Key Difference: The company has claimed that the Mi 4i is the mid-range alternative to the original Mi 4.The phones differ from each other in terms of looks. The Mi 4 has a more sophisticated look with the steel casing and glass covered front and back. The Mi 4i has a polycarbonate back that is expected to come in both glossy and matte finish.

Xiaomi Mi phones have taken the world by storm. The phones are touted as one of the best phones in the budget smartphone category. The company has claimed that the Mi 4i is the mid-range alternative to the original Mi 4. The phone has specifically been launched for the Indian market.

The Mi 4 is considered as a brilliant phone for its price range, offering many high-end features that could give competition to the high end phones like Samsung and iPhone. The Mi 4 and Mi 4i are quite similar when it comes to many features, but the phones do have certain differences to account for the price drop.

Both the phones come with a magnificent 5 inch IPS LCD that touts a high NTSC color gamut; the Mi 4 claims a 84% color gamut, while the Mi 4i claims 95%. Both the phones provide a rich and sharp display with bright and radiant colors. Both have a 441 ppi pixel density, one of the highest in this range. The screens are also protected by Corning Concore Glass.

The phones differ from each other in terms of looks. The Mi 4 has a more sophisticated look with the steel casing and glass covered front and back. The Mi 4i has a polycarbonate back that is expected to come in both glossy and matte finish. The Mi 4i also comes in many colors such as pink, yellow, dark grey, blue, while the Mi 4 comes only in black and white.

Another difference lies under the hood. The Mi 4 is powered by a 2.5 GHz quad-core snapdragon processor with 3 GB RAM. The Mi 4i runs on a less powerful 1.7 GHz quad-core paired with a 1 GHz quad-core processor with 2 GB RAM. The Mi 4 surpasses the Mi 4i in benchmark scores, but there is hardly any difference between the two in actual operation. Both the phones are available in with 16 GB internal capacity; the Mi 4 also has 64 GB variant, while the Mi 4i has 32 GB variant.

To slash prices, another sacrifice is made on the Mi 4i are the cameras. While both the phones offer a 13 MP rear camera, the Mi 4i comes with a 5 MP front camera and the Mi 4 comes with an 8 MP snapper. The camera on the flagship phone comes with dual-tone LED flash, f/2.0 aperture, auto-focus, HDR, touch-focus, full HD video recording ability. On the other hand, the Mi 4i boasts of a 13 MP Sony IMX214 camera with 6 element lens, f1.8 aperture, real-time HDR, CMOS sensor, 0.3-second auto-focus feature.

The phones also differ in terms of operating systems. The Mi 4 ships with Android KitKat 4.4.4 with MIUI 6.0 and the Mi 4i ships with Android Lollipop 5.0.2 with the same UI. Lastly, the most important aspect of the phone – the battery. The Mi 4 is powered by a long-lasting 3080 mAh Li-Ion battery, while the Mi 4i has a slightly more powerful battery of 3120 mAh.

Comparison between Xiaomi Mi 4 and Mi 4i:

Image Courtesy: en.miui.com, blog.gsmarena.com