I know right!!! I too have the same phone and never have I gotten a sot less than 9 hrs. This device is turning out to be the best Tech purchase I've ever made. Cheers!!
They don't want to because it would be a bad choice. This way people who want a bulkier phone with longer battery-life can get a battery-case, and people who want a thinner phone at the cost of battery-life can skip the case. The alternative is a bulky phone that's only appealing to people who need a larger battery, so have to put up with a larger device.
Bulky? Compared to what? Compared to the thinnest flagships maybe. But compare it to anything any normal person would consider acceptable and it's nowhere near bulky. I've never heard anyone saying "oh I wish this phone wasn't so bulky" when talking about normal phone thickness in the past years. Battery complaints though? All the time. What's the ideal thickness? The S6 Edge was 7mm while the S7 is 7.7mm. So adding 10% to the thickness didn't raise any eyebrows.
Yes, putting a bigger battery would be a bad choice for all kinds of ignorant people thinking that a battery case is the same as adding an extra mm to the thickness of the phone and also for phone manufacturers who know that a battery that barely lasts a day when new will push you to get a new phone when the battery is 2 years old and you spend most of the day tethered to an outlet.
Agreed with this. My Nexus 5 was almost useless to me after 18 months; by 2 years I was charging it 2 or 3 times a day. I can't believe for a second that one or two additional millimeters for 10 to 25% additional battery capacity would have been a bad choice for that device, what with it being very thin already and having a stupid camera bump.
Battery cases are a terrible solution - they are restricted to a single device, add unnecessary bulk and increase the complexity of charging.
I was on the same boat, recently decided to open it up and swap the battery as I'm keeping it until the next round of Nexus at year'd end. I hope even the next 5" model goes for at least a 3000mAh (and/or wireless charging)... Otherwise I might be looking at larger phones which I've resisted all these years.
A battery case isn't really comparable, or even a viable choice I'd argue. They're only made for a handful of flagship models, and they add a lot more bulk relative to the battery life you gain (and compared with phones that have larger batteries and are just a mm thicker)... You can't honestly be serious.
I have the smaller 5.0" Redmi 3. The excellent battery life has completely transformed my relationship with my phone. Instead of limiting usage and worrying about running low when I actually need it, the stellar battery life lets me use the phone without a thought. I typically find myself with 60-70%+ remaining on the battery after a normal day's use. For times when I'm really abusing the phone - ex international travel with 8+ hours of screen time - I still haven't run it all the way down.
The device is still thin. I can't imagine going back to a 'better' phone that doesn't support similar battery life.
They can't because slim is the new sexy these days. Although they are pretty much balanced but they are designed toward styling rather than functionality (all day battery, etc)
I don't care about "slim and sexy" in a telephone. I actually had to purchase a silicone sleeve for my Nexus 5 just to make it thick enough to not slip from my grip all the time ...
LG could have easily used a thicker battery in there.
I have the Note 2 which is similar except in plastic back. Also loving it more than any prior generation iphones and samsungs I owned - apples vs. pears, I guess but I am a believer from a user experience point of view.
I am waiting for the special Taiwanese version of Redmi Note 3 to appear in AliExpress: it has more 4G frequencies, including that important B20 (800MHz):
I would like to suggest you to also check the 4K quality in case of the Redmi Note 3. While the official camera app doesn't do 4K. You can install any other 3rd party camera app (OpenCamera or Google Camera v2.7.x) and those can use it for 4k. The SD650 supports 4K.
@A5 except the RN3 is what it's called in the rest of the world, RN3 Pro only exists in China & AFAIK other regions have only gotten the SD650 variants of the RN3, that don't end with Pro.
Nope. RN3Pro is the SD650 one, RN3 is the Helio X10 one and I can buy both in Germany and I guess the rest of Europe or at least the EU through importers.
Both the Meizu M3 note and the Xiaomi Redmi note 3 are available in India. The Xiaomi model is available in all the countries where Xiaomi sells officially.
