Redmi 2 Prime : User Review

I haven't written anything in a really long time, so please bear with me if I'm rusty. So now I'm gonna be writing on my 2 month old Redmi 2 Prime.

              If you haven't heard of it before, it's from a Chinese company called Xiaomi. Oh wait, Chinese? Are they any good? Aren't Chinese phones supposed to be really bad and unreliable? Let me answer you those questions first before I get to the phone. As a matter of fact, your thoughts and concerns used to hold true till a few years ago, and it still does for a lot of Chinese phones out there, but Xiaomi shouldn't be clustered with that group of phones. They are the #1 phone making company in China and there's a good reason for that too. And in India, they provide phones at budgets that can rival phones that are a class above them. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments.

                     Long gone are the days when buying a brand like Nokia or Sony Ericsson was the safest bet to get a good phone. What used to be Nokia has now pretty translated into Samsung, although the reliability levels of the Nokias of old are not quite matched by anyone, even the newer Nokias ( or Microsoft) fall way short. After the great success of Samsung Galaxy S2, Samsung has become a household name. And they provide phones at all price ranges, but the downside is, if you're not buying a flagship, the rest are shit compared to the competition available. As the prices of iPhones, Samsungs, HTCs and LGs soar up higher than ever, there pops up new new companies trying to cash in like the One Plus One and Xiaomi.

              Now on to the Xiaomi Redmi 2 Prime. The budget smartphone segment used to be a cluster of overpriced shit phones, that's until the Moto E came. And boy was it a hit, thanks to the hard work done by its big bro Moto G in the next price segment. Truly the best thing that happened to the entry level (sub 10k price range). When the Redmi came in first, it was quite the competition, but then Moto definitely had a better brand name and commanded more trust, so buyers took a certain tilt to that. The second generation of both the phones were also equally placed. But the introduction of the Redmi 2 Prime changed everything. Probably the first phone in the segment to sport a 2gb ram, which along with the 16gb ROM was a minor upgrade on the 1gb ram and 8gb ROM of the regular Redmi 2, but this came at the cost of just a mere increase of 1k. These 2 minor upgrades, instantly propelled the Prime to best in class specs. Alternatives did pop up soon, like the Lenovo A6000 Plus , which is almost identical in specs but with a bigger screen a slightly higher price tag.


    So after 2 months of use, I really found the phone to be an awesome piece of business, coupled with the fact the the Redmi 2 Prime was one of the first phones to adopt the "Make in India", and is locally made in India. If you are not familiar, all Xiaomi phones run on Miui OS, which is a highly customized UI, which gives an iPhone like feel, with all applications on the home screen and no app tray. Many may not like it, but it's one hell of a customisable UI. I myself was a fan of MIUI from the Gingerbread days ( Android 2.3), it used to be the best custom rom available back in the time along with the now all so popular CyanogenMod. Xiaomi was born out of MIUI.

                  So going to the pros and cons:
       It's definitely one of the best phones in its segment.
       It's highly themeable and has a pretty simple UI, though the downside is that it's pretty heavy on the ram.
       If you're are a fan of SD cards and removable batteries, you'll have an extra reason to get this phone.
       It's dual sim, and both slots support 4G ( both micro-sim)
       It's got a screen size of 4.7" which is actually perfect for most people as it's not too big or too small. And  its 720p or HD resolution,
       The speaker is on the back side though, but trust me, its loud.
       The back cover can be swapped, as you've choices and it easily changes the color of the phone, its plastic though and its a pain to open the back.
       The cameras are 8MP and 2MP respectively and both are really good for its purposes.
       The battery is really good too, can last upto 2 days on a single charge if not used heavily.
       A major downside is that, if you're one that bothers too much about seeing the Android version, you'll be disappointed seeing it's still on Kitkat, but that doesn't really matter since its MIUI and it pretty much has most of the Lolipop features added on to it.
     One of the problems I felt on it was, the ram usage and phone slowing down or freezing after a few days, in such cases a reboot will suffice, don't bother installing and extra app to clear up cache, also the "Security" app in phone does a good job of cleaning up the phone. (It's not an antivirus as the name is sort of misleading)
       And I just found one of the best features of the phone yesterday, the Lite mode, it's just perfect if you're buying this phone and gifting it to your parents, it so damn awesome, with huge ass app icons and fonts and brings a whole lot of simplicity to the phone.

    So if you are planning on buying the Redmi 2 Prime, check it out here :
                                   
Right now an exchange offer is going on on Flipkart, exchange your old working devices and get a brand new Redmi for as low as 1,500 INR.