Xiaomi launched the Redmi 3S and the Redmi 3s prime. This is the Redmi 3S Prime review, there is not much of a difference between the Redmi 3S and the 3S Prime, apart from the price, RAM/ROM and fingerprint sensor.

Design:
In terms of design. there is very little to differentiate between the Redmi 3s Prime and the Redmi Note 3. If you ignore the difference in the placement of the front facing camera and sensors on top of the display or that of the rear camera and flash, it is pretty much a compact version of the Redmi Note 3. The metal body is curved at the edges, which makes it quite slippery but the compact size ensures that it fits well in the hand.
Xiaomi had made a big deal about it in the redmi note 3 but somehow forgot about it in the Redmi 3s Prime. Having said that, there is no doubt that the Redmi 3s Prime is one of the most premium smartphones in the sub-Rs 10,000 price bracket, just like the Redmi Note 3. The speaker grille is at the bottom of the back. The physical buttons for volume and power are on the right, while the hybrid SIM slot is on the left. The phone accepts one Micro-SIM and another Nano-SIM or microSD card for storage. Unfortunately, this means that users will have to choose between a second SIM and a microSD card.
Under the hood, the Redmi 3S and Redmi 3S Prime both pack the octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 (MMB29) processor, with four cores clocked at 1.1GHz and four cores at 1.4GHz, plus an integrated Adreno 505 GPU. Apart from the fingerprint sensor, the only differences between the Xiaomi Redmi 3S and Redmi 3S Prime are the amounts of RAM and storage. The Redmi 3S features 2GB of RAM with 16GB of inbuilt storage, while the Redmi 3S Prime has 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.

Performance:
The Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime sets a standard for other smartphones in the same price band. We didn't face any lags while multitasking on this device, and there were no noticeable frame rate drops while playing games like Asphault.
Apps loaded quickly and the screen responded to touches without any complaints. The only issue that we faced was occasional restarts while running benchmarks, which is a repetition of what happened during the review of the Redmi Note 3. There was no heating while charging the phone or talking on calls. The phone did heat up a bit while using the camera app, but it never became too uncomfortable to use. We encountered no issues while talking for long hours on the phone.

Sound:
The quality of sound through the speaker at the back of the handset was impressive, except that it went flat at maximum volume with no stereo effect. We did check the quality of music through our own wired earphones and we were not disappointed. There are plenty of tweaking options for music lovers.

CAMERA:
The camera is nothing worth writing home about either. The front facing 5-megapixel camera gives out grainy results under most lighting conditions. The rear 13-megapixel camera is slightly better, but it isn’t something that you would get printed. Well, who does that anyway these days. Photos in low light conditions are grainy again and even in good lighting come out to be soft when zoomed in. It seems good camera sensors haven’t yet percolated to entry-level smartphones. And that’s really a pity for smartphones like the Redmi 3s Prime.Camera quality is above average.

Overall:
The Redmi 3S Prime no doubt is a very good handset with a very good price tag, however it does not come with fast charging support and the Snapdragon 430 hardware is not as powerful as the Snapdragon 650 hardware redmi note 3 is using.
Redmi 3S prime cannot play 4K videos smoothly, Redmi Note 3 can. Also when you compare the benchmarks there is a good difference. Having said that the 3S is still a very good buy, you will hardly notice any difference in performance with you daily usage though technically Note 3 is powerful.

Xiaomi Redmi 3S comes with 2GB RAM/16GB storage, while the Redmi 3S Prime has 3GB RAM and 32GB storage. The 2GB Redmi 3S doesn’t have a fingerprint scanner on the back, unlike the Redmi 3S Prime. Given the pricing, the Redmi 3S and its Prime version are a new offering in the budget segment from Xiaomi.
In terms of specifications, Redmi 3S and 3S Prime have a 5-inch HD display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 octa-core processor, 13 MP primary camera and a 5 MP secondary camera. The battery is 4100 mAh. Xiaomi Redmi 3S runs MIUI 7 based on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow and will come in Gold, Grey and Silver colour options. I’ve been using the Redmi 3S Prime, (the 3GB RAM version), and here’s my first impression of the phone.

Design:
The Design of the phone is almost similar to Redmi Note 3. the phone is incredibly light when you hold it, and it doesn’t feel bulky at all. With the smaller HD resolution display, the Snapdragon 430 processor. But Xiaomi has kept the metal unibody design as the same, and this price-point it is unusual to find a smartphone that looks so good. However the Redmi 3S Prime costs only Rs 1000 less than the 16GB version of the Note 3.
Display:
This phone has a more compact 5-inch display. Yes, the HD resolution feels underwhelming but not feeling like full HD, but it is still a very good display from Xiaomi.
Performance:
On the overall performance front, the Redmi 3S Prime has so far proved to be more than adequate. Games like Asphalt 8 run smoothly on this, with no heating, and I’ve not yet faced any app crashes. But I’m going to spend some more time with the software and the phone, to see how it continues to perform.
Camera:
The rear camera is 13MP, and I tried to make shots in varied lighting conditions. However, the few shots with lower lights are not upto that level but still good. The camera is fast, with no shutter-lag, and focuses quickly.
Battery:
The interesting is the battery in the Redmi 3S phones is slightly bigger than the one in Redmi Note 3 at 4100 mAh. I say interesting, because . The battery size means this phone won’t die anytime soon.

Good phone for average use

So far we’ve been rather impressed with Xiaomi’s line-up of products. The Chinese firm’s smartphones and cheerful Mi Band Pulse have given us hope that you can get great tech without paying a fortune.

