Xiaomi Hongmi (meaning “red rice” in Mandarin) or Redmi as it is known in Singapore has long been a best-selling device for the so called “Apple of China.” In its own backyard, Xiaomi is selling this smartphone for less than $150. If you’re living in the Western hemisphere, you must get it from some importer like Xiaomi World, which is asking $180 for the unlocked, SIM-free device. That’s still an awesome price for what you get in return. Simply put, no other device will deliver such value for the money.
The Hongmi packs a Corning Gorilla Glass 2-protected 4.7-inch 720p HD screen, MediaTek’s MT6589T quad-core chip clocked at 1.5GHz, 1GB of RAM, and just 4GB of internal storage though you can expand it with microSD cards. It has a rather decent 8-megapixel camera on the back, and 1.3-megapixel one on the front. There’s also a 2,000 mAh battery, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi and a usual set of sensors.
Plus, let’s not forget two SIM card slots, one of which can be used for connecting to HSPA networks, whereas the other one is GSM-only. Let’s go through the hardware first, shall we: