Xiaomi’s budget smartphone redefines what you get for just $130 (REVIEW)

Startup phone-maker Xiaomi plans to sell 20 million of its Android-powered phones in 2013. It’ll do that with four models, the cheapest of which is the Xiaomi Hongmi. Costing only RMB 799 ($130), the Hongmi (it means ‘red rice’ in Chinese), doesn’t feel as cheap as its price-tag.

The bland design won’t get your heart racing or too many girls checking out what’s in your hand, but the Hongmi nonetheless redefines what you get for just $130.

Remember when people first started talking about $100 smartphones? Those things were terrible; just a gnat’s whisker above what you’d get from a Nokia Symbian phone, except with the awesome advantage that they ran Android.

Now that’s all changed.

Hardware and specs worth boasting about

Quad-core? Check. A HD screen? Yep. An 8MP camera? Indeed. With the Hongmi, you won’t lose too many bragging contests about smartphone specs. It even runs Android 4.2.1, which is just one tiny revision behind Google’s newest Moto X.

Of course, to hit the low price-point, some sacrifices have been made. That quad-core chip is a Mediatek MT6589 1.5GHz thingy, not the Snapdragon or Tegra 4 that Xiaomi uses in its three other models. Plus that plastic back is wafer-thin, and the metallic-looking side buttons are very basic plastic too. But there’s no flex, rattle, or squeak from the hardware itself. Note that the three Android buttons are not back-lit, which is hard to get used to; oh, and you’ll need a micro SD card. But you get extras, like dual SIM support (one for TD-SCDMA 3G, one for GSM).

(See also: Xiaomi hires ex-Android VP Hugo Barra, starts new job in October)

The 4.7-inch screen (720p) is an IPS LCD model. While it looks bad when switched off – a very depressing shade of grey – there’s actually no major downside to it when switched on. Indeed, it’s bright and vibrant, with really accurate colors. In bright sunshine – which, happily, fills the air today – it gets very hard to see; yes, the screen is on in this photo:

Despite these quibbles, the Hongmi is greater than the sum of its parts. There’s no other place where Xiaomi has noticeably cut corners to get the Hongmi price so low.

Antutu benchmark results

MIUI butters you up

For cash-strapped students

In conclusion…