Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 - for the strong in spirit
If smartphones were sold in Ikea, Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 would definitely show up on the shelf . You don’t need to collect it in pieces, but in order to get the usual Android gadget with Google services, you have to reflash it. And to reflash, you need to unlock the bootloader ... Well, you understand. And the name, strange to the Russian ear, seems to have been invented by a relative of that same Swedish monster. The rest is one of the best devices for 16,000 rubles.
The gadget does not look rich, but not poor - such a solid middle class. It seems that it is made entirely of plastic, but in fact it is much stronger and more practical, because most of the body was machined from aluminum, and only the inserts above and below are not made of metal - under them are the antennas of the radio modules.
“On paper,” he seems hefty. 5.5 inches is a giant! But in the hand it lies somehow suspiciously good. The index finger easily reaches the sensor on the rear panel, and the large one rests simultaneously on the power button and volume control. The ends are very rounded - fingers do not cut.
The front panel is completely covered with protective glass, and a side protrudes a fraction of a millimeter above the screen along the entire perimeter. You can safely put the device “face down”, he did not grab a single scratch during the week of testing.
It is especially pleasing that although this is an Asian brainchild, it does not shout about its origin with a sweeping logo on the entire front panel. The modest Mi in the back is the only adornment of the Redmi Note 3.
The matrix here is good: IPS with a resolution of 1920 x 1080. The pixel density is 403 ppi. Excellent indicators both in theory and in practice: the color reproduction according to subjective sensations is natural, and the viewing angles are wide enough so as not to strain the owner of a picture fading in extreme positions. The protective glass in combination with the already mentioned sides work perfectly - the screen is perfectly smooth.
However, there are a couple of points that are a little annoying: the frames around the display are rather large by today's standards and the poor oleophobic coating - fingerprints are collected instantly.
The power of Redmi Note 3 is enough for most tasks, but it is not off scale. Mediatek MT6795 scores average in synthetic tests. And by the way, the presence of 3 GB of RAM does not save from periodic brakes. Perhaps their reason is a heavily shoveled system (as described below), but the fact remains: sometimes a smartphone thinks for a few seconds out of the blue.
At the same time, the gadget does not heat up at all, although it can pull some Real Racing 3 without any problems - the maximum becomes warm.
The speaker on the back of the gadget, hidden behind the perforation in the case, sounds generally good, and it can even give out a little low frequencies, but it’s frankly lacking in volume. Moreover, while watching videos and games, it often closes with your fingers. In general, not an ideal solution.
16 megapixels is the resolution of the main Redmi Note 3 photomodule. Not the best is the quality of the photos that are obtained with its help. And it seems that the aperture of Objective 2, and there are manual settings, and HDR, but a stone flower does not always come out. How tightly you hold the smartphone in your hands, most often the photo turns out to be slightly blurred. Installing the Google Camera application, unfortunately, does not solve the issue.
Software is the most interesting thing that Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 has. Anyway, probably in any Xiaomi. Since the smartphone is Chinese, and China is a separate wonderful world behind the Great Firewall, the gadget, although it works formally running Android 5.1, in fact does not have the usual functionality. That is, it does not possess at all. Instead, 5 out of 32 GB of internal memory are filled with programs that are not even clear what they are called.
百度 地图 - is this, for example, what? If not for Google Translate, I would never have known that it was read by Bǎidù dìtú, that is, Baidu Maps. (Baidu is a Chinese equivalent of Google or our Yandex, which provides various services, including cartographic.)
Android on Redmi Note 3 is much changed, and the matter concerns not so much the services that are unusual for a European user, but the lack of familiar ones. Instead of the good old Google Play Store, on the main screen there is a certain App Store with an orange icon, and inside the store, of course, everything is in hieroglyphs. The developers, of course, know about the existence of Google, but since access to 99% of Western services to the Chinese is closed, they seem to be useless in the system. And then the European has three options: to reconcile, completely reflash the device, or simply install all the necessary services, and take everything unfamiliar to the damn mother in the Nafig folder.
About the latest scenario. Nevertheless, it’s worth to go to the Chinese App Store and enter gmail in the search bar (since the Latin layout is still present). Among other things, the store will offer the program ит 歌 安装 器, which, however, will have the familiar triangular Google Play icon. Translated, this means Google Installer, that is, a program that allows you to install all the necessary services in the system.
