Priyanshu's Blog World: KitKat

Earlier in the week, Xiaomi announced to release the much-awaited budget smartphone Redmi 1S in India on 2 September.

Considering the Redmi 1S' feature-rich specifications and its dirt-cheap price-tag, the Xiaomi phone in all probability will stir up a huge storm in the Indian budget smartphone just like its sibling Mi3 did in the mid-range segment.

Redmi 1S will give a stiff competition to two popular MNC brands Motorola Moto E and the newly introduced Asus Zenfone 4.

All the three handsets are worth more than their price compared to other devices in the market, considering that they get the latest OS updates, water-proof display and other value-added features, which you don't normally find in an entry-level smartphone.

This is an exciting time in the Indian smartphone market, where all brands (both MNCs and domestic) are flooding market with feature-rich devices. Indian consumers will be spoilt for choices to buy smartphone this holiday season.

Here is a brief description of the key specifications of the three popular smartphones - Xiaomi Redmi 1S, Motorola Moto E and Asus Zenfone 4.

Display and Design:

First up, Xiaomi Redmi 1S; It sports a candy bar rectangular design with curved corners and flaunts a 4.7-inch HD screen with pixel density of 312 ppi, highest in its class (entry-level smartphones).

On the other hand, Motorola Moto E is no less of a competitor; it flaunts a 4.3-inch qHD (960x540p) screen with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 scratch-resistant shield and has a pixel density of 256 ppi. It also boasts of splash-resistant screen/body enabling users to take/answer calls even in rain. No other smartphone under this price-range offers this feature.

Asus Zenfone 4 sports a 4.5-inch FWVGA (480x854p) resolution screen having Gorilla Glass 3 shield and pixel density of 218 ppi.

Processor, Storage and RAM:

In this aspect, Xiaomi Redmi 1S once again, comes on top, thanks to Qualcomm's faster 1.6GHz Snapdragon 400 series CPU. It is aptly backed by 1GB RAM and 8GB inbuilt memory (expandable up to 6GB).

Motorola phone too houses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 series processor, but the CPU consists of just two cores with maximum clock-rate is limited to just 1.2GHz. It comes packed with 1GB RAM and 4GB inbuilt memory (expandable up to 32GB).

Asus Zenfone 4 too ships with similar 1.2GHz dual-core processor, but it is made by Intel Corp. The company compensates this short coming with the sumptuous physical memory - 1GB RAM and 8GB storage space (expandable up to 64GB)

[Note: More the cores in the CPU, more smoothly the smartphone works]

Mobile Operating System:

In this aspect, all three phones almost stand even as they run on the ubiquitous Android platform, but Moto E owners will have slight advantage over the two competitors thanks to near stock Android OS. It also runs on the latest v4.4.4 KitKat OS.

On the other hand, Xiaomi Mi3 ships with v4.3 Jelly Bean with custom MIUI, whereas the Asus Zenfone is powered by Android 4.4.2 KitKat OS.

Camera:

Specification wise, Asus Zenfone 4 (A450CG) comes on top. It boasts 8.0-megapixel camera on the rear side and a 0.3-megapixel snapper on the front. To enhance photography experience, company has incorporated proprietary PixelMaster camera technology with features including Selfie Mode and Depth of Field Mode, Low Light Mode and Time Rewind.

Xiaomi too ships with 8.0-megapixe camera and a 1.3-megapixel front camera.

On the other hand, Motorola loses this battle as it comes with less superior 5.0-megapixel camera with no LED flash and neither a front-camera.

[Note: More mega-pixel count in the camera does not guarantee a good quality photograph. It all depends on the type of the lens, size and aperture.]

Price:

Price is one of the most important aspects of this comparison article as it plays a crucial role in the minds of the price-sensitive middle class and the aspiring youth population, which form the biggest chunk of the India's demography.

When Motorola Moto E set foot in India for ₹6,999, couple of months ago, it started a price-war among domestic and MNC brands and now Xiaomi has taken a notch up (read down), by keeping a ridiculous price-tag of ₹5,999 for the feature-rich Redmi 1S.

Asus Zenfone 4 (A450CG) is priced ₹6,999, if interested, consumers can also go for A400CG model, which costs ₹5,999. Only difference between two is their display size and camera specifications.

Verdict:

All in all, the Xiaomi seems to weigh in better than its two counterparts, mainly from a hardware point of view, its on-board memory, battery power, camera, PPI and screen resolution. The OS however, may be a deciding factor for many users.

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