Xiaomi Redmi 1s user reviews: Major drawbacks ignored for the low cost

It’s been a couple of months since the low-cost Xiaomi Redmi 1s was launched in India, with features that could make other mid-range phones look ridiculously overpriced in comparison. Priced at Rs 5,999 and available in limited quantities, the Redmi 1s turned into an instant favourite for those looking for mid-range features at the lowest cost possible. We had the chance to review the Redmi 1s and, while we thought it was great for the price, many buyers have reported that the phone has a major heating issue that makes the phone a terrible purchase. Some also reported that the Redmi 1s’ battery takes a beating when used over a period of time. To find out if there’s a real problem with the phone, we asked some Redmi 1s owners to tell us what they thought about the device. Here’s what we found out. Things that users liked As you would expect, the feature set coupled with the low cost was the most attractive aspect of the Redmi 1s phone. 50% of the respondents said that the phone provides a lot more for price. Other positives were the display, build quality and the custom MiUI ROM, which gives you a number of themes and other customisations to play with. The camera, in particular, was lauded by many, who felt that they were getting an “above-average” camera for the price. Mayank Singhania: “Brilliant value for money phone. Great display, feather touch. No lag so far (to be fair, no huge applications have been downloaded yet)” Gulmohammed Ansari: “Its a great device with clean neat design with excellent hardware under the phone.” Sam: “It has excellent camera and great screen resolution.” Ajay Singh: “What I like about is a cluster of things: it’ very cheap, great ergonomics, unique” Things that users didn’t like 44% of the respondents were unhappy with the battery life, while half of them said that the battery life had reduced with use. However, the change in the battery life was slight to moderate, as the phone required charging not more than twice a day. The battery issue was followed by the heating issue. One of the respondents said that the phone “heats up like hot lava cake”, which meant that he could not use it for playing games. Other users pointed out that the phone heats up when charging the phone, web browsing and using the camera. However, some claimed that the heating issue was mitigated by the software update. The Redmi 1s got a fair feedback on the overall performance. A majority of the users found the device to lag only when running multiple apps or playing games, which is fine considering it’s a budget device. Shivam Singh: “There are some drawbacks of this phone as the phone heats up(but after update,this problem is 80% reduced). Phone is a little bulky.” Gulmohammed Ansari: “Yes there are some cons with the phone. Purchase experience – just don’t need to explain it’s an universal truth. Second is the battery life – Because of the software, the device drains quite fast.” Sam: “MIUI.. There is no separate menu icon on home screen. With the stock ROM, phone heats up quickly.” Vivek: “It comes cheap, but there are issues like it heats up like a hot lava cake, u cannot play games or call while charging. It tends to hang up with multiple touch on screen and the accelerometer does not work properly.” Average user Review: 7/10 Overall user verdict Despite the battery and heating issues, most  Xiaomi Redmi 1s owners in our survey were satisfied with the phone. Priced at Rs 5,999, the phone seemed to get away with the drawbacks and a whopping 83% of our respondents gave an overall rating of  above 5. One of the responses, which probably sums up the user review is this: “Overall I have mixed feelings for Xiaomi. I like it because it’s cheap with great features and great looks.. But it lags and hangs that’s very frustrating…” Another respondent said that “Redmi 1s is a superb phone, love all the features, camera quality is very good but the only problem is it hangs when playing heavy games or multiple apps, even if you end all open apps or game RAM gets too low and you can’t do anything.”