no lag however keeping the phone in the balanced power mode can cause some games to perform less than ideally but switching to performance mode often times helps with gaming performance packing support for 802 11 AC Wi-Fi GPS and Bluetooth 4.1 the redmi note 3 offers the connectivity options you'd expect unfortunately we did notice some Wi-Fi connectivity issues on our unit where the Wi-Fi will just simply stop working altogether until toggling it off and then back on a quick search in xiaomi's forms reveals many other users experiencing the same issue so we expect xiaomi to resolve this with an OTA update within the next few weeks callers did report excellent call quality with the redmi note 3 but me y7 does not play nicely with google voice mainly when google voice caller ID is turned on mui refuses to place calls unfortunately we don't think that this issue will be resolved anytime soon considering that Google Voice is a US only product although the redmi note 3 does support up to HSPA+ on both AT&T and t-mobile you'll be missing out on the faster 4G LTE data speeds within the US which is a bit of a bummer the rear speaker on the redmi note 3 is about average for the price reasonably loud but tinny and distorted it's also easily blocked by a flat surface which can be a bit unfortunate on a positive note the fingerprint reader on the back of the redmi note 3 is both fast and accurate coming from the Nexus 6p I was very happy to find the fingerprint reader in a very similar functional position well it isn't quite as fast as the fingerprint reader on the Nexus 6p the accuracy is just as good we weren't expecting much for the price but we can definitely say that we were impressed we were also impressed with the redmi note 3 s battery life although some users may be disappointed to find an internal battery this time around the four thousand milliamp our capacities should be more than enough for a full day of use for many users with my normal usage the redmi note 3 lasted from 6:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. the next day with a little over 4 hours of screen on time when I use the phone more heavily I was still able to get it to last from 6:30 a.m. to about 2 a.m. the next day with about five and a half hours of screen on time relatively speaking that's very impressive if battery life is important to you this phone will not disappoint with a 13 megapixel rear camera and phase detection autofocus the camera on the redmi note 3 offers decent image quality there seems to be a lack of detail and saturation in most images in addition to a tendency to under expose outdoor images HDR seems to help with the latter issue but it does add a couple of seconds to the shooting time indoor images also contain noticeable amounts of digital noise but otherwise look alright the camera app found in the UI provides an easy to use auto experience while also offering many filters in addition to several camera modes manual mode gives you control over white balance and ISO and the other modes like panorama mode and timer mode can certainly be nice to have software is perhaps where Xiaomi has most injected value into the redmi note 3 running me UI 7 over Android 5.0 point to lollipop the redmi note 3 offers a heavily skinned android interface however mui is arguably one of the most polished skins to date thanks the amount of customization and number of features it offers although many Android enthusiasts still prefer stock Android Mui is definitely a worthy alternative there's plenty of features targeted at enthusiasts from launcher transition effects to weekly developer OTA updates add-in me UI sevens smooth animations you're left with one of the best software experiences for under $200 however me y7 does have a few drawbacks the launcher does not include an app drawer you can't dismiss notifications from the lock screen and Google apps don't always play nicely when installed onto the Chinese ROM there's also at least some difficulty getting Google Apps installed in the first place if you're importing the device from China you can definitely get Google Apps by searching for the Google installer app in the me app store but do keep in mind that it is an extra step and it can be a hassle if they are installed correctly it is important to note that this phone should be launching in markets outside of China very soon and those markets will prompt the release of a global ROM which will include Google Apps out of the box once that happens you can flash the global ROM to a Chinese variant device in order to gain proper Google Apps integration or you could just wait for a global variant to launch in your country regardless this is another drawback to importing the device while xiaomi hasn't had the best track record for keeping their products updated to the latest versions of android they do offer frequent me UI updates that supplement many of the features found in newer versions of android we doubt that this phone will ever see anything more than 5.0 point to lollipop so just be aware of that before making any purchases the xiaomi redmi note 3 is now available in china in a base model and a prime model priced at 899 women be and 1099-r M&B respectively those prices translate to about $140 and about 172 dollars although importing the device can be slightly more expensive the base model includes 2 gigabytes of RAM and 16 gigabytes of storage whereas the prime model includes 3 gigabytes of RAM and 32 gigabytes of storage sadly it's not expandable we definitely recommend the prime model if you can afford it especially if you plan on keeping the device for more than several months the redmi note 3 is not perfect its display and camera are still about average for the price google apps don't always run flawlessly on the chinese rom and it can be difficult to ignore the phone's lack of u.s. 4G LTE support however the phone excels in the key areas where its competitors do not with its premium design fast and accurate fingerprint reader and exceptional battery life the xiaomi redmi note 3 is a commendable option certainly worthy of your consideration thank you for watching this video and please make sure to give it a thumbs up below if you enjoyed it also please be sure to subscribe to the channel if you'd like to see more content finally make sure to visit the android authority website for additional coverage is we are your source for all things Android