Excellent review. They need to get LTE on that Redmi Note 3, that is precisely the type of phone I want. I don't have the vision to tell when a screen isn't ideal, I very rarely listen to audio over the speaker, but I want strong performance and long battery life. At least the Chinese companies are listening!
I have a question for the techies here. I posted in reddit but got no response. What part of a mobile is responsible for implementing the bands? For example, both OnePlus 3 and Samsung S7 have SD820 with X12 modem but both support a different set of bands. So, what gives?
The article Matt posted is good but the short answer is that it is a combination of the Modem in the SOC, the antenna's/filters/amplifiers in the phone and the software configuration for the Modem that determine the supported band(s). Usually the antenna's/filters/amplifiers are the real limiting factor as modern SOCs all support a large variety of different bands and the software configuration can be changed.
On that point, I think there are people on XDA who have flashed Qualcomm based Chinese phones with missing Band20 LTE and gotten it to work with Band20. Only QC based phones so far though.
This review missed the biggest weakness of the xiaomi IMHO. The phone is very slippery and hard to hold. This causes me to hold the phone tightly in order to prevent dropping it. This leads to the next problem. The forced gripping of the phone means that my holding fingers often touch the edge of the screen which means lots of accidental presses. The capacitive buttons at the bottom of the phone are so close to the edge that they are accidentally touched as well.
I could use a case to remedy this, but this is already as very big phone. Instead I put stickers on to give it texture and make it easier to hold. Works decent but the stickers keep fall off....
Much worse than the N4. I remember the N4 being a problem until I learned to hold it properly. I've had the Xiaomi for about 4 months now and holding it is still a major problem. You won't think the N4 back glass is slippery anymore after holding this phone :P
Yeah, glass actually ends up stickier and mates more surface area against anything else... Brushed metal with very smooth edges and no trim ends up being very slippery.
At least for SoCs you haven't reviewed before you guys need a CPU benchmark too. PCMark and Dicsomark are very software dependent and the browsing benchmarks are kinda sucky.
The clear leader in perf per $ is the 360 Mobile N4. With Helio X20 (MT6797m) , 4GB RAM, fast charging at 899CNY(135$).
Yeah, I appreciate the real life benchmarks but the software can be fixed, the hardware can not so it would be good to know where the potential of the phone lies. The measurement of the read and write speeds are very helpful in this regards but a more synthetic test would be nice, honestly I don't trust something like PCMARK at all.
I mean, "writing", "video", what are those supposed to test? Performance while writing get or playing video? Who cares, what phone has rouble with either of those tasks, a 2005 phone was fast enough...
Good phones. But as a Chinese phore there are two problems as usual i. UI ii. Software update. Are Chinese phone manufacturers shameless? Instead following Android design language they copy iOS design and feel good for it.
they dont try to copy. They follow what the majority of their country likes. Since early 2005 I believe even HTC and Huawei dont use any app drawer. And the fact that their UI is more user friendly, vast themes, feature-rich. Even if their base is kitkat; look whose first implementing permission manager? these chinese UI. Integrated backup-restore etc etc.
Also thanks for the LTE bands support table. This is something that I've argued should be present in all reviews, and it's great to see it so prominently and clearly laid out.
In future, can I ask Anandtech to also focus on the Android Security Level that a phone runs? I find it increasingly disturbing that OEMs are ignoring Google's monthly security patches. One review of recent security bulletin shows that each month they are fixing serious vulnerabilities, some of them being kernel-level vulnerabilities with remote exploit capabilities. In my opinion it is irresponsible, borderline unethical for a manufacturer to release a handset with known remote root exploits and then fail to patch it.
It is one thing for an OEM to change the UI the way MIUI does, at the end of the day, these are matters of preference and taste. It is even acceptable in my view not to update the Android OS due to business/technical reasons. But not patching security vulnerabilities? That should not be acceptable. We need manufacturers to at least commit to supporting their handsets for the duration of their lifetime (whether that's two years or three years or whatever) with security patches. And we need to call out and name and shame those who don't. Frankly if websites such as AT don't do this, I don't know who will.
