Xiaomi has established a strong hold in the Indian market. After the success of Redmi Note 3 (Review) and Mi Max (Review), the company has now launched smartphones priced below Rs 10,000 with the intention of increasing its market share. We are talking about Xiaomi Redmi 3S and Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime. Both phones come with the label ‘Made in India’. Since entering the Indian market, Xiaomi has been known for offering phones with great specifications at affordable prices. The company has tried to capitalize on this hit formula again through the new handset.
Both variants of the Redmi 3S feature a full-metal body and come with a large battery. We got a chance to review the Redmi 3S Prime which comes with more RAM, more storage and a fingerprint sensor. Is the Redmi 3S Prime a good deal, or is this handset just a variant of the Redmi Note 3? We will tell you about this in detail through this review.
Look and design
When we saw the Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime, it looked like a mini variant of the Redmi 3 at first glance. Most of Xiaomi’s phones are now starting to look similar. The company is trying to maintain uniformity in its product portfolio through this. Samsung adopted the same strategy with its Galaxy smartphones a few years ago. We have not been fans of this gameplan.
The front panel of the Redmi 3S Prime is almost similar to the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, but the sensors are placed above the display. You get capacitive home, back and recent buttons. These are located below the display. The sensors and the front camera are on either side of the earpiece. To a large extent, this phone seems to be inspired by the Xiaomi Mi Max which is equipped with a 6.44-inch display. However, the thickness of the Redmi 3S Prime is 8.5 mm while the premium Mi Max comes with a thickness of 7.55 mm.
There is a LED flash along with the primary camera on the rear panel. Both are placed on the top right side. There is a fingerprint sensor in the middle on the back panel. There is a thin line from top to bottom on the rear panel. We also saw this in Redmi Note 3 and Mi Max.
The speaker grille is at the bottom of the phone. The volume and power buttons are on the right side, while the hybrid SIM slot is on the right side.
There is an infrared emitter and 3.5mm audio jack on the top. There is a standard micro-USB port and a microphone at the bottom. The Redmi 3S Prime is a metal body phone. It gives a premium feel for its price. It weighs 144 grams. This is a lot for a budget device. But the curved edges make it easy to hold. The reason for the heavy weight is the large battery in the smartphone.
The main difference between the Xiaomi Redmi 3S and Redmi 3S Prime is the fingerprint scanner. The fingerprint sensor located at the back of the handset is easily accessible with one hand. During the review, we did not face any problem in unlocking this device. Due to the 5-inch screen, it is easy to use this phone with one hand, which is what we did during the review. We found that typing was very easy.
The Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime comes with a power adapter, a SIM ejector tool and an instruction manual. Like the Redmi Note 3, you will not get earphones with the Redmi 3S Prime. This will disappoint many users.
Specifications and software
The octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor has been used in Redmi 3S and Redmi 3S Prime. Four cores give a clock speed of 1.1 GHz and the remaining four cores give a clock speed of 1.4 GHz. Adreno 505 GPU is integrated for graphics. Apart from the fingerprint sensor, the difference between Xiaomi Redmi 3S and Redmi 3S Prime is storage and RAM. The Redmi 3S handset comes with 2 GB RAM and 16 GB inbuilt storage. At the same time, Redmi 3S Prime has 3 GB RAM and inbuilt storage is 32 GB.
During the launch, Xiaomi India claimed that the Redmi 3S and Redmi 3S Prime are the first smartphones to be sold in India equipped with the new Snapdragon 430 chipset. Both models can use microSD cards up to 128 GB.
The handset sports a 5-inch IPS display with a resolution of 720×1280 pixels. The screen on the review unit given to us was vibrant. Xiaomi’s Sunlight Display hardware feature which was part of the Redmi Note 3 is missing from this smartphone. This feature would have made reading on the handset’s screen easier in sunlight. The brightness levels on the Redmi 3S Prime are good and colours never looked oversaturated. Viewing angles are good. The display was quite sharp on most occasions and produced accurate colours.
