Xiaomi Mi 5 Review: For Those Who Like The Feel, But Not The Price, Of Samsung Galaxy Phones

There's a certain stigma to the word "budget" when it's used to describe products or services. The term means, literally, "inexpensive" and absolutely nothing more, yet consumers have long associated it with "inferior quality." To take that mindset is to make the false assumptions that market prices are defined by quality and not only supply, demand and hype. Xiaomi - long considered a budget phone maker - is here to smash that to pieces stigma: its 2016 flagship phone, the mi 5, is a gorgeous device crafted out of curved glass and metal frame. It's an eye-catching design that's similar to Samsung's highly popular S7 - and the mi 5 packs the same top-of-the-line Qualcomm processor - only it costs half as much (HK $ 2,599, or US $ 335).

Okay, okay, I know I'm sounding like a broken record here with yet another "this phone is as good as the Samsungs and iPhones out there but at half the price," but it's true! Chinese OEMs, after years of craftsmanship inferior hardware and software tacky, have really figured it out in 2016. The Mi 5 is an absolute beauty.

Because it's more glass than metal, the Mi 5 is crazy light, and just 129g (4.9 oz). The curved back, like Samsung's phones, feels great in the hand. The device's 15.5-inch 1080p IPS display is bright, and its illusion of being bezel-less (when it looks like it turned off, but once on, vertical black bars run alongside the screen's edges) adds to the overall aesthetic. The volume rocker on the side is slightly wobbly, making for the only "flaw" in what is otherwise top-notch craftsmanship.

In terms of photography, the phone's  16 MP, f / 2.0 lens takes great photos during the day, but struggles in night shots compared to an iPhone or the Motorola V10. It compares favorably to other Chinese phones like the Huawei Meizu MX and P9 Plus 6 though. The Xiaomi Mi 5's display (second from left) side by side with the iPhone 6S (left), and LG's Cam X and X Screen (right)

The Mi 5 has a fingerprint sensor up front, which doubles as a home button, along with two more capacitive buttons. Although I usually prefer soft buttons, Xiaomi's done a great job with them for two reasons. One, they're customizable: the back and recent apps button can be swapped around, shortcut actions can be assigned to long presses. and two, the capacitive buttons are located further away from the edges of the phone. This makes less likely accidental button presses, a problem I had quite a bit with OnePlus 3 and HTC's 10 hard buttons. I've elaborated further, along with other bits about the hardware, in the video below.

As mentioned earlier, the phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor. The base 32 gig model (the one I'm reviewing) has a  1.8 GHz Kryo CPU, while the higher-end model it up to 2.2 GHz. I tried higher 5 Mi-end, and the difference in power is minimal.

The Mi 5 runs Xiaomi's own MIUI skin over Android 6.0, and much like Flyme Meizu's OS, it's a lot cleaner than people in the West might think. T he two major differences that fans of stock Android would notice right away is the lack of app drawer, and the notification shade, which is split into two tabs (a la Huawei's EMUI). One side is notifications, the other is toggles for things like WiFi, Bluetooth, volume, etc. I do not particularly love this two-part take (because it requires an extra swipe left / right to do most things), but it's not that annoying.

What is annoying, however, is MIUI's inexplicable decision to offer no search function within settings, at least in my software version (7.5) of the phone. If you want to tweak anything in the Mi 5, whether it's the slightly aggressive battery saving modes or app permissions, you have to manually scroll through dozens of slots. Some of these are buried deep in the settings, so if you want to, say, turn on downloads from unknown source, you'd probably have to spend two to three hours digging through the settings menu. A search bar would have eliminated the need to look around.

( UPDATE:  I've been told by a rep that Xiaomi MIUI's newest update, version 8.0, fixes this problem by adding a search bar into settings. But that update is not available on my device for some reason)

With 3GB of RAM and that processor 820, the Mi 5 is a super fast phone, but I must point out that the phone crashed twice on me throughout my week's of use. That's not a high failure percentage by any means, but it's still something I did not encounter when testing the Huawei P9 Plus or OnePlus 3. There's also a bug in the software (I've read dozens of other complaints about this online, so it's not just my device) that prevents the use of the fingerprint sensor, requiring PIN unlock. Again, it's not a huge problem, but at this point that it can not be ignored, especially since one time, I was locked out of the phone for two hours because I butt-dialed wrong PIN too many attempts.

The Mi locked me out for 5 minutes after its fingerprint sensor failed, and I accidentally butt-dialed too many incorrect PIN attempts (left); Xiaomi's take on the notification shade

I do not really care that much about benchmarks, but if you're wondering, the Mi scored a 5 on Antutu 136,497, which beats the iPhone 6S and Samsung Galaxy Edge S7, but falls short of the OnePlus 3 (140,288). Rest assured the Mi 5 can handle any task you throw at it.