Let's put it this way, if say Windows 8 or Windows 10 had a remote exploit vulnerability, and yet a laptop running the said OS didn't get this vulnerability fixed in a reasonable amount of time (for whatever reason), AT and the whole tech media would be up in arms. At the end of the day, I don't care whether it's Google's fault or the SoC vendor's fault or the OEM's fault or the carrier's fault, these are contractual details and they can sort it out between themselves. The customer pays money to an OEM (or a carrier) and the customer's contractual agreement is with them. We need to call out this situation, hold the OEM, the carrier, Google and the whole ecosystem to account. As smartphones move ever more closer to becoming general purpose computers, and they hold vast amounts of our personal information, this situation is unacceptable.
Great! So when you go to software info or about device (or whatever Xiaomi is calling it) you can see the Android security patch level? And they are mostly up to date? If this is true, it would make Xiaomi phones a hugely more appealing purchase in my opinion.
And I think it would be great if a website as thorough as AT paid attention to this, and called it out.
Xiaomi are pretty good at updating the Android patch level for their developer ROMs. Their Chinese-market developer ROMs are updated weekly, whereas global developer ROMs with built-in Google Play get updated once every few months. Stable ROMs come out about once a quarter.
You can get the best of both worlds by using custom ROMs from Xiaomi.eu that combine the features and updates of the Chinese-market developer ROM and built-in Google Play, with a lot of Chinese bloatware stripped out. I've been using these for my ancient Redmi Note (the first of the line!) for years without major issues.
One thing Xiaomi really suck at is updating the kernel. A lot of older devices are still stuck on KitKat and without kernel sources, we can't compile a bug-free Marshmallow release. Maybe it's a MediaTek thing not to release sources but whoever it is, they're not doing themselves a favor.
ironically, the very heavily customized MIUI have a waaay better monthly security patches update policy than a lot of those "almost stock android" from other manufacturer.
The gpu is the consistent achilles of these chinese soc. If they would just up the gpu core count you'd end up with a far more balanced device. OTOH, the snapdragon looks to be pretty strong. Its gpu is better than I expected.
Thanks for this review Matt - reviews of Chinese phones usually gloss over the screen quality ("looks fine" etc), so nice to see AT putting them through the wringer.
Re Redmi Note 3, the performance is really impressive. Do you know whether the black version still has a ridge around the edge of its glass? It looks like only the gold and white versions are afflicted with that - could just be less visible on the black ones though. Black one also conceals black border around the IPS panel better. I'd have bought one over the Galaxy Note 4 I ended up with if they'd just kept the removable battery of the RN2.
@Death666Angel guess that depends on where you live then, in India there is no RN3/Pro with Helio likewise Le2 is also laced with SD652, therefore no Mediatek models here. Having owned the RN3 for just over 4 months, the SD650 one, I can safely say that it's by far the best VFM smartphone out there.
That's right, the main difference between the two versions is the network frequency support. See http://www.mi.com/note3/specs/
The MTK X10 version supports FDD-LTE, TDD-LTE, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA and GSM bands. The Snapdragon version adds CDMA2000 and CDMA 1x support to that, mainly on China Telecom's CDMA network. Maybe Anandtech should amend the specs table to reflect this. You won't be able to use CDMA on North American networks though.
I'd love to see power efficiency comparisons between the Helio X10 and Snapdragon 650 when other components are the same, instead of an apples-to-pears comparison here. I'm surprised the X10 in the Meizu has a more efficient radio when on HSPA.
The camera section was good, but I'd like to see one more comparison, if it's possible. In addition to higher noise and underexposure in the low light shots, some of the cameras exhibited very compressed dynamic range as a result of using higher ISOs. Colors are more desaturated, highlights are more easily blown out, and shadows are more crushed.
This is pretty hardware dependent, but some good exposure algorithms could mitigate it slightly.