In terms of connectivity, the Redmi 3S Prime (Redmi 3S) has Voice over LTE, 4G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, GPS/A-GPS, GLONASS and Micro-USB features. The Redmi 3S Prime supports all LTE bands used in India. Xiaomi has said that if two SIM cards are used simultaneously in the handset, the primary SIM card will support 4G and the second SIM will only support 3G.
The 4100mAh battery of the Redmi 3S Prime is another notable feature. It has a 13-megapixel rear camera that is equipped with phase detection autofocus, f/2.0 aperture, HDR mode, 1080p video recording and LED flash. You will get a 5-megapixel front camera. It is also possible to record videos in 1080p resolution.
The smartphone will run on MIUI 7.5 based on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. This OS is an updated version of the device that comes with Redmi Note 3. Sadly, you will not get many features of Android Marshmallow like Now on Tap. Hopefully the company will release these features with the next update.
During the review, we found that Redmi 3S Prime is easy to use with one hand. The company plans to upgrade Redmi 3S Prime to MIUI 8.
Performance
The Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime performs at a benchmark in its price range. We did not face any issues while multitasking on this handset. There was no frame rate drop even when playing games like Dead Trigger.
Apps loaded quickly and the screen responded to every touch. We faced only one issue. During benchmark tests, the handset restarted occasionally. A similar issue happened with the Redmi Note 3. The phone did not heat up while charging. However, the phone did get a little warm while using the camera app. But not so much that it would cause problems in using the phone. We also did not face any problem in talking on the phone for a long time.
We even tried using the fingerprint scanner of the Redmi 3S Prime with wet hands. The scanner did its job well. We were also impressed by the quick recognition of fingerprints by the fingerprint scanner of this handset.
The sound quality from the speaker on the rear of the handset was good. But it becomes flat at higher volumes.
With 3GB of RAM, you can easily do most tasks. No matter how many apps you keep open at a time, 800 MB of RAM is always available for the rest of the work. Redmi 3S Prime gave decent results in benchmark tests.
Camera
The camera of Xiaomi Redmi Prime took sharp pictures. There was no lack of detail in them. Photos taken indoors in good light were quite good. There was not much noise in them. Photos taken in low light were a bit washed out. However, some of the shortcomings were removed as soon as HDR mode was used. We also did not have any problem in locking the focus.
It is possible to record videos of 1080 pixel resolution from the rear camera. There is also a time-lapse video feature. The Redmi 3S Prime also has a manual camera mode. Here you can change the white balance and ISO.
We were able to take good selfies with the 5-megapixel front camera. It also has a face recognition feature which starts working as soon as a face appears in the frame.
battery life
The 4100mAh battery on the Redmi 3S Prime lasted for 14 hours and 50 minutes in our video loop test which is quite impressive. The Redmi 3S Prime beats the Redmi Note 3 in this regard which lasted for around 12 hours in the video loop test. This is due to the lower resolution display. Even with heavy usage, the battery on the Redmi 3S Prime easily lasted a day. At the end of the day, there was around 20 percent power left.
Xiaomi claims that the charger provided with it will charge the handset’s battery quickly. We found that this charger took about 2 hours to charge the handset’s battery from zero to 100 percent.
We did face some software issues. For example, despite giving all the necessary permissions, we did not receive alerts from the NDTV and Gadgets 360 apps. This does not happen with other handsets.
Our verdict
Priced at Rs 8,999, the Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime brings a lot of new things to the average user. Its metal body gives a premium feel. The 4100mAh battery allows the user to easily use the handset for a day. The 3GB RAM ensures that the user does not face any problem in multitasking.
As a package, this smartphone makes its presence felt in the price range of Rs 10,000. Many users will also like the fact that this handset does not have a 5.5-inch display. It is easy to use with one hand. As an alternative to Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime, users can buy Asus Zenfone Max (2016) which is available at the same price. If you want a bigger screen and better performance, then the option for you is Xiaomi Redmi Note 3. However, its price is a little higher.
#Xiaomi #Redmi #Prime #Review