The launch of Xiaomi’s Mi4 is a wake-up call to all the non-budget brands, Chinese smartphones at the moment are such good value they can give any company in the world a run for their money, you’re getting amazing technology at really low prices. Xiaomi are a powerhouse in the field too, selling over 26 million smartphones this year. They have a target to sell 60 million in 2014, so with the Mi4 they are on course to pull it off. The Mi3 is considered one of the best smartphones around in its category. The Mi4 is long-awaited and the specs have finally been announced, so to see what this new beast has to offer, let’s compare it with the other pretty awesome flagship killer, the OnePlus One. The choice is between David and Goliath, Oneplus have only been in business a short time and their phone is brilliant, but the production has let the side down, with them proving hopeless when it comes to meeting demand.

Display

The Mi4 has a 5 inch IPS display screen featuring 1920 x 1080 resolution, the OnePlus One has a larger display, 5.5 inches making the pixel count a little lower per inch for the OnePlus One. The Mi4 has 441 ppi and the OnePlus One has 401. Definitely a win for the Mi4 in the display department.

Performance

The Mi4, like the OnePlus One, boasts a 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801 processor, quad-core and one of the best processors available at the moment. The memory is also exactly the same, with both phones having 3GB RAM and being available with both 16GB and 64GB storage memory. It seems as far as the hardware goes there is little to choose between the two flagships. In fact these specs seem to be pretty much standard across all the high-end phones coming out of China at the moment. No bad thing at all, but we’re going to have to look a little more in depth to find significant performance differences between the phones.

Camera

The OnePlus One is slightly inferior in the camera stakes, although both it and the Mi4 share a 13MP rear camera, the Mi4 has an 8MP front shooter whereas the OnePlus One has a 5MP. The picture quality on the Mi4 is better but a 5MP front shooter such as that on the OnePlus is still a good feature, even if it doesn’t match the Mi4.

Battery

The battery is slightly better on the OnePlus One, it has a 3100mAh battery compared to the Mi4s 3080mAh, not a huge difference granted, but anything that counts towards making the phone last all day has got to be a plus.

Operating System/User Interface

Both phones run on Android, but the Mi4 round the MIUI V5 (with the V6 being released in August), the OnePlus runs the CyanogenMod 11S. Both phones offer a capable and customisable user interface that offers a lot. Mostly the choice here is down to personal preference rather than capability.

Verdict:

There isn’t a massive amount to choose between the phones, but the Mi4 is the better phone overall, having a superior display and front camera. Could the price be the decider? Well, the slightly better Mi4 is priced at $322 USD and the OnePlus priced at $299 USD. The thirty dollar difference isn’t enough to keep the race an even one, and your best bet is to go for the Mi4, it has the better specs and the price and at only slightly more expensive than the OnePlus, it just makes sense to get the better phone. I realise that there are a few die-hard OnePlus fans that want it for the design, which is great, and these people are probably going to buy it anyway but if you want the rational choice, get the Mi4.

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