As a 2 month user of a Redmi Note 3 Pro I'm never sorry to see some justification to my buyer biased opinion of its awesomeness. As someone who's been fine with one or two year old flagships for nearly a decade this was a nice surprise to be buying something new that raised the bar still without breaching the self imposed budget. I was reticent to buy the MTK version when it first came out, the Pro (Snap) however is well well worth it and will go down as one of the gems of its generation for good reason
I just picked up the Note 3, thanks to AT's great review, and I think it's a great phone. Shame about the locked bootloader and Xiaomi's ridiculous unlocking procedure that fails most of the time.
Anyway, there are 3 versions of the Redmi Note 3: MTK X10 (production code Hennessy), Snapdragon 650 Netcom (Kenzo) and Snapdragon 650 Taiwan (Kate). The Kate model has support for more LTE bands at the expense of some WCDMA and CDMA bands. I've heard of people flashing Kate radio firmware on Kenzo that enables European LTE bands but reception is supposed to be flaky. Maybe there's different radio hardware that enables those extra bands.
Thanks for your comparison ,This is what i wanna find ,btw ,will you make a comparison meizu m3 with Vkworld T1 ? the Vkworld T1 seems have higher cost effective
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Pissedoffyouth - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
I have a Redmi Note 3 and I generally get >8h SOT over 2 days. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this phone.It's just a pity they can't stick bigger batteries in phones that cost 3x as much
Le Geek - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
I know right!!! I too have the same phone and never have I gotten a sot less than 9 hrs. This device is turning out to be the best Tech purchase I've ever made. Cheers!!ddriver - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
They can, just don't want to.JeffFlanagan - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
They don't want to because it would be a bad choice. This way people who want a bulkier phone with longer battery-life can get a battery-case, and people who want a thinner phone at the cost of battery-life can skip the case. The alternative is a bulky phone that's only appealing to people who need a larger battery, so have to put up with a larger device.TechnikalKP - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
The iPhone 6+ is 7.3mm thick. The Redmi Note 3 is 8.6mm. That's less than the thickness of a US dime.close - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
Bulky? Compared to what? Compared to the thinnest flagships maybe. But compare it to anything any normal person would consider acceptable and it's nowhere near bulky. I've never heard anyone saying "oh I wish this phone wasn't so bulky" when talking about normal phone thickness in the past years. Battery complaints though? All the time. What's the ideal thickness? The S6 Edge was 7mm while the S7 is 7.7mm. So adding 10% to the thickness didn't raise any eyebrows.Yes, putting a bigger battery would be a bad choice for all kinds of ignorant people thinking that a battery case is the same as adding an extra mm to the thickness of the phone and also for phone manufacturers who know that a battery that barely lasts a day when new will push you to get a new phone when the battery is 2 years old and you spend most of the day tethered to an outlet.
Spunjji - Thursday, July 14, 2016 - link
Agreed with this. My Nexus 5 was almost useless to me after 18 months; by 2 years I was charging it 2 or 3 times a day. I can't believe for a second that one or two additional millimeters for 10 to 25% additional battery capacity would have been a bad choice for that device, what with it being very thin already and having a stupid camera bump.Battery cases are a terrible solution - they are restricted to a single device, add unnecessary bulk and increase the complexity of charging.
Impulses - Thursday, July 14, 2016 - link
I was on the same boat, recently decided to open it up and swap the battery as I'm keeping it until the next round of Nexus at year'd end. I hope even the next 5" model goes for at least a 3000mAh (and/or wireless charging)... Otherwise I might be looking at larger phones which I've resisted all these years.Bulat Ziganshin - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
The new battery for Nexus4 costs me $10 at aliexpressImpulses - Thursday, July 14, 2016 - link
A battery case isn't really comparable, or even a viable choice I'd argue. They're only made for a handful of flagship models, and they add a lot more bulk relative to the battery life you gain (and compared with phones that have larger batteries and are just a mm thicker)... You can't honestly be serious.TechnikalKP - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
I have the smaller 5.0" Redmi 3. The excellent battery life has completely transformed my relationship with my phone. Instead of limiting usage and worrying about running low when I actually need it, the stellar battery life lets me use the phone without a thought. I typically find myself with 60-70%+ remaining on the battery after a normal day's use. For times when I'm really abusing the phone - ex international travel with 8+ hours of screen time - I still haven't run it all the way down.The device is still thin. I can't imagine going back to a 'better' phone that doesn't support similar battery life.