After that, the smartphone is worth rebooting, because the first time it’s not a fact that everything will start as it should. On the experimental gadget, the Google Play fell off every now and then. But even after a reboot, there is more. There is still no Russian keyboard, and most of the menus in Chinese and all applications will be in English at best, because the system does not know about the existence of Russia either. To install the Russian keyboard, just find in the fresh Google Play software called Swift Keyboard, but for the installation of the so-called Russian locale (locale), you must first make root.
Root rights were obtained using the PC program Root Genius. She, of course, is also in Chinese, but there are at least buttons - it’s difficult to miss. After installing the necessary software on the computer, it’s worth going to the smartphone’s settings and opening the “Developer Options” menu there by tapping the MIUI Version item many times. In the developer settings (they appear in the Additional Settings menu), you need to activate USB debugging. Further, everything is simple: it remains to connect the gadget to the PC, wait for the Root Genius to see the smartphone and sequentially click on the buttons that appear on the screen. The smartphone will reboot, and the program will say something like “Hooray, you could, buddy!”. It remains only to go back to Google Play, in the search to drive in locale and download the crack you like. Voila! You have a smartphone in your hands in English and sometimes in Russian,
But if you do not take into account (ha ha!) All this whistle-blowing with localization, the MIUI shell is really nothing, with a bunch of settings. Something like a Lenovo add-in. It supports the work of two SIM cards (micro format) - you can give the names of each and choose which one is responsible for what. There are checkmarks that are responsible for displaying in the status bar small application icons from which notifications have come. You can display the same connection speed. And for those whom this has already finally shaken, they added the ability to turn off notifications about screenshots.
The size of the system font, reading mode, screensaver, fingerprint unlock, Do Not Disturb mode, access restrictions for children are a lot of useful things for those who like to delve into the settings.
4000 mAh make the Redmi Note 3 thicker than it could be. But it seems that 9 out of 10 buyers between a couple of extra millimeters and a few extra hours of work will choose the second. Xiaomi developers were one of the few who did not chase the super-duper design, but made a solid device that can work on one charge for 16 hours in a row. That is, if you approach the matter without fanaticism, then even a couple of days is not the limit.
Redmi Note 3 - the device is not for everyone. You can safely take it only if you want to get confused with flashing or at least installing the missing services. This is an excellent springboard for experiments with different versions of the system. On the XDA forum, for example, there are already huge branches discussing custom firmware. You look, if you get enough orders from Russia, the next model will be localized for us. And put the European plug in the kit.
Appearance
The gadget does not look rich, but not poor - such a solid middle class. It seems that it is made entirely of plastic, but in fact it is much stronger and more practical, because most of the body was machined from aluminum, and only the inserts above and below are not made of metal - under them are the antennas of the radio modules.
“On paper,” he seems hefty. 5.5 inches is a giant! But in the hand it lies somehow suspiciously good. The index finger easily reaches the sensor on the rear panel, and the large one rests simultaneously on the power button and volume control. The ends are very rounded - fingers do not cut.
The front panel is completely covered with protective glass, and a side protrudes a fraction of a millimeter above the screen along the entire perimeter. You can safely put the device “face down”, he did not grab a single scratch during the week of testing.
It is especially pleasing that although this is an Asian brainchild, it does not shout about its origin with a sweeping logo on the entire front panel. The modest Mi in the back is the only adornment of the Redmi Note 3.
Display
The matrix here is good: IPS with a resolution of 1920 x 1080. The pixel density is 403 ppi. Excellent indicators both in theory and in practice: the color reproduction according to subjective sensations is natural, and the viewing angles are wide enough so as not to strain the owner of a picture fading in extreme positions. The protective glass in combination with the already mentioned sides work perfectly - the screen is perfectly smooth.
However, there are a couple of points that are a little annoying: the frames around the display are rather large by today's standards and the poor oleophobic coating - fingerprints are collected instantly.
Filling
The power of Redmi Note 3 is enough for most tasks, but it is not off scale. Mediatek MT6795 scores average in synthetic tests. And by the way, the presence of 3 GB of RAM does not save from periodic brakes. Perhaps their reason is a heavily shoveled system (as described below), but the fact remains: sometimes a smartphone thinks for a few seconds out of the blue.
At the same time, the gadget does not heat up at all, although it can pull some Real Racing 3 without any problems - the maximum becomes warm.
The speaker on the back of the gadget, hidden behind the perforation in the case, sounds generally good, and it can even give out a little low frequencies, but it’s frankly lacking in volume. Moreover, while watching videos and games, it often closes with your fingers. In general, not an ideal solution.
