RedMi Note - User Experience

RedMi Note - is the China most famous brand XiaoMi's cellphone, which the phone price is incredibly cheap.  You can get the phone with 999 RMB (Yuan) or somewhere around $1200HKD ($160 USD).  The phone comes with Octa-core 1.4/1.7 GHz Cortex-A7, 2G ram, 13MP camera resolution and much more, you can check the full spec in here: RedMi - Full Spec

The price is just way too cheap as you can get Octa core and 2G ram for just USD 160.  So is it perfect?  I would say there are quite a lot of pros and cons:

FYI: I bought my RedMi in Hong Kong and RedMi is still not officially selling in here.  My phone is a rooted version.


PROS:
- Nice screen with great resolution.
- Fast
- 13MP camera (quick reaction)


CONS:
(Jun 2014) - Even tho it is a 2G ram phone but when you start up the phone it only left with 6-700 MB memory.

(Jun 2014) - The phone is running so called "Android" but it doesn't come with Google Play Market.  If you want to download apps you better use their app called "XiaoMi" Market: the reason is their OS is somewhat not really compatible with the apps in Google Play Market.

(Jun 2014) - If you are a Facebook lover then you would hate this phone.  First, do not download the app in Goolge Play, download it in XiaoMi market.  Second, even if you download the app from XiamMi Market, the Facebook app keep crashing when you are using it.  (I guess this is because they did not spend time working on the Facebook apps or OS whatever as Facebook is not allowed to use in China).

(Jun 2014) - Want to use Google Map? You can download it, but the GPS is not working with it :D
What to do? Use the Chinese map called "AMap"! But this map only cover China and Hong Kong.  And the GPS works VERY terribly.  Actually there is a hack to make your phone to work in Google Map: you need to download an APK file (NetworkLocation.apk) (I am not responsible if this file harms to your phone or any of your personal data is being stolen), install it and then restart it.  After the phone is restarted, click "Allow Permission" for Google popup.

(Jun 15 2014) - There is a system update today and I updated my phone OS.  After it is done and restarted, it said my SD card is not working and urge me to format the card and I was like WHAT! I have not back it up yet! I tried to restart the phone and turn it back on and it says the same thing.  Me then turn off the phone and take the sd card out and insert it back into the phone and start it up.  Things look fine.  So, do not format your sd card when it says there is an error!


So do I recommend using this phone?  I would still say Yes, as this phone is just $1550 HKD (USD 160) with nice speed and resolution.  The problems that I mentioned above could be fixed with some work.  Sure if money is not an issue you should pick those big brand phone like SamSung or iPhone etc.

This post will keep updated!