The appearance of Hongmi Note can be said to be expected and unexpected. It uses a stronger processor, a larger screen, a larger battery and a better camera than Hongmi, but the price remains 799 yuan. Can Hongmi Note continue to inherit the glory of Hongmi?
In terms of configuration, compared with Hongmi, Hongmi Note has improved in SoC, screen size, battery capacity, storage space and camera to a certain extent, while the price remains at the level of 799, which is undoubtedly exciting. This evaluation uses the enhanced version of Hongmi Note, which is stronger in SoC frequency and RAM than the ordinary version.
Appearance design:
Hongmi Note and Hongmi are also designed by Wentai, a contract factory, and both of them maintain a unified design language. The red rice note is basically the same except that the border is slightly thinner than the red rice. This also shows that the Hongmi Note is the big screen version of Hongmi (nonsense). Compared with the gray color of the red rice when the screen is turned off, the black color of the red rice note is more harmonious.
In terms of entity keys and interfaces, Hongmi Note is also consistent with Hongmi. There are volume keys and power keys on the side, mirco USB interface on the bottom and headphone hole on the top. Strangely, the red rice note cancels the cover opening gap of red rice, so that the red rice note can only open the back cover from the mirco USB interface, which is much more laborious than red rice.
The back of the red rice note is still weak and consistent with the back of the red rice. From top to bottom, there are cameras, flash lights, millet signs and external holes. The back cover of Hongmi Note is similar to that of Xiaomi 3. It has a slight shimmer effect and is visually beautiful.
The shape design of Hongmi Note is the same as that of Hongmi Note. The only thing worth noting is the physical touch keys of Hongmi Note. Compared with Hongmi, the physical touch key logo of Hongmi Note is more concise and generous. At the same time, the red rice note has a backlight that red rice does not have, which is more practical.
The three dimensions of the red rice note have reached 154 * 78.7 * 9.45mm, and with its 199g weight, it is not comfortable to hold it. When holding the red rice note for the first time, you will feel an unexpected sense of weight, and it is easy to get tired when holding it with one hand for a long time. Fortunately, the four corners of the red rice note are very round, and there will be no top palm, and the sides of the red rice note are round and comfortable, which is quite fortunate.
Hongmi Note supports the expansion of memory cards, which is more convenient than Hongmi's lock. Different people have different opinions on which is better. Hongmi Note supports double cards and double waiting, and the design of double large cards is also quite set by the target group. TD-SCDMA and GSM are on the left and right respectively. It is assumed that Hongmi Note will also launch the Unicom version and the Telecom version in the future.
The screen displays:
The Red Rice Note has been upgraded from 4.7 inches to 5.5 inches. The screen material has not changed. However, compared with Hongmi's screen, which has been criticized as yellow, Hongmi Note's screen quality is really good. From left to right, the above figure shows Hongmi Note, Hongmi Telecom Edition and Hongmi Mobile Edition. From the contrast of the white pictures, it is obvious that the two red rice pieces are yellow, while the red rice note is powerful.
Due to the yellow color, the red rice of the two books also tends to be orange in red, and the red rice Note is restored quite well. In this way, similar situations are less obvious in green and blue.
In the comparison of real photos, it is also easy to conclude that the screen quality of Hongmi Note is much better than that of Hongmi. Because the red rice screen is yellow, it is not as transparent as red rice in visual perception, and there is a certain degree of whitening.
In terms of visual angle, the performance of Hongmi Note is still strong. There is not much to be picky about, except for the large angle of the side. In general, while maintaining the low price of Hongmi, the Hongmi Note has significantly improved its screen quality.
Shooting ability:
The red rice note is upgraded from 1.3 million pixels in front of red rice to 5 million pixels, while the rear camera is upgraded from 8 million pixels to 13 million pixels. In terms of camera pixels, the Hongmi Note has been able to compare with mid-range phones and even flagship phones. The red rice note has no special changes on the photography interface, which is still familiar to MIUI.
