It’s certainly a big day for Xiaomi. It launched some smacking good products today for its domestic market, China, including the cutting-edge Mi Mix 2, Mi Notebook Pro, and the flagship phablet Mi Note 3.
The Mi Note 3 is the successor to last year’s Mi Note 2, Xiaomi’s priciest device then at MYR2,499. Many balked at its price, substantially more than the original Mi Note. Pricing aside, the Mi Note 2 did packs some brilliant specs including 128GB of storage.
This generation’s Note flagship phablet retains the MYR2,499 price tag, but expectedly ups the game in terms of hardware specs and build quality. In fact, the new Note is really a bigger Mi 6, which is a 5.15-inch device.
In terms of design, they’re strikingly similar with a beautiful blend of curved glass and 7 series aluminium alloy metal frame. Despite its dimensions, it’s actually a tad lighter than its smaller sibling.
The stunning body houses a 5.5-inch Full HD display with reading mode.
The only real difference between the two is the processor. While the Mi 6 gets the top-rung Snapdragon 835, the Mi Note 3 settles for a mid-tier 14nm octa-core Snapdragon 660. It’s less powerful, but still a step up from the Snapdragon 625 that’s seen on a number of mid-range devices.
Xiaomi didn’t skimp on the rest though. The device gets 6GB of LPDDR4 RAM and offers either 64GB or 128GB of eMMC 5.1 storage.
The phablet also adopts the same 12MP dual-camera setup from the Mi 6. The primary shooter is 12MP f/1.8 unit with 4-axis OIS and wide-angle lens, while the secondary camera is a 12MP f/2.6 unit with 2X optical zoom.
On the front is where it gets interesting. To date, Xiaomi hasn’t seriously gotten into the game of selfies. At least at to the level where the “selfie kings” OPPO, vivo and ASUS are playing at. Things change today.
The Mi Note 3 rocks a 16MP front camera that features Adaptable AI Beautification. That sounds like a mouthful, and a little science fiction-like I admit. But know this. It’s a sort of personal makeup artist that you can count on to enhance your selfies, using “3D facelift.” How cool is that?
It makes girls prettier. And guys can be pretty, too.
Additionally, the 16MP sensor can boost low-light performance by merging four pixels to effectively increase pixel size to 2 microns. I’m interested to see how well this works.
Moving on, the device packs a 3,500mAh battery that charges up via USB Type-C, and it supports Quick Charge 3.0.
Unfortunately, though not huge deal-breakers, the Mi Note 3 lacks micro-SD expansion and a headphone jack.
The dual-SIM device does have a under the glass fingerprint sensor, IR blaster, and the front camera supports Face Unlock.
The Mi Note 3 runs MIUI 9, based on Android 7.1.1 Nougat.
Pricing and availability
The Mi Note 3 is available in China and is priced as follows:
- 6GB RAM + 64GB storage (Black) – RMB2,499/MYR1,608
- 6GB RAM + 128GB storage (Black) – RMB2,899/MYR1,865
- 6GB RAM + 128GB storage (Blue) – MUR2,999/MYR1,930
Seeing that the current Mi Note 2 sells for MYR2,499, can we expect similar pricing when it hits Malaysian shores? We’ll see.
Do note that the Mi Note 2 does still pack solid specs, including the venerable Snapdragon 821 processor, larger 4,050mAh battery and 21MP main shooter.
What do you think? Leave your comments below.
