Xiaomi Redmi 1S review: Worth every rupee spent

The Redmi 1S is a low-budget smartphone, a product of the well-known Chinese brand Xiaomi. The device has been priced extremely low in the Indian market, and is sure to send the rest of the budget handset makers, both local and international, back to the drawing board.

Xiaomi has had every head turned in the Indian smartphone market. The Redmi 1S is a super-budget Android smartphone with a price tag of just Rs 5,999. Though there are other Android smartphone brands with a budget price tag lower than the Redmi 1S, the latter will leave you with no regret. We received our review unit a few days ago and the experience of using the smartphone was just amazing.

Also read: Budget smartphone war: Xiaomi Redmi 1S vs Motorola Moto E

The Redmi 1S has a rugged and robust shell. The unit is an all-black Android handset with front panel being extremely glossy turning it into a fingerprint and dust magnet. The rest of the handset has a matte-finished exterior. The smartphone looks pretty decent, with no jazzy looks and logos around it. However, though the handset looks slick, we recommend a screen protector and a case to go along with the unit.

The Redmi’s 1S front panel is made of a DragonTrail scratch-resistant glass. Towards the top is the earpiece with the front-facing camera on the left, while the bottom features the three touch buttons for Home, Menu and Back. However, the three touch buttons are not backlit, but are highly reflective during the day and easily visible even in low light.

Moving on, the volume rocker is placed on the right side of the phone with the power/standby button just below it. The top features, a 3.5-mm headphone jack and the bottom sports, the mix and the micro USB socket. The rear panel sports a protruding 8MP camera with a single LED flash below it. While most of the smartphones today sport the speaker towards the bottom of the rear panel, the Redmi 1S features it on the top, near the rear camera. Lastly, the rear panel opens up to the removable battery, two SIM slots and one micro SD card slot.

The Redmi 1S is a dual SIM smartphone featuring a 4.7-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 720x1280 pixels and protected by an AGC Dragontrail scratch-resistant glass. The smartphone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset with four processors clocked at 1.6GHz and coupled with an Adreno 305 graphics processor and 1GB of RAM. The internal storage provided is 8GB, expandable to 64GB via a micro SD card. The rear shooter is an 8MP with a single LED flash, while the front-facing camera is a 1.6MP. Connectivity options include 3G, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth, GPS and GLONASS. Lastly, the phone is fuelled by a 2050 mAh battery and runs on a custom Android flavour of Jelly Bean v4.3 operating system, MIUI V5. The Redmi 1S weighs 158g and is 9.9mm thick.

The Redmi 1S is equipped with Xiaomi’s own MIUI V5 custom Android-based operating system (Android Jelly Bean v4.3). The operating system is similar to the one found on the Xiaomi Mi 3 and is highly customisable. The customisation, unlike other Android smartphones, includes themes, app icons, lock screen types, diallers, notification bars, fonts, wallpapers, ringtones, and a lot more. Additionally, the MIUI V5 also includes various tweaks from custom Android ROMs to create a better user experience. These include built-in antivirus, cache and junk cleaner, data bandwidth analyser and restrictions, call recording, private messaging, third-party app market, and a lot more.

Also read: Tips to get a Xiaomi handset at the Flipkart sale

The user interface does not feature an app drawer and has the entire app list (icons) across the desktop itself. The entire user interface looks and feels very similar to that of the iOS 7 on any Apple smartphone or tablet. The UI is very easy to operate and very fluid in performance. Lastly, the operating system is updated almost every Friday (weekly) in order to iron out any bugs, issues and problems that customers face and report back.

On the performance front, the Redmi 1S does not feel sluggish at any given point. The customised fluid UI, quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and the Adreno 305 graphics processor are all powerful enough to give you a good gaming and multimedia experience.

The Redmi 1S uses a sufficiently large 4.7-inch IPS HD display. The viewing angles are great with no colour blending or inverting from any angle. The brightness is good enough, but you might find the high-gloss screen surface a bit annoying when watching videos or gaming in broad daylight. However, the overall view of the display in broad sunlight is great.

Also Read: Xiaomi Mi 3 review: A good value for money smartphone

The 8MP rear camera of the Redmi 1S is remarkably good. For a low-budget smartphone, the camera performs above average. We won’t say anything about the camera's performance and will leave you to analyse and decide. Check out the various photos taken by the Redmi 1S. On the last note, the camera also takes great macros and videos too.

Above: A morning shot with an overcast of rain clouds

Above: A shot taken in the shade

Above: A picture in broad daylight

Above: Night shot

Above: A regular shor (left) and with HDR (right)

Above: An HDR shot

Above: Another shot in the shade

Above: A crop from a macro shot

Above: A one minute video from the Redmi 1S (720p)

The Redmi 1S features a removable 2050 mAh battery and will easily last you through most of your working days. However, the battery life will finally depend on your usage.

Boiling down the complete experience of handset, we will definitely recommend the Xiaomi Redmi 1S to anyone looking for a high-performance smartphone on a shoe-string budget. The performances of the hardware, display, and camera are the best in its class. The Redmi 1S makes a great value for money, low-budget smartphone.