Of course, the 5 million pixels in front of the red rice note is much better than the 1.3 million pixels in red rice. With the improvement of pixels, the effect of red rice Note is much clearer than red rice, and the noise is slightly less. The front camera of Hongmi Note is cleaner and fairer on the skin color of the face, which is more flattering than the yellow color of Hongmi Note. In addition, the front camera of Hongmi Note has a wider shooting range than that of Hongmi, and there is no need to worry about multiple self portraits. (Red rice note and red rice on the left and right of the above figure)
Compared with the weird white balance that Hongmi often has, Hongmi Note has almost no white balance error in the week-long evaluation. On the left and right of the above figure are red rice Note and red rice, of which the white balance of red rice is quite strange.
It may be a problem of engineering machine or system optimization. Although Red Rice Note is several levels better than Red Rice in automatic white balance, it loses a lot in noise. Since the 13 million pixels of the red rice note are much higher than the 8 million pixels of the red rice, the number of noise points is also much higher. From the 100% red rice note and red rice sample in the above figure, the noise of the red rice note is even mosaic. If the problem of shooting is the blue color, the noise problem of the red rice note will be more serious.
Although the 13 million pixels of the Hongmi Note can already compare with the flagship model, there was still a gap in quality at that time. The petal pattern in the above figure is basically clean, but considering the price of the red rice note, it is enough to be pleased to get such good color performance.
The shooting effect of the red rice note in the daytime is relatively good, with accurate color restoration and good white balance. However, the reason for the optimization is that the noise of the sample is still serious even if the red rice note is shot in the daytime, which makes it feel like it has been wiped out. At the same time, compared with Hongmi's hesitant shutter, Hongmi Note always feels a pause when shooting.
The above figure is before and after HDR. The HDR effect of Hongmi Note is good, but the processing speed is not much faster than that of Hongmi.
The night shooting of Hongmi Note is a bit interesting. The number of noise points is not much more than that of daytime shooting. Although the shutter will still pause, it is not much different from daytime shooting. What needs to be said is that the focus of the red rice note is a bit deceptive. Infinite focus will prompt the success of focusing, but the shooting sample is vague.
More samples:
System design:
Hongmi Note is still equipped with its own MIUI V5 system, which has been used on various Xiaomi machines before, and is also highly praised and welcomed in terms of humanization and personalization. It is still a familiar unlocking interface, a drop-down menu that is also easy to use, and a convenient and clean desktop. Everything is familiar.
You are very familiar with MIUI V5, so we will focus on the special minimalist mode in the Hongmi Note system. The predecessor of the "Minimalist Model" was the "Elderly Model", which was later renamed in order to consider the psychological feelings of the elders. As the name suggests, "minimalist mode" is used by groups with low functional requirements and weak eyesight by reducing functions, changing layout, and appearing in the form of large fonts and icons.
It is troublesome to restart the "Minimal Mode". After the reboot, you can see the new "minimalist mode" interface. The unlocking interface of "Minimal Mode" is quite "large", which can be seen from the indication and time font in the top bar. Adding the lunar calendar display also better conforms to the habits of users.
After unlocking, you can enter the page. The "Minimalist Mode" has a strong Metro UI style, and the large square displays the function icons and names. The function blocks of the page should be minimized. By default, there are commonly used functions such as telephone, telecom, camera, radio, etc., and six shortcut dials can be added by default. Of course, personalized customization can be carried out by entering the application list. The application list is also large icon and font, which is convenient for the application group to operate better.
After entering the "Minimal Mode", long press the Home key to call out the action mask of the task manager. The pull-down menu function is also turned off by default to avoid possible misoperation. In addition to the large range of functions and interface optimization, some applications in the "minimalist mode" have also been optimized. For example, the dial becomes larger, the font of phone version and SMS becomes larger, and voice broadcast. In general, the basic idea is to strengthen the main functions, cut other functions and adjust the layout interface to improve usability.
The appearance of the "minimalist mode" is, of course, to serve the groups that upgrade from functional machines to smart machines. Through the functions and interfaces and adjustments, it conforms to the usage habits of their functional machines. At the same time, functions such as voice broadcast, calling to read names and so on make it more convenient for the elderly to use. I am more looking forward to the follow-up development of the "minimalist mode", because programs such as cameras, music and picture libraries have not been optimized on the interface. At the same time, if voice dialing, local dialects and offline use are supported, the experience will be better.
