Mi Max Review | Mi Max in Nepal

Xiaomi has been in the Nepali Market for some time now. With top of the line specifications and low price, Xiaomi has made its mark quite visible. Vatsal Impex (Official Distributor of Xiaomi In Nepal) launched the gigantic phablet Mi Max on 1st August 2016. And Mi Max is the largest phone Xiaomi has released yet.

Design

The Mi MAX looks big and gorgeous. It has a unibody design with a 6.44-inch screen. The metal rails go around the phone providing a nice grip. The back has an aluminum finish with a fingerprint sensor at the top. The metal provides some amount of grip but the phone is slippery overall. Maybe that’s just the downside of being such a big phone.

The volume and power buttons are on the right side which are very tactile and have a good response. The headphone jack is at the top whereas the USB port and speaker grills are at the bottom of the phone.

Screen

The Mi MAX has a whopping 6.44 inches 1080p IPS screen with thin bezels on both sides of the phone. It is one of the biggest screens one would find in a phone and the color reproduction is up to the mark. Also, it has corning gorilla glass 4 for screen protection. For some people, it might seem too big but once they get used to it everything else feels tiny and less appealing to use.

But, its screen size is also a downside of the phone. You cannot use the phone easily with a single hand. Even for people with big hands, they have to use both of their hands to reach the notification bar at the top.

Hardware

This phone is rocking a Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 hexacore CPU and an Adreno 510 GPU. The phone comes in two variants. The one with 3GB of RAM has 32 or 64 GB of internal storage and the other variant with 4GB of RAM has 128GB of internal storage. For the given price point, these specifications are more than adequate and the phone can handle all the work with ease.

Also, the fingerprint sensor is crucial. It is at the back of the device and easy to reach even with one hand. It is quite fast. It almost performs like other flagships but sometimes it lags and the response is slower. However, the overall response is good. With no capacitive buttons, the hardware of this phone is pretty solid.

Specifications

Display – 6.44 inches (~74.8% screen-to-body ratio), IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen
Chipset – Qualcomm MSM8956 Snapdragon 650
CPU – Quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 & Dual-core 1.8 GHz Cortex-A72
GPU – Adreno 510
Platform – Android OS, v6.0 (Marshmallow)
Memory – 32GB internal storage expandable up to 256GB via micro-sd , 3GB RAM
Camera – 16 MP, f/2.0, 4K capture capability, phase detection, autofocus
Battery – Non-removable Li-Ion 4850 mAh battery/Quick Charge 2.0
Sensors – Fingerprint, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass

Software

Mi MAX runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. The UI is pretty standard with some additional tweaks and pre-installed software from Mi. The phone has some features like one handed use which helps a bit while using the phone with a single hand. Also, there’s a feature called quick ball which is very useful and works just like apple’s assistive touch. Aside from that, the software is pretty standard.

Camera

This phone has a 16 MP primary camera with f/2.0 aperture and dual LED flash. The camera performance is average. It produces good outdoor photos with standard color reproduction but under low light conditions photos are grainy and colors are a bit washed out. Under low light conditions, the color reproduction may vary. The manual mode is standard with not many interesting features.

The secondary camera is a 5 MP with f/2.0 aperture and it has features like face detection, and touch focus that are common these days. The dynamic range of this camera is pretty good and works fine for selfies and video chat.

Battery

In my opinion, the battery might be the best selling point of the phone. It has a massive 4850 mAh non-removable battery. It easily lasts a day and a half even with heavy usage. With a phone this big, the battery performance is pretty impressive.

Performance and Overall

With all the given features and price point, the phone performs pretty well. However, it does have a heating problem when used extensively for a long period of time. Also, the screen sometimes freezes while gaming for a long period of time.

Except for these drawbacks, the overall performance of the phone is good, and it is even better for multimedia consumption. Xiaomi could’ve added front facing speakers given the size of the device but it seems like an unnecessary compromise.