Xiaomi Redmi 1S review: Stormtrooper

Synthetic benchmarks

The Xiaomi Redmi 1S runs on the poplar mid-range chipset Snapdragon 400 with a quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A7 processor, Adreno 305 GPU and a lowly 1GB of RAM. It runs on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean skinned with MIUI v5. Once the MIUI v.6 based on Android 4.4 KitKat arrives we expect the a minor bump in the benchmarks scores.

First off, we focus on the CPU and overall benchmarks we have in our arsenal. GeekBench 3 shows the Xiaomi Redmi 1S as a great performer on par with the fastest S400-powered phone - HTC Desire 816. The Redmi 1S has better scores than the rest of the S400 gang, but that's understandable as it CPU has a faster clock (1.6GHz vs 1.4GHz).

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 816
  1510
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  1492
• HTC Desire 510
  1471
• Sony Xperia T3
  1373
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  1359
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  1175
• LG G2 mini
  1123
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  1106
• Sony Xperia M2
  1074

The compound AnTuTu 5 shows a mediocre result, on par with the S400-running Xperia M2 Aqua and way below the phones featuring more powerful chipsets.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  46566
• Xiaomi Redmi Note
  32487
• Huawei Ascend P7
  28758
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  19912
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  19016

Basemark OS II gives an overall CPU score and breaks down the single and multi-core performance of smartphones. The overall performance is really uninspiring even though the Redmi 1S did an excellent job handling the Android OS and some popular games. The Cortex-A7 cores inside the Snapdragon 400 of the Xiaomi Redmi 1S did a decent job when performing alone, but rather poor output when working together.

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia T3
  535
• HTC Desire 816
  520
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  495
• HTC Desire 510
  491
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  452
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  434
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  394
• Sony Xperia M2
  298

Basemark OS II (single-core)

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 816
  1739
• Sony Xperia T3
  1465
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  1435
• HTC Desire 510
  1332
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  1192
• Sony Xperia M2
  1164
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  1131

Basemark OS II (multi-core)

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 816
  7071
• Sony Xperia T3
  5759
• HTC Desire 510
  5484
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  5012
• Sony Xperia M2
  4927
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  4887
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  4875

Moving on to graphics-intensive tests. GFXBench offers the T-Rex and the latest Manhattan tests, both in off-screen and on-screen versions. The Manhattan utilizes OpenGL ES 3 that was made available since Android 4.3 Jelly Bean release. Unfortunately the Xiaomi Redmi 1S couldn’t run the Manhattan benchmarks as it always ran out of memory.

Adreno 305 is too low-powered to show any serious framerates even on the T-Rex tests - it did poor on both the 1080p off-screen benchmark and the 720p on-screen run.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  6
• Sony Xperia M2
  5.9
• Sony Xperia T3
  5.9
• HTC Desire 816
  5.9
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  5.8
• LG G2 mini
  5.8
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  5.8
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  5.7
• HTC Desire 510
  5.3

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  15.5
• HTC Desire 510
  15.5
• Sony Xperia M2
  15.4
• LG G2 mini
  14.9
• Sony Xperia T3
  11.2
• HTC Desire 816
  11
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  10.9
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  10.8
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  10.3

Finally, we come to JavaScript performance where we have Mozilla's Kraken 1.1. JavaScript performance is great for the class. Unfortunately we weren't able to run the compound BrowserMark 2.1 test because the Xiaomi Redmi 1S ran quickly out of memory.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  12470
• HTC Desire 816
  13564
• Sony Xperia T3
  13738
• HTC Desire 510
  14443
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  16118
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  16129
• Sony Xperia M2
  18047

The Snapdragon 400 seems to be the maker's favorite chipset when creating midrange devices and it has proven capable enough to handle smartphones with display resolution up to 720p. A better 64-bit version is already available on the market, but we bet the Snapdragon 400 device will stick around for quite a while. And while the Xiaomi Redmi 1S didn't rock the leaderboards, it did an okay job nonetheless and we can hardly complain about its real-world performance.