WorldWithoutMadness - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
They can't because slim is the new sexy these days. Although they are pretty much balanced but they are designed toward styling rather than functionality (all day battery, etc)Arnulf - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
I don't care about "slim and sexy" in a telephone. I actually had to purchase a silicone sleeve for my Nexus 5 just to make it thick enough to not slip from my grip all the time ...LG could have easily used a thicker battery in there.
jayfang - Thursday, July 14, 2016 - link
True. it's Form over Function.But sadly it sells stuff to the image obsessed masses. In particular those "beautiful" bendy iPhones hidden away in protective cases is a bit a laugh.
Amandtec - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
I have the Note 2 which is similar except in plastic back. Also loving it more than any prior generation iphones and samsungs I owned - apples vs. pears, I guess but I am a believer from a user experience point of view.Xinn3r - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
I realize you mentioned the Mi5 Pro in your review.Does that mean we're getting a review soon?
Eri Hyva - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
I am waiting for the special Taiwanese version of Redmi Note 3 to appear in AliExpress: it has more 4G frequencies, including that important B20 (800MHz):FDD-LTE: B1 / B2 / B3 / B4 / B5 / B7 / B8 / B20 / B28
TD-LTE: B40
source:
http://mobile.mi.com/tw/note3/#specs
Pissedoffyouth - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
Band28 for NZ/AU as wellEri Hyva - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
and B2 1900 PCS and B4 1700 AWS for Americasagambhandari - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
I would like to suggest you to also check the 4K quality in case of the Redmi Note 3. While the official camera app doesn't do 4K. You can install any other 3rd party camera app (OpenCamera or Google Camera v2.7.x) and those can use it for 4k.The SD650 supports 4K.
A5 - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
Review should maybe note that this a review of the Redmi Note 3 PRO, not the non-PRO version that has the Helio X10 in it.R0H1T - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
@A5 except the RN3 is what it's called in the rest of the world, RN3 Pro only exists in China & AFAIK other regions have only gotten the SD650 variants of the RN3, that don't end with Pro.Death666Angel - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
Nope. RN3Pro is the SD650 one, RN3 is the Helio X10 one and I can buy both in Germany and I guess the rest of Europe or at least the EU through importers.Alexey291 - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
I was about to write that these guys are so 'busy' these days that they can't even get the camera name right...Alexey291 - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
Phone not camera dammitzeeBomb - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
Which one you can actually use US/CAN radios and is more readily available internationallyv than China?BMNify - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
Both the Meizu M3 note and the Xiaomi Redmi note 3 are available in India. The Xiaomi model is available in all the countries where Xiaomi sells officially.fanofanand - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
Excellent review. They need to get LTE on that Redmi Note 3, that is precisely the type of phone I want. I don't have the vision to tell when a screen isn't ideal, I very rarely listen to audio over the speaker, but I want strong performance and long battery life. At least the Chinese companies are listening!adityarjun - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
I have a question for the techies here. I posted in reddit but got no response. What part of a mobile is responsible for implementing the bands? For example, both OnePlus 3 and Samsung S7 have SD820 with X12 modem but both support a different set of bands. So, what gives?Matt Humrick - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
The modem or baseband processor is only one component in the cellular hardware chain. Here's an article that explains the roles for each component: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6541/the-state-of-qu...kpb321 - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
The article Matt posted is good but the short answer is that it is a combination of the Modem in the SOC, the antenna's/filters/amplifiers in the phone and the software configuration for the Modem that determine the supported band(s). Usually the antenna's/filters/amplifiers are the real limiting factor as modern SOCs all support a large variety of different bands and the software configuration can be changed.Death666Angel - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
On that point, I think there are people on XDA who have flashed Qualcomm based Chinese phones with missing Band20 LTE and gotten it to work with Band20. Only QC based phones so far though.adityarjun - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
Thank you all. I had a feeling it was the antenna/amplifier part. I will go over the article Matt posted. Thanks again.ianmills - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
This review missed the biggest weakness of the xiaomi IMHO. The phone is very slippery and hard to hold. This causes me to hold the phone tightly in order to prevent dropping it. This leads to the next problem. The forced gripping of the phone means that my holding fingers often touch the edge of the screen which means lots of accidental presses. The capacitive buttons at the bottom of the phone are so close to the edge that they are accidentally touched as well.I could use a case to remedy this, but this is already as very big phone. Instead I put stickers on to give it texture and make it easier to hold. Works decent but the stickers keep fall off....
