Xiaomi Redmi 3 review: Precious little one

Performance

Xiaomi Redmi 3 is the first smartphone we meet powered by the Snapdragon 616 chipset. The new SoC offers eight Cortex-A53 cores, four of them ticking at 1.5GHz and another four running at 1.2GHz. The GPU in charge of graphics is Adreno 405 while the available RAM is 2GB.

The 616 model isn't just a minor step from the 615 flavor, but it will undoubtedly provide more than enough power for the Redmi 3 as it is running everything on the undemanding 720p resolution.

The multi-core performance as shown by GeekBench 3 is nothing to brag about, but it doubles the processing power of its predecessor and is on par with any other affordable octa-core Cortex-A53 CPU (the Meizu's smartphones). It also does almost the same as the S616-powered Oppo F1, which costs twice as much.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3
  4537
• Meizu m1 note
  3988
• Oppo F1
  3014
• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  2842
• Meizu m2 note
  2649
• OnePlus X
  2297
• Motorola Moto E (2015)
  1486
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  1460

The compound AnTuTu 5 oddly outs a lesser result as in comparison with the Oppo F1, but it's still about on the average, and that's more than enough. Plus, notice the jump from the Redmi 2.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3
  47816
• OnePlus X
  39990
• Meizu m1 note
  39224
• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  34077
• Meizu m2 note
  32054
• Motorola Moto E (2015)
  22761
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  20616

The compound BaseMark OS II 2.0 once again puts the Oppo F1 ahead of the Redmi 3, maybe because of the Oppo F1's 3GB of RAM. Still it does better than the Meizu's notes and not that far from the Helio X10 performance of the Redmi Note 3, which is great.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• OnePlus X
  1213
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3
  1018
• Oppo F1
  961
• Meizu m1 note
  880
• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  804
• Meizu m2 note
  673
• Motorola Moto E (2015)
  546
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  511

The single-core performance of a Cortex-A53 may not be much to write home about, but that's why the Redmi 3 has eight of those.

Basemark OS 2.0 (single-core)

Higher is better

• OnePlus X
  5118
• Oppo F1
  2708
• Meizu m1 note
  2617
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3
  2551
• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  2169
• Motorola Moto E (2015)
  1954
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  1806
• Meizu m2 note
  1709

Basemark OS 2.0 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3
  24979
• OnePlus X
  16983
• Oppo F1
  15275
• Meizu m1 note
  14565
• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  12172
• Meizu m2 note
  8105
• Motorola Moto E (2015)
  7659
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  6362

Finally, the Adreno 405 can perfectly handle any 720p content you throw at it, and that's noticeable in the GFX 3.0 on-screen benchmark.

The 1080p Offscreen test results, o the other hand, can show you how the chipset stacks against the competition as far as the raw GPU performance is concerned.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  12
• Oppo F1
  11
• OnePlus X
  10
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3
  7.9
• Motorola Moto E (2015)
  6.3
• Meizu m1 note
  5.7
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  3.9
• Meizu m2 note
  2.3

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus X
  9.9
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3
  8.5
• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  5.8
• Oppo F1
  5.8
• Meizu m1 note
  5.8
• Meizu m2 note
  2.3
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  1.8
• Motorola Moto E (2015)
  1.8

The BaseMark X GPU test places the Redmi 3 close to other similarly priced devices.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• OnePlus X
  10572
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3
  8540
• Oppo F1
  5314
• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  5108
• Meizu m1 note
  4617
• Meizu m2 note
  3946
• Motorola Moto E (2015)
  1851

Xiaomi's Redmi 3 is one beautifully designed smartphone with an excellent screen and quite a powerful chipset. It may cost very cheap, but offers power you'd usually get for twice as much. Only OpenGL 3.1 compatibility is missing for rendering high-end mobile graphics, but then again we'd refer to the price - it's not a gaming phone after all.