How long can a China phone work?
China products are often ridiculed as being substandard and low quality. But companies like OnePlus, Xiaomi, Huawei etc., keep proving otherwise. One such product which has the longevity at par with the big boys in the smartphone industry, is the Xiaomi Mi 3.
Back in July 2014, Xiaomi launched it’s first smartphone in India. I bought it in the first flash sale and only recently I realized that it’s been 5 years since I bought that phone but it has not undergone any trouble whatsoever, albeit dropping it numerous times.
When I bought it, Xiaomi was not a renowned company and people were asking me if I was crazy to buy a new Chinese phone for 14000 rupees (200 US Dollars). By then, since I was a student, it was a big amount for me to spend on a smartphone. But the Mi 3’s spec sheet was provoking and with a portion of my scholarship, I managed to buy it. And it was worth it.
Here’s the specs of the phone:
- 5" Full HD 1080p IPS LCD 441 PPI display
- Snapdragon 800 Processor
- Adreno 330 GPU
- 2GB RAM with 16GB Internal storage
- F2.2 13-Megapixel rear cam
- 2 Megapixel front cam
- 3040 mAh non-removable battery
- Android Kitkat out of the box based on MIUI.
In today’s world of 12 gigs of RAM and crazy displays, the Mi 3 won’t amaze you in performance, but you can still live with this phone today, without the flagships of 2019. It still works perfectly as it did on the first day. (The backlight of recents button stopped lighting up recently, but it still does the job.)
In India, Xiaomi is one of the best value offerings in the budget segment even better than Samsung and almost half of the Indian smartphone population seems to be dominated by this brand.
Because, even though online sales are high in numbers, most of the Indian customers are inclined towards buying from a retail store than buying online. The intention is if something goes wrong with the phone, they could straight away go to the store and resolve it.
So even if one buys it online, the fact that the retail store is nearby, plants a trust in the customer’s mind, to make them buy it.
But Samsung, Oppo and Vivo also have retail stores in India. So what makes Xiaomi appeal to Indian customers than the competition?
Hitting the basics.
Their phones have decent cameras, not Pixel or iPhone like cameras whereas on the aspect of battery they outrun many flagships. Indian market is a cost-conscious market and Xiaomi hits just the basics everytime to keep the cost low. Network connectivity, call quality, the price tag, word-by-mouth marketing and the fact that it is easily available in the nearby retail stores are what I think made Xiaomi achieve this position.
There are of course certain things that I’m not a big fan of, like the ads in UI and the camera experience but it doesn’t seem to turn off other people from buying it.
The conclusion is, the great grandfather of Indian Mi Phones - The Mi 3, is still alive in all it's glory.
If their 5 year old phone is of a good quality, it makes sense to think that their current offerings might be even better than that.
So for all these reasons, India seems to love Xiaomi.
Fun fact: The Mi 3 can stand on a flat surface without any support. No "Pros" could do that today.