Performance and endurance:
The biggest upgrade of the configuration of Hongmi Note is the MTK6592 processor. Based on the TSMC 28nm process, the MTK6592 has eight ARM Cortex-A7 and can run simultaneously. The frequency of a single core can reach up to 2GHz. However, it should be noted that the Hongmi Note in this evaluation is a blessing version, and its MTK6592 frequency is 1.7GHz, much higher than the standard version's 1.4GHz. From the score comparison in the above figure, the performance of the red rice note is strong enough for the red rice with MT6589T or Snapdragon 400, and even for the OPPO N1 with Snapdragon 600.
What about the actual game experience of Hongmi Note, whose theoretical score is strong enough? To be frank, my previous opinion on the thousand yuan level was that it would be better if the performance could be smooth enough, but playing games or something was not enough, but Hongmi Note completely refreshed my opinion. The latest version of Wild Racing 8 was used for actual testing, and the performance of Hongmi Note was quite eye-catching. It is still smooth enough in high image quality, and can compete with the Xiaolong 800 machine in experience.
Although the 720P resolution adopted by the Hongmi Note is lower than the 1080P resolution adopted by the flagship computer, the pressure on the processor is much lower. However, while maintaining a good enough gaming experience, Hongmi Note still keeps the tradition of MTK machine - calm enough. After running for 15 minutes in the wild drag racing 8, the main heating area of the red rice note is near the camera. The detection temperature is about 42 °, which is much better than the common results of 44 ° of Snapdragon 600 and 47 ° of Snapdragon 800.
The performance of Hongmi Note in entertainment games is beyond criticism, but it is not ideal in daily operation. In daily operations, such as opening a folder and dragging a list up and down, the Red Rice Note will notice a noticeable stuttering. This may be because the program development has not fully understood MTK6592, which is often referred to as optimization. This also makes me look forward to the final performance of Hongmi Note after optimization.
The Hongmi Note uses a 3200mAh detachable battery. The capacity is large enough, and it is estimated that the endurance is also very good, but it is actually different from what I imagined. The endurance of Hongmi Note can be said to be "as quiet as a virgin, and as dynamic as a rabbit", which means that standby is quite powerful, and the power will be consumed quickly when it is used. After 15 minutes of wild speed racing 8, the power failure reached 15%, which was a lot less than 14% in the last half hour test of Red Rice.
The Hongmi Note has a standby time of 8 hours from 24:00 to 8:00 in the morning, and only consumes 1% of the power. If the Hongmi Note only brushes microblogs and makes phone calls, it can be recharged every two days or even every three days.
In terms of signal, from left to right, the above figure shows the center of Luohu District, Bao'an Science Park and the elevator. From the above figure, the signal of the red rice note is no problem, even on the bus and subway. Here we also have to complain that even in Shenzhen, the 3G coverage of mobile is not enough.
other:
Maybe because of the engineering machine, the red rice note in my hand is inferior to red rice in workmanship. The back cover of the red rice note seems to be accurate, but it always feels loose, which makes people uncomfortable. At the same time, the loose back cover also causes the volume key and power key to be less solid and powerful than red rice.
There is also a certain probability of "broken touch" on the screen of Hongmi Note, as shown in the figure above, when you quickly slide the screen, the lines will easily break. The "broken touch" of Hongmi Note does not always occur, but occurs with a small probability during fast sliding, mostly during fast typing. This has to wait for the subsequent system update of Hongmi Note to solve the problem.
Summary:
The emergence of red rice in those years can be said to have washed the domestic low-end mobile phone market and ignited the 1000 yuan mobile phone market, which can be said to be a generation benchmark. However, with the development of time and technology, the emergence of Hongmi Note is obvious. Interestingly, in addition to continuing the powerful price of Hongmi, Hongmi Note has made good improvements in screen size, camera capacity, performance and even screen performance, which is not unreasonable.
Of course, due to the price and the audience, the appearance design and workmanship of the Red Rice Note are not popular, but this price based compromise is also appropriate. Personally, I feel that the purchase of Red Rice Note is a profit. Of course, it means the original price.
