The Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G can brag about being one of the first cheap phablets on the Indian market to come out with 4G support. It was announced in November last year and made available at the end of December for a price of Rs 9,999. Since then, Xiaomi has seen good success with it as many people have purchased the smartphone for its features as well as its 4G capability at a low price. Since then, many manufacturers have tried to follow the same mantra and launched their own devices at similar prices and packing similar features. The price of the Redmi Note 4G has been reduced to Rs 7,999 last month but since then Lenovo has hit the market with the K3 Note which also retails at a price of Rs 9,999 which was the original asking rate for the Redmi Note 4G. Although it is costlier, it does offer a few improvements and unique features that probably justify the price. Let’s take a look at the specifications and features of both the devices.
To start things off, we can compare the two screens. Both the devices have screens that are sized at 5.5 inches however the K3 Note has a denser 1080p display compared to the 720p unit on the Redmi Note 4G. Neither one has Gorilla Glass or any other branded protection but instead makes do with generic scratch resistant glass. The K3 Note has a higher screen to body ratio and as a result is more compact. It measures 152.6 x 76.2 x 8 mm compared to 154 x 78.7 x 9.5 mm of the Redmi Note 4G.
Both the devices have capacitive touch buttons below the display and neither are backlit. However the Redmi Note 4G has keys that are coloured in red which makes them a bit easier to see compared to the white coloured keys on the K3 Note.
While the Redmi Note 4G had come with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, the device did get an update to Android 4.4 KitKat. However, it is still behind the Lenovo K3 Note which comes pre-loaded with Android 5.0 Lollipop. The K3 Note has Vibe UI on top while Redmi Note has MIUI on top.
Qualcomm is the brand of choice for Xiaomi as the Redmi Note 4G is powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor while the K3 Note has an octa-core Mediatek MT6752 chipset under the hood. Both the devices have 2GB of RAM but the K3 Note has 16GB of internal memory while the Redmi Note makes do with 8GB. However, the Redmi Note accepts microSD cards upto 64GB while the K3 Note can accept cards upto 32GB only.
Both the phones have 13 Megapixel cameras with maximum resolutions of 3128×3096 pixels.The Redmi Note has an LED flash while the K3 Note has a dual-LED flash. Video recording maxes out at 1080p 30fps and both have a front facing 5 Megapixel camera as well.
Despite being release late last year, the Redmi Note 4G does support the latest ac Wi-Fi standard which some models released even today don’t support. The K3 Note supports it as well. The Redmi Note 4G has a 3100mAH battery and comes in either White or Black colours. The K3 Note has a 2900 mAH battery and comes in Pearl White, Onyx Black or Laser Yellow colours. Both the devices feature removable back panels as well as removable batteries.
The Redmi Note 4G is a single SIM device that supports 4G LTE connectivity. However the Lenovo K3 Note is a dualSIM device that accepts 2 microSIMs and has support for 4G LTE on each slot. But only one slot can have 4G enabled at a time while the other remains in 2G.
You can check out our review of the Lenovo K3 Note here.