fanofanand - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
Sounds like my Nexus 4 that lasted all of 8 days before falling 3 feet to it's demise.ianmills - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
Much worse than the N4. I remember the N4 being a problem until I learned to hold it properly. I've had the Xiaomi for about 4 months now and holding it is still a major problem. You won't think the N4 back glass is slippery anymore after holding this phone :PImpulses - Thursday, July 14, 2016 - link
Yeah, glass actually ends up stickier and mates more surface area against anything else... Brushed metal with very smooth edges and no trim ends up being very slippery.Pissedoffyouth - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
I definitely don't have this problem. You can get ultra-thin grippy cases that don't add much bulk to the phone.TheCurve - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
Solid and opportune review. Thanks for the good work, Mattjjj - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
At least for SoCs you haven't reviewed before you guys need a CPU benchmark too. PCMark and Dicsomark are very software dependent and the browsing benchmarks are kinda sucky.The clear leader in perf per $ is the 360 Mobile N4. With Helio X20 (MT6797m) , 4GB RAM, fast charging at 899CNY(135$).
jospoortvliet - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
Yeah, I appreciate the real life benchmarks but the software can be fixed, the hardware can not so it would be good to know where the potential of the phone lies. The measurement of the read and write speeds are very helpful in this regards but a more synthetic test would be nice, honestly I don't trust something like PCMARK at all.jospoortvliet - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
I mean, "writing", "video", what are those supposed to test? Performance while writing get or playing video? Who cares, what phone has rouble with either of those tasks, a 2005 phone was fast enough...John Bens - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
Nice comparison. Geekbuying actually has the M3 Note on sale at $152.99 which is a pretty good deal.Geranium - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
Good phones. But as a Chinese phore there are two problems as usuali. UI
ii. Software update.
Are Chinese phone manufacturers shameless? Instead following Android design language they copy iOS design and feel good for it.
yoghibawono - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
they dont try to copy. They follow what the majority of their country likes. Since early 2005 I believe even HTC and Huawei dont use any app drawer. And the fact that their UI is more user friendly, vast themes, feature-rich. Even if their base is kitkat; look whose first implementing permission manager? these chinese UI. Integrated backup-restore etc etc.Impulses - Thursday, July 14, 2016 - link
Uh, pretty sure HTC has an app drawer...aryonoco - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
Thanks for the review Matt, much appreciated.Also thanks for the LTE bands support table. This is something that I've argued should be present in all reviews, and it's great to see it so prominently and clearly laid out.
In future, can I ask Anandtech to also focus on the Android Security Level that a phone runs? I find it increasingly disturbing that OEMs are ignoring Google's monthly security patches. One review of recent security bulletin shows that each month they are fixing serious vulnerabilities, some of them being kernel-level vulnerabilities with remote exploit capabilities. In my opinion it is irresponsible, borderline unethical for a manufacturer to release a handset with known remote root exploits and then fail to patch it.
It is one thing for an OEM to change the UI the way MIUI does, at the end of the day, these are matters of preference and taste. It is even acceptable in my view not to update the Android OS due to business/technical reasons. But not patching security vulnerabilities? That should not be acceptable. We need manufacturers to at least commit to supporting their handsets for the duration of their lifetime (whether that's two years or three years or whatever) with security patches. And we need to call out and name and shame those who don't. Frankly if websites such as AT don't do this, I don't know who will.