Camera
16 megapixels is the resolution of the main Redmi Note 3 photomodule. Not the best is the quality of the photos that are obtained with its help. And it seems that the aperture of Objective 2, and there are manual settings, and HDR, but a stone flower does not always come out. How tightly you hold the smartphone in your hands, most often the photo turns out to be slightly blurred. Installing the Google Camera application, unfortunately, does not solve the issue.
Soft
Software is the most interesting thing that Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 has. Anyway, probably in any Xiaomi. Since the smartphone is Chinese, and China is a separate wonderful world behind the Great Firewall, the gadget, although it works formally running Android 5.1, in fact does not have the usual functionality. That is, it does not possess at all. Instead, 5 out of 32 GB of internal memory are filled with programs that are not even clear what they are called.
百度 地图 - is this, for example, what? If not for Google Translate, I would never have known that it was read by Bǎidù dìtú, that is, Baidu Maps. (Baidu is a Chinese equivalent of Google or our Yandex, which provides various services, including cartographic.)
Android on Redmi Note 3 is much changed, and the matter concerns not so much the services that are unusual for a European user, but the lack of familiar ones. Instead of the good old Google Play Store, on the main screen there is a certain App Store with an orange icon, and inside the store, of course, everything is in hieroglyphs. The developers, of course, know about the existence of Google, but since access to 99% of Western services to the Chinese is closed, they seem to be useless in the system. And then the European has three options: to reconcile, completely reflash the device, or simply install all the necessary services, and take everything unfamiliar to the damn mother in the Nafig folder.
About the latest scenario. Nevertheless, it’s worth to go to the Chinese App Store and enter gmail in the search bar (since the Latin layout is still present). Among other things, the store will offer the program ит 歌 安装 器, which, however, will have the familiar triangular Google Play icon. Translated, this means Google Installer, that is, a program that allows you to install all the necessary services in the system.
After that, the smartphone is worth rebooting, because the first time it’s not a fact that everything will start as it should. On the experimental gadget, the Google Play fell off every now and then. But even after a reboot, there is more. There is still no Russian keyboard, and most of the menus in Chinese and all applications will be in English at best, because the system does not know about the existence of Russia either. To install the Russian keyboard, just find in the fresh Google Play software called Swift Keyboard, but for the installation of the so-called Russian locale (locale), you must first make root.
Root rights were obtained using the PC program Root Genius. She, of course, is also in Chinese, but there are at least buttons - it’s difficult to miss. After installing the necessary software on the computer, it’s worth going to the smartphone’s settings and opening the “Developer Options” menu there by tapping the MIUI Version item many times. In the developer settings (they appear in the Additional Settings menu), you need to activate USB debugging. Further, everything is simple: it remains to connect the gadget to the PC, wait for the Root Genius to see the smartphone and sequentially click on the buttons that appear on the screen. The smartphone will reboot, and the program will say something like “Hooray, you could, buddy!”. It remains only to go back to Google Play, in the search to drive in locale and download the crack you like. Voila! You have a smartphone in your hands in English and sometimes in Russian,
But if you do not take into account (ha ha!) All this whistle-blowing with localization, the MIUI shell is really nothing, with a bunch of settings. Something like a Lenovo add-in. It supports the work of two SIM cards (micro format) - you can give the names of each and choose which one is responsible for what. There are checkmarks that are responsible for displaying in the status bar small application icons from which notifications have come. You can display the same connection speed. And for those whom this has already finally shaken, they added the ability to turn off notifications about screenshots.
The size of the system font, reading mode, screensaver, fingerprint unlock, Do Not Disturb mode, access restrictions for children are a lot of useful things for those who like to delve into the settings.
Battery
4000 mAh make the Redmi Note 3 thicker than it could be. But it seems that 9 out of 10 buyers between a couple of extra millimeters and a few extra hours of work will choose the second. Xiaomi developers were one of the few who did not chase the super-duper design, but made a solid device that can work on one charge for 16 hours in a row. That is, if you approach the matter without fanaticism, then even a couple of days is not the limit.
Summary
Redmi Note 3 - the device is not for everyone. You can safely take it only if you want to get confused with flashing or at least installing the missing services. This is an excellent springboard for experiments with different versions of the system. On the XDA forum, for example, there are already huge branches discussing custom firmware. You look, if you get enough orders from Russia, the next model will be localized for us. And put the European plug in the kit.