80 ANDROID ADVISOR • ISSUE 50
REVIEW
dual-SIM slot-loading tray. Unlike some of Xiaomi’s
more recent smartphones the Mi Note 3 does not
support wireless charging. However the battery is
Quick Charge 3.0-compatible, which takes the hassle
out of recharging. It’s higher in capacity than the Mi6’s
3,350mAh battery, though down on the previous Mi
Note 2’s 4,070mAh.Performance
The Mi Note 3 is a capable phone for all users, but it’s
no longer a flagship. Whereas we saw the Snapdragon
821 in its predecessor, and the 835 in the Mi6 (both
were the top Qualcomm chips available at launch),
this new model has a mid-range Snapdragon 660
running at 2.2GHz inside. It’s reflected in the price,
but disappointing if you simply wanted a large-screen
version of the company’s flagship.
That processor is combined with the Adreno 512
GPU, 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage in our review
sample, though 128GB is available. There’s no microSD
support, so if you think you’ll be taking a lot of photos
and videos and storing a lot of apps and games, go for
the higher-capacity option.
Performance is still very good, if not quite flagship
level, and the Mi Note 3 is also capable of playing the
latest games. Once you’re familiar with the software
you shouldn’t find any navigation bottlenecks, and in
our testing the MIUI OS offers a fluid experience.
We ran the Mi Note 3 through our usual
benchmarks and unsurprisingly found lower
performance than the Mi Note 2 and Mi6. Performance
is just a little short of last year’s Huawei P10, and