Introduction
Xiaomi has been a regular around here lately and one of the last times we heard of them was how they sold a boatload of phones in no time. And it wasn't their finest either. A heavily discounted midranger made a splash at the box office, in India no less.And it wasn't like the company was clearing up old stock - it would've sold fivefold judging by the number of registrations. Yep, the Redmi 1S is a tempting offer but the sub-$100 price in that Indian flash sale made it nearly impossible to resist. Similarities to what Motorola did with their bestseller, the Moto G, are by no means accidental.
Xiaomi Redmi 1S official pitures
The Xiaomi Redmi 1S is playing by the book - the midrange chapter to be precise. It has a 4.7" IPS display of 720p resolution, Snapdragon 400 chipset with a quad-core processor, a decent 8MP camera, and 8GB of inbuilt storage. Like we said, Xiaomi's Redmi 1S is trying to beat the Moto G at its own game and is by no means clueless about how to do it.
Key features
- 4.7" IPS 720p capacitive touchscreen with 312pi pixel density; Corning Gorilla Glass 2
- Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with MIUI v.5
- 1.6 GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 CPU; 1 GB of RAM; Adreno 305 GPU; Qualcomm Snapdragon 400
- 8 MP camera with LED flash, 1080p video capture
- 1.6 MP front-facing camera; 720p video recording
- 8 GB of built-in memory, expandable via a microSD card slot (up to 32GB)
- Dual-SIM
- Active noise cancellation with a dedicated microphone
- 2,000mAh battery
Main disadvantages
- No LTE (single-SIM 4G version available in China)
- No KitKat yet
- Thick and heavy
The Xiaomi Redmi 1S puts a simple finish to what's a rather plain design to begin with. Nothing wrong with the looks, we find it a sensible if understated styling. It's not impressively compact but then again, the Moto G is clearly thicker and gets away with it.
Xiaomi Redmi 1S live pictures
Anyway, we'll have enough time to reflect on the design. That's exactly what we're up to next, right after the break.
Unboxing the Xiaomi Redmi 1S
We're used to seeing manufacturers take a green stand with packaging made of recycled materials and Xiaomi's retail box is by no means a novelty. The phone comes with just the basics - an A/C adapter and a USB cable. There is no headset in the box, which isn't ideal but is much easier to swallow at this price point.
Xiaomi Redmi 1S retail box
Design and build quality
The Xiaomi Redmi 1S is by no means huge but perhaps it could've been a little more compact for its screen size. At 137 x 69 x 9.9mm, it is about the size of the flagship Xiaomi Mi 4, but thicker.To be fair though, there're more relevant points of reference. Sony's Xperia M2 is of similar dimensions and the Moto G itself isn't impressively compact either. The weight of 158g is perhaps a little above average.
When it comes to design Xiaomi Redmi 1S is by no means a head-turner and doesn't get carried away trying to pull off a premium look. The red capacitive key icons are a nice accent, while the matte plastic rear cover is practical and looks durable, well in tune with the overall design that's sensible rather than captivating.
With fancy materials and finish hard to come by in that price range , the Xiaomi Redmi 1S gets the right things right. It is indeed a very well built smartphone, no squeaks when handled and everything seems to fit tightly in place. The only bit we are not particularly fond of is the love for fingerprints that the whole body shows and that surprisingly includes the matte plastic back.
The front is entirely covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 2, something which the high-end Xiaomi Mi 4 fails to offer. The screen ends on a slim frame of glossy black plastic, the sides are actually covered by the matte battery cover.
The Redmi 1S front - the matte back
While the Xiaomi Redmi 1S is by no means compact, it's easy enough to handle and carry. The build is solid and the simple finish looks like it'll last and that can't be said for too many phones in this price range.
Handing the Redmi 1S
Controls
The Xiaomi Redmi 1S has a pretty standard set of controls. The smartphone uses capacitive buttons beneath the display, marked with a rare red tint.The 1.6MP front-facing camera is next to the earpiece, where you'll also spot the ambient light and proximity sensors.
The 1.6MP front camera is above the screen • the red touch-sensitive keys - below the display
The left side of the phone is completely bare. On the right, we find the silver volume rocker and the power/lock key.
Exploring the left and right sides of the Xiaomi Redmi 1S
The top of the Xiaomi Redmi 1S only features the 3.5 mm headphone jack. The bottom is where the microUSB port and the primary microphone are.
The audio jack is on top • the microUSB port - at the bottom
The 8MP camera lens, accompanied by a single-LED flash and the secondary microphone are at the back. The loudspeaker grille is a bit unusually placed near the top. Perhaps the idea was for the projecting camera module to help it not get muffled when the phone is lying flat on a table.
A peek at the back
The rear cover of the Redmi 1S is user-removable and lets you reach the 2,000mAh battery, the hot-swappable microSD card slot and the two SIM compartments. The Xiaomi Redmi 1S uses standard mini SIM cards.
The back panel is removable
Display
The Xiaomi Redmi 1S features a 4.7" HD IPS display with a pixel density of 312ppi. It's covered by Gorilla Glass 2 for protection against scratches and cracks from pressure.
The 4.7" IPS display Xiaomi Redmi 1S
Here is the display matrix of the Xiaomi Redmi 1S shot with our digital microscope. Taking a closer look at it reveals a standard RGB arrangement of the sub-pixels that make up the Xiaomi Redmi 1S LCD panel, not that we've expected anything else.
The display on the Xiaomi Redmi 1S is quite bright at 100% with great contrast and colors. Unfortunately dropping the brightness reduces the brightness quite sharply and the screen becomes dim very soon, the 50% setting is actually closer to 25% of the actual brightness.
An important note has to be made here - the screen, while employing an excellent panel has a very reflective glass on top, which causes its image quality to degrade rapidly when there are external light sources present. So while it looks great in a pitch black room, it loses a great part of its coolness in even moderately lit environments.
| Display test | 50% brightness | 100% brightness | ||||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | |||
| 0.08 | 158 | 1437 | 0.45 | 615 | 1370 | |
| 0.18 | 142 | 809 | 0.61 | 557 | 907 | |
| 0.17 | 164 | 940 | 0.73 | 679 | 929 | |
| 0.42 | 387 | 916 | 0.7 | 651 | 929 | |
| 0.27 | 278 | 1024 | 0.49 | 522 | 1062 | |
| 0.33 | 325 | 989 | 0.64 | 643 | 1000 | |
| 0.26 | 247 | 960 | 0.44 | 531 | 1094 | |
| 0 | 221 | ∞ | 0 | 385 | ∞ | |
| 0.12 | 91 | 752 | 0.52 | 398 | 748 | |
The sunlight legibility is also quite poor due to the highly reflective glass. You are going to have a hard time using the Redmi 1S in the bright sunny days.
Sunlight contrast ratio
- Sort by Label
- Sort by Value
- Expand
-
Nokia 808 PureView
4.698 -
Sony Xperia E1
1.372 -
Nokia Lumia 625
1.371 -
Gigabyte GSmart G1355
1.361 -
Sony Xperia L
1.351 -
Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8
1.35 -
Xiaomi Redmi 1S
1.35 -
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
1.331 -
Sony Xperia miro
1.324 -
Samsung I9082 Galaxy Grand
1.321 -
Samsung I8530 Galaxy Beam
1.315 -
HTC Desire C
1.3 -
Samsung Galaxy mini 2
1.114
Finally there is an option to prevent accidental unlocks of your screen, while the phone is in your pocket. If enabled, you won't be able to unlock the scren while something is covering the proximity sensor. Again, that would take its toll on the battery life.
Battery life
Xiaomi has put a 2,000mAh battery inside the Redmi 1S and it is removable, so you can replace it anytime you want. We ran our battery test and the Xiaomi Redmi 1S scored 51 hours, which means you can count on two full days if you do an hour each of calling, web browsing and playing video per day.
Connectivity
The Xiaomi Redmi 1S is a dual-SIM phone with dual stand-by. It works with mini-SIM cards, but 3G data speeds are only available on the first SIM. Here's the list of supported standards:- Tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz (SIM1 & SIM2)
- 3G: 1900 / 2100, 21 Mbps HSDPA (SIM1)
The rest of the connectivity features include Wi-Fi b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct and hotspot. There is also support for Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and GLONASS, plus an FM radio with RDS.
There is a microUSB 2.0 port for charging and data connections. Media transfer mode is supported for accessing the phone's built-in memory and microSD card over the USB cable. The microUSB 2.0 port can also be used in USB On-the-go mode for connecting USB peripherals such as pen drives, keyboards or real USB hard drives.
User interface - Android Jelly Bean with MIUI v.5
Xiaomi Redmi 1S runs on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean skinned with company's proprietary MIUI v5. The MIUI ROMs have been around for quite a while and are fairly popular among the Android community. Xiaomi's customizations run very deep and replace everything including all Google services, but you can get them from the Mi Market app. The models sold outside China come with the entire Google package pre-installed.Xiaomi has already announced the new MIUI v.6. It brings is a complete UI overhaul with flat looks, updated system apps, among other updates. It should become available on the Xiaomi Mi lineup later this year.
