The Redmi, from Xiaomi, one of China's biggest smartphone brands, looks like a typical Android smartphone - rectangular, with rounded corners. It is built using two different plastic finishings – glossy for the edges, and matte for the removable back cover.
The 4.7-inch 720-pixel display is quite splendid. Image colours are bright, and text appears sharp. For a budget phone, there is really nothing more you can ask of the display.
This dual-SIM Android phone is highly customisable, thanks to its operating system, MIUI (say me-you-i) V5, developed by Xiaomi. It has 200 features and functions, inhcluding Cleaner, which scans the phone to free up memory space, and Timed Messaging, which lets you send a message at a preset time.
Choose from a whopping collection of 4,000 themes (like Stone Age and Transformer) to jazz up your home screen, folders and app icons. If you like to personalise every aspect of your smartphone, this will be perfect for you.
The user experience is average as interface navigation is not smooth. Taking into account that the Redmi is not built to be a flagship device, we shouldn't be too critical of its performance, which should suffice for its intended target market of people on a budget.
However, it does come with flagship-worthy imaging specifications in its 8-megapixel rear camera, f/2.2 aperture and 28mm wide-angle lens. Image quality is surprisingly good, with punchy colours and low noise levels.
The battery lasted slightly over five hours in our video test, which is quite decent. Under typical usage conditions, it could last 16 hours before the battery level dips below 15 per cent.
VERDICT: Considering its price, performance and software capabilities, the Redmi has no equal in its category of inexpensive smartphones.
Xiaomi Redmi, $169 (no contract), from www.xiaomi.com/sg/
This article was originally published in Simply Her June 2014.