Xiaomi's Redmi Note 3 packs premium metal for a budget price (pictures)

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 is a $220-ish (£150 and AU$290, respectively) big screen phone from China and it hits all the right notes with its gorgeous metal body and surprisingly good performance.

The phone runs Android 5.1 Lollipop, but covered with Xiaomi's MIUI skin. MIUI drops the app drawer, but adds a bunch of functionality to the phone that you'd not find on either iOS or stock Android devices, such as the ability to long press an app to move it and use another finger to swipe to the page you want instead of moving the app to the side of the screen.

The Redmi Note 3 is one of the first metal-clad phones from Xiaomi, but the trade off is that the battery is now embedded.

The 5.5-inch full HD display is bright and sharp.

The rear 16-megapixel isn't quite good at detecting the proper exposure, and you may have to manually tune it yourself before you shoot the picture.

The 3.5mm audio jack is located at the top of the phone.

On the bottom, you'll find a very clean surface with just the micro-USB port located to the side.

The phone's speakers are located at the back, below the Mi logo. It's also the only location the logo shows up.

There's a fingerprint scanner located at the back, and the location makes it easy to unlock the phone when you pick it up with your hand, though not so when the phone is on the table.

The phone still uses physical keys instead of onscreen menu buttons.

The front 5-megapixel camera comes with Xiaomi's Beautify enhancements to make your selfies look good.

The phone isn't the slimmest in the market at 8.7mm thick, but is still quite comfortable to hold thanks to its rounded edges.

The phone features dual-SIM 4G support, and you can also switch one of the SIM card slots to use a microSD card. The phone has 32GB of onboard storage, and supports another 32GB of microSD storage.

The volume controls and power buttons are located on the right.