Here's quick walkthrough of the MIUI v5 on video to get you started.
The lockscreen looks very familiar and we've already seen similar in Huawei's Emotion UI. There is centered circle with shortcuts in the four cardinal directions: a simple unlock to the South, start the camera to the North, messaging is to the East and the dialer/call log is to the West.
The MIUI v5 lockscreen
Beyond the lockscreen is the Android homescreen with four customizable shortcuts docked at the bottom by default, but you can dock up to five items. You can have any app there or even folders with multiple items if you will.
The MIUI homescreens • there is no app drawer
There is no app drawer - anything you install pops up on your homescreen, which can have unlimited panes. There're no shortcuts and the usual routine of removing icons (dragging them up to a recycle bin at the top of the screen) will uninstall the corresponding app. There is a pop-up for confirming the action though, so you can't accidentally uninstall apps.
Homescreen widgets are available, too - tap and hold on the homescreen, then choose Widgets. There are some interesting options available, but of course, you can get even more from the Play Store.
Customization menu • widgets • wallpapers • transition effects
Homescreen effects are available from the customization menu. You can change themes, too. A theme will change your homescreen wallpaper, lockscreen style, system icons, system font and the sound profile.
Themes repository • Applying a new theme
The notification area has two tabs - the first one holds all notifications, while the second is a 4x4 grid of toggles. You can add, remove and rearrange toggles. The Quick Settings tab is the one that opens by default unless you have unread notifications. This sort of behavior does make sense in some scenarios but it certainly is a bit confusing at first.
Toggles • Notifications
Xiaomi provides its own app repository and cloud service for content syncing between devices. While the Mi Market somewhat mirrors the Play Store functionality, Mi Cloud is a different story.
Each Mi Cloud account is granted 5GB of free storage. You can use it to backup contacts, messages, your entire gallery, call log, notes, settings, voice recordings, Browser content (history, tabs, webapp data) and your music library. Sounds familiar? Yes, indeed! Xiaomi's sync and backup service shares lots of similarities with the Apple iCloud. There is even a free Cloud Messaging option that allows Xiaomi users to exchange messages over the internet connection instead of being billed for SMS.
Configuring Mi Cloud and Cloud Messaging
Finally, if you signed in with your Mi Cloud account, you can opt for the Find device function - a handy feature in case you misplace your Xiaomi Redmi 1S or someone steals it.
Finally, Google Now integrates with your Google account and can access your daily routine, internet searches, email, etc. and give you information relevant to your interests and daily needs.
Google Now
It provides traffic information to your work or home, knows the scores of sports teams you follow and gives you the weather forecast for your location. It's great for at-a-glance info, but can handle voice input as well.
Synthetic benchmarks
The Xiaomi Redmi 1S runs on the poplar mid-range chipset Snapdragon 400 with a quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A7 processor, Adreno 305 GPU and a lowly 1GB of RAM. It runs on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean skinned with MIUI v5. Once the MIUI v.6 based on Android 4.4 KitKat arrives we expect the a minor bump in the benchmarks scores.First off, we focus on the CPU and overall benchmarks we have in our arsenal. GeekBench 3 shows the Xiaomi Redmi 1S as a great performer on par with the fastest S400-powered phone - HTC Desire 816. The Redmi 1S has better scores than the rest of the S400 gang, but that's understandable as it CPU has a faster clock (1.6GHz vs 1.4GHz).
GeekBench 3
Higher is better
-
HTC Desire 816
1510 -
Xiaomi Redmi 1S
1492 -
HTC Desire 510
1471 -
Sony Xperia T3
1373 -
Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
1359 -
Motorola Moto G 4G
1175 -
LG G2 mini
1123 -
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
1106 -
Sony Xperia M2
1074
AnTuTu 5
Higher is better
-
Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
46566 -
Xiaomi Redmi Note
32487 -
Huawei Ascend P7
28758 -
Xiaomi Redmi 1S
19912 -
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
19016
Basemark OS II
Higher is better
-
Sony Xperia T3
535 -
HTC Desire 816
520 -
Motorola Moto G 4G
495 -
HTC Desire 510
491 -
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
452 -
Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
434 -
Xiaomi Redmi 1S
394 -
Sony Xperia M2
298
Basemark OS II (single-core)
Higher is better
-
HTC Desire 816
1739 -
Sony Xperia T3
1465 -
Xiaomi Redmi 1S
1435 -
HTC Desire 510
1332 -
Motorola Moto G 4G
1192 -
Sony Xperia M2
1164 -
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
1131
Basemark OS II (multi-core)
Higher is better
-
HTC Desire 816
7071 -
Sony Xperia T3
5759 -
HTC Desire 510
5484 -
Motorola Moto G 4G
5012 -
Sony Xperia M2
4927 -
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
4887 -
Xiaomi Redmi 1S
4875
Adreno 305 is too low-powered to show any serious framerates even on the T-Rex tests - it did poor on both the 1080p off-screen benchmark and the 720p on-screen run.
GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
-
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
6 -
Sony Xperia M2
5.9 -
Sony Xperia T3
5.9 -
HTC Desire 816
5.9 -
Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
5.8 -
LG G2 mini
5.8 -
Motorola Moto G 4G
5.8 -
Xiaomi Redmi 1S
5.7 -
HTC Desire 510
5.3
GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)
Higher is better
-
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
15.5 -
HTC Desire 510
15.5 -
Sony Xperia M2
15.4 -
LG G2 mini
14.9 -
Sony Xperia T3
11.2 -
HTC Desire 816
11 -
Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
10.9 -
Motorola Moto G 4G
10.8 -
Xiaomi Redmi 1S
10.3
Kraken 1.1
Lower is better
-
Xiaomi Redmi 1S
12470 -
HTC Desire 816
13564 -
Sony Xperia T3
13738 -
HTC Desire 510
14443 -
Motorola Moto G 4G
16118 -
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
16129 -
Sony Xperia M2
18047
Contacts and telephony
The dialer and the phonebook share a single app although there are two shortcuts. The app uses a tabbed interface - recent with dialer, then there's the contact list and directory (a.k.a. groups).
The Phonebook
Contact info is displayed as a list of all available details. Custom ringtones can be selected for each contact and duplicate contacts can be merged into a single entry.
The dialer supports Smart dialing and works great - it's looking up both names and phone numbers so you always find what you need.
Xiaomi Redmi 1S supports voice call recording and it can do it automatically on each call if you like. You can also assign an answer gesture, pre-define quick responses upon reject, there is even support for internet calling.
The Dialer • settings
There are even more call settings if you dig deeper into the menu - flip to mute the ringer, turn on/off the proximity sensor, lock automatically once slipped in a pocket, it can even mute calls from unknown numbers.
The Xiaomi Redmi 1S scored an Average mark on our loudspeaker tests, meaning you may miss some calls and notifications if you are in a noisy environment and don't keep a close eye on it.
| Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Ringing | Overall score | |
| 62 | 62.1 | 66.6 | Below Average | |
| 64.9 | 64.8 | 66.6 | Below Average | |
| 66.9 | 65.9 | 71.7 | Average | |
| 66.3 | 66.2 | 72.7 | Average | |
| 65.9 | 66.7 | 75.7 | Good | |
| 66.6 | 66.7 | 75.7 | Good | |
| 70.2 | 73.5 | 75.8 | Very Good | |
| 77.1 | 76 | 83.3 | Excellent | |
| 81.6 | 75.7 | 82.7 | Excellent |
Messaging and email
The messaging department is pretty standard - there's a list of all bubble-styled conversations organized in threads, with New Message and Search keys at the bottom and a settings button next to it.
Messaging
Attaching multimedia to a message will automatically turn it into an MMS. You can add everything from photos, videos, audio to general files. There's even a full blown slide editor if you want to make full use of the MMS standard. The Attach location option is pretty nice too.
Moving on to email, the Gmail app (if included) has handy shortcuts at the bottom of the screen and supports batch operations, which allow multiple emails to be archived, labeled or deleted. The default app supports multiple Gmail accounts, but there's no unified inbox.
There is also a generic Email app for all your other email accounts and it can handle multiple Exchange, POP or IMAP inboxes. You have access to the messages in the original folders that are created online, side by side with the standard local ones such as inbox, drafts and sent items.
Gmail • Email
MIUI offers two keyboards by default. The first one is Google keyboard - it has always been pleasure to use and is one of the most preferred Android keyboards out there. On this screen the keys are comfortably large in both portrait and landscape mode. There is support for gesture typing, handwriting and voice input.
The second one is the wide-spread SwiftKey. It is chosen by default since the initial setup, but you can change it later from Settings. It is among the best we've seen to date, heavily relying on swype input.
Google keyboard • Swiftkey
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