Let's put it this way, if say Windows 8 or Windows 10 had a remote exploit vulnerability, and yet a laptop running the said OS didn't get this vulnerability fixed in a reasonable amount of time (for whatever reason), AT and the whole tech media would be up in arms. At the end of the day, I don't care whether it's Google's fault or the SoC vendor's fault or the OEM's fault or the carrier's fault, these are contractual details and they can sort it out between themselves. The customer pays money to an OEM (or a carrier) and the customer's contractual agreement is with them. We need to call out this situation, hold the OEM, the carrier, Google and the whole ecosystem to account. As smartphones move ever more closer to becoming general purpose computers, and they hold vast amounts of our personal information, this situation is unacceptable.
abcdravi - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
I agree.Pissedoffyouth - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
XIaomi are very good at patching security updates from what I've foundaryonoco - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
Great! So when you go to software info or about device (or whatever Xiaomi is calling it) you can see the Android security patch level? And they are mostly up to date? If this is true, it would make Xiaomi phones a hugely more appealing purchase in my opinion.And I think it would be great if a website as thorough as AT paid attention to this, and called it out.
Pissedoffyouth - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
Yes, on my RN3 I see June patch levelImpulses - Thursday, July 14, 2016 - link
Very interesting.Pissedoffyouth - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link
July now and I have August patch level. Very fast.serendip - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
Xiaomi are pretty good at updating the Android patch level for their developer ROMs. Their Chinese-market developer ROMs are updated weekly, whereas global developer ROMs with built-in Google Play get updated once every few months. Stable ROMs come out about once a quarter.You can get the best of both worlds by using custom ROMs from Xiaomi.eu that combine the features and updates of the Chinese-market developer ROM and built-in Google Play, with a lot of Chinese bloatware stripped out. I've been using these for my ancient Redmi Note (the first of the line!) for years without major issues.
One thing Xiaomi really suck at is updating the kernel. A lot of older devices are still stuck on KitKat and without kernel sources, we can't compile a bug-free Marshmallow release. Maybe it's a MediaTek thing not to release sources but whoever it is, they're not doing themselves a favor.
SyukriLajin - Thursday, August 11, 2016 - link
ironically, the very heavily customized MIUI have a waaay better monthly security patches update policy than a lot of those "almost stock android" from other manufacturer.tuxRoller - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
The gpu is the consistent achilles of these chinese soc. If they would just up the gpu core count you'd end up with a far more balanced device.OTOH, the snapdragon looks to be pretty strong. Its gpu is better than I expected.
asfletch - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
Thanks for this review Matt - reviews of Chinese phones usually gloss over the screen quality ("looks fine" etc), so nice to see AT putting them through the wringer.Re Redmi Note 3, the performance is really impressive. Do you know whether the black version still has a ridge around the edge of its glass? It looks like only the gold and white versions are afflicted with that - could just be less visible on the black ones though. Black one also conceals black border around the IPS panel better. I'd have bought one over the Galaxy Note 4 I ended up with if they'd just kept the removable battery of the RN2.
abcdravi - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
Matt, just signed in to say this. This is a really good review!R0H1T - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
@Death666Angel guess that depends on where you live then, in India there is no RN3/Pro with Helio likewise Le2 is also laced with SD652, therefore no Mediatek models here. Having owned the RN3 for just over 4 months, the SD650 one, I can safely say that it's by far the best VFM smartphone out there.Impulses - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
Nicely done review...Also, -in before the HTC10/GTX1080 review whines-... :p
serendip - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
How about reviewing the Mi Max? That's a monster phone that's bigger than the old Sony Z Ultra and the cheapest variant is around 1300 yuan.djayjp - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
Holy mother of god... talk about disruptive!!! The Xiaomi changes the entire industry.djayjp - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
Oh wait, no LTE... ><Pissedoffyouth - Thursday, July 14, 2016 - link
Has LTE for me in the UK, just not band 20djayjp - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
Why am I seeing the Redmi Note 3 coming with a MTK Helio X10??I found it listed on newegg canada
Eri Hyva - Thursday, July 14, 2016 - link
There are two different versions of Redmi Note 3, the older Mediatek version and the newer Snapdragon versionserendip - Thursday, July 14, 2016 - link
That's right, the main difference between the two versions is the network frequency support. See http://www.mi.com/note3/specs/The MTK X10 version supports FDD-LTE, TDD-LTE, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA and GSM bands. The Snapdragon version adds CDMA2000 and CDMA 1x support to that, mainly on China Telecom's CDMA network. Maybe Anandtech should amend the specs table to reflect this. You won't be able to use CDMA on North American networks though.