Design:
The Note 3 is powered by a six-core Qualcom 650 system on a chip, which despite first appearances is a significant upgrade to the eight core CPU in the Note 2.
The Note 2 housed a 1.92GHz octa-core processor, namely the Mediatek MT6795 Helio X10, which sports eight ARM Coretx-A53 cores and a PowerVR graphics unit. The Note 3’s chip also has four Cortex-A53s clocked at 1.4GHz for background tasks, and a pair of newer Cortext-A72s running at 1.8GHz for performance.
The handset itself also operates at a snail’s pace. There is noticeable lag when opening applications and if you open multiple apps at once you will see that RAM figure in the task manager slowly whittle down to below “719MB of 2GB available” rather quickly.
If the 16GB storage feels less than ample you can add an SD Card for extra space. The only problem is that you lose the second SIM slot if you do – something that is a much desirable feature on this phone.

Frustration abounds:
The most noticeable addition to the Note 3 is a fingerprint scanner. Located at the back of the handset it functions in the same way that Huawei and LG’s does in that you simply need to place your finger in the right spot and the sensor will scan your digit.
The problem, we found, was that the scanner wasn’t as responsive as on other handsets and often failed to detect our digit correctly. Compared to phones from the last couple of years, it was a bit disappointing.

Camera:
The camera sensor at the rear of the handset has been bumped up from a 13MP in the Note 2 to a 16MP in the Note 3. You’ll find the usual list of features including HDR, Panaorama and Beautify. The camera is good but its still not quite enough to make the Note 3 feel special.

Battery:
The 4 000mAh Li-Po battery will give about two days of use if the phone is used for the occasional call, text and social media update. In practice, we found this equated to one full day of heavy use for web and mail, and around 6-8 hours of continuous movie watching and game playing. Which is, on the whole, satisfactory.
The Note 3 does have fast charging which can bring your battery up to full charge in just under three hours from empty.

The phone is looking so good and sleek which is instantly likeable - it has unbelievably thin bezels, a sharp edges, curved back and a lightweight body.
It has a very bright display with vivid and crisp colours, and the viewing angles quite good. Its very light-wight and easy to hold. You will feel the comfort when you hold it.
The device performance is quite good and challenging all the high end models. I did gaming, multi-tasking and Facebook endlessly, The device handle it very well, but the heating issues are still flare up little bit, especially when you are gaming for a long time.
The fingerprint scanner is working good without any issues either and unlocking the phone quickly.
The phone has no memory card slot, so you can't hold much data unless you are picking a 64GB model.
And there is no FM radio too.

Hi All,
I have been using this phone for a month and here is my Pros and Cons about Mi 5
Goods:
1. Very good build and design.
2. Best processor and GPU capable of running any kind of games and apps.
3. 3 GB ram For smooth multitasking.
4. 16 MP rear camera with PDAF, OIS and 4K video recording.
5. 4 MP front camera with full HD video recording.
6. Good battery backup.
7. All essential connectivity features including 4G LTE.
8. Dual sim support .
9. All essential sensors including compass, fingerprint and gyroscope.
10. 5.15 inch HD IPS screen covered by gorilla glass 4.
11. USB type c support.
Bads:
*. No micro sd card support.
*. Non user removable battery.
*. Not water-resistant like moto g.

This mobile is good.

This handset is a mid-range one and has one of the best batteries we’ve seen at this price point so far this year. But of course, a strong battery is not the only reason you buy a smartphone, so what is the Redmi 3 like as your daily driver?

The technical bits:
The Redmi 3 uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 616 chipset paired with an octa-core CPU. The CPU is configured with four cores running at 1.5GHz and the other four at 1.2GHz. The pay off with this configuration is that whether you’re running intensive tasks such as games or simply browsing through Facebook, the phone is snappy.
We did notice the phone didn’t keep up with us once multiple applications had been opened and not closed properly. This is easily solved by closing unnecessary apps and freeing up some of the RAM. That having been said, there is 3GB of RAM on-board the Redmi 3 and you’ll be able to watch a YouTube video, browse through Facebook, Twitter and Reddit while swiping on Tinder before you start to notice a slow down.
Driving the display is an Adreno 405 running at a peak 550MHz. We played a few many hours playing Subway Surfer and never encountered any game-breaking lag or stuttering.

Design:
The Redmi 3 looks like a handset that should cost at least R2 000 more than it does. The aluminum body, the subtle camera bump, even the volume rockers and unlock button have a slightly premium feel to them.
This was what made the Redmi Note 2 such a winner for me earlier this year, it was a cheap phone that gave a user a premium experience, this feels like a repetition of that mantra.
You might also have noticed the fingerprint scanner at the rear of the handset and our experience with it was great. Placing your finger on the scanner unlocks the phone in a second and it only ever failed when my finger was dirty or damp.
Camera:
The 13MP snapper which has phase detection and an f/2.0 aperture for great photos in the dark. At the front is 5MP sensor with an f2.2 aperture which is fine for selfies in the dark but maybe try and get a bit of light around you for better results.
The cameras are fine but not great.
Monster of a battery:
Perhaps the best part of the Redmi 3 is how long you can go between charges. Heavy use (using the phone as a WiFi hotspot, Bluetooth on, screen brightness at 100% and applications syncing in the background) got us one day of use.
With average use, we managed to get two days of use from the battery with the handset only needing to be plugged in when we went to bed that evening.
With light use, you can squeeze three days of life from the Redmi 3.
Overall its a good smartphone that sets itself apart from the other brands however, its now competing against the likes of the Redmi Note 2 and the Redmi Note 3 in this price point.