I'd love to see power efficiency comparisons between the Helio X10 and Snapdragon 650 when other components are the same, instead of an apples-to-pears comparison here. I'm surprised the X10 in the Meizu has a more efficient radio when on HSPA.
aliasfox - Thursday, July 14, 2016 - link
The camera section was good, but I'd like to see one more comparison, if it's possible. In addition to higher noise and underexposure in the low light shots, some of the cameras exhibited very compressed dynamic range as a result of using higher ISOs. Colors are more desaturated, highlights are more easily blown out, and shadows are more crushed.This is pretty hardware dependent, but some good exposure algorithms could mitigate it slightly.
Impulses - Thursday, July 14, 2016 - link
Having read the review in full, the Meizu is just about what I'd expect but the Xiaomi is a surprise... Shame about LTE support over here.realbabilu - Friday, July 15, 2016 - link
I think the this snapdragon 615 should be benched with 808 on G5 or mi4c for comparisonrealbabilu - Friday, July 15, 2016 - link
G4 I meanbennyg - Monday, July 18, 2016 - link
As a 2 month user of a Redmi Note 3 Pro I'm never sorry to see some justification to my buyer biased opinion of its awesomeness. As someone who's been fine with one or two year old flagships for nearly a decade this was a nice surprise to be buying something new that raised the bar still without breaching the self imposed budget. I was reticent to buy the MTK version when it first came out, the Pro (Snap) however is well well worth it and will go down as one of the gems of its generation for good reasonBadCommand - Tuesday, July 19, 2016 - link
Other than the (hopefully) properly vetted Huawei Nexus 6p- I can't fathom why anyone would want/trust a Chinese branded phone.mfmx - Sunday, July 31, 2016 - link
The "full netcom" Redmi Note 3 does support some American bands:WCDMA bands B1/B2/B4/B5/B8
FDD-LTE bands B1/B3/B4/B5/B7/B8
So it supports AWS bands for 3G/4G on T-mobile in the US.
Also there is a 2GB/16GB "international" version now with English packaging and European charger sold on aliexpress that supports
FDD LTE bands B1/2/3/4/5/7/8/20/28
So that's band 20 for Europe, 28 for Asia Pacific and 2 and 4 for the US. No WCDMA band 4 though.
serendip - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
I just picked up the Note 3, thanks to AT's great review, and I think it's a great phone. Shame about the locked bootloader and Xiaomi's ridiculous unlocking procedure that fails most of the time.Anyway, there are 3 versions of the Redmi Note 3: MTK X10 (production code Hennessy), Snapdragon 650 Netcom (Kenzo) and Snapdragon 650 Taiwan (Kate). The Kate model has support for more LTE bands at the expense of some WCDMA and CDMA bands. I've heard of people flashing Kate radio firmware on Kenzo that enables European LTE bands but reception is supposed to be flaky. Maybe there's different radio hardware that enables those extra bands.
milli - Wednesday, August 17, 2016 - link
What type of glass do these phones use?Didn't see that mentioned in the review.
Shashankpal - Tuesday, August 23, 2016 - link
It's xiaomi's own glass but is equivalent to gorilla glass 4Alex Frank - Friday, October 7, 2016 - link
Thanks for your comparison ,This is what i wanna find ,btw ,will you make a comparison meizu m3 with Vkworld T1 ? the Vkworld T1 seems have higher cost effectiveCGO89 - Thursday, February 2, 2017 - link
If somebody is interested, I found Meizu M3 Note at a promotional price: http://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_484410.html...