The device's 3000 mAh battery is more than enough to last a day, and if you need a top up, Xiaomi's Qualcomm 3.0 included a fast-charging outlet in the box.

In terms of photography, the phone's  16 MP, f / 2.0 lens takes great photos during the day, but struggles in night shots compared to an iPhone or the Motorola V10. It compares favorably to other Chinese phones like the Huawei Meizu MX and P9 Plus 6 though. 

A dark shot, taken by Xiaomi Mi 5 (left) and Huawei P9 Plus (right).Xiaomi Mi 5 (left), Huawei P9 Plus (right)

Mi 5 (left); P9 Plus (right)

Xiaomi's camera software is fun and easy to use. It includes a manual mode, offering the usual ISO / shutter speed tweaks. I particularly liked the fun "mirror" and "sketch" built-in filters, mainly because other phones I've tested did not have them.

The Mi 5's mirror mode (left) and sketch mode (right).

Shots taken day and night with the Mi 5.

The phone's standout feature is perhaps its 4-axis OIS (usually, phones offer 2-axis only). This means recorded videos will appear smoother. Below is a video of it in action.

Overall, Xiaomi's Mi 5 is a flagship phone that ticks all the boxes. Because of the software's minor stability problems, I'd rank it behind the OnePlus 3 in terms of ease of use, but we must keep in mind that Mi 5 is about HK $ 400 (US $ 50) cheaper than the OnePlus 3. The value factor jumps to another level when you compare the price to Mi 5's something like an HTC 10 (US $ 650). Right now, the only phone cheaper than the Mi 5 that's not mediocre is  the Meizu MX6 , but if you are talking raw power, the Mi 5's Snapdragon 820 beats the MX6's  Mediatek chip. You can not really go wrong with any of the above, and phones Xiaomi's Mi 5 is a wonderful step in the right direction for the company. This phone is a winner. 

Xiaomi Mi Note 2 Review: More Than Just A Galaxy Note 7 Lookalike

Xiaomi's Mi Not 2 has not been getting the respect it probably deserves. After all, the phone was overshadowed and its very own launch event by Xiaomi's other new phones, the bezel-less Mi Mix. And even when the media and reporters ( including myself ) wrote about the Mi Note 2, we mentioned how much it looked like a Samsung Galaxy Note 7.

Let 's address the "Note 7 ripoff" issue first. Yes, just like Samsung's now dead phone, the Mi Note 2 has a 5.7-inch display with dual screens and curved back that meets in the middle for a perfectly symmetrical look. But it's not fair to just dismiss Xiaomi's product as copycat, Xiaomi because phonemaker was actually the first to introduce a curved glass back (before Apple did it with the Note 5). And as Hugo Barra told Engadget, there's really only one way you can do a curved screen, so this "curved front and back meet in the middle" design was just the next logical step for the company. Also, the Note 7 was introduced just two months ago - it's almost certain that Xiaomi had begun development on the Mi Note 2 already. 

I've been using the Mi Note 2 for four days and much like Xiaomi's last flagship phone, the Mi 5, this is a beast of a phone with fast performance, solid build quality, great camera. And yes, while the Mi Mix is way more intriguing as a device (I'll have a review of that coming later this week too), the Mi Note 2 is probably a more usable day-to-day phone.

That's because while the Mi Mix is eye-catching, it's a concept phone in every sense of the word (more on that later in my review). The Mi Note 2, however, is like the many great flagship phones of 2016 - except it's got the latest and best Snapdragon chip, the 821. In both real world usage (like zipping between apps and editing videos via Viva Video) and benchmark testing the Mi Note 2 comes out at the top of every Android phone I've tried so far this year. Oh, and I'm on the lower tier 4GB RAM version, not the one maxed out with an extra 2GB of RAM.

(The Mi Note 2 scored a 1828 on Geek Bench's single core test and 4039 on the multi-core, that beats both the Galaxy's S7 1589/3795; Google's Pixel XL 1607/4147, but falls short of the iPhone 7 Plus' 3464 / 5688).

As I mentioned in my Mi 5reviews from earlier, Xiaomi's custom Android skins, named MIUI (now in its 8th version), is a lot cleaner than people in the west give credit for. I particularly love that it allows you to customize the phone's hard buttons. for example: the phone comes back with the assigned button to the right of the home button, but I can swap it to the left. and the home button / fingerprint sensor, although it's "clickable" like Samsung phones and iPhones older, Xiaomi gives the option to activate via touch. I much prefer this because having to press down on a physical button feels outdated in a world of touch buttons (even Apple's done away with that on the iPhone 7. Samsung phones are the only ones left).  

The back of the Mi Note 2, much like the Galaxy line of phones, is an absolute fingerprint and dust magnet. I'm not sure why Xiaomi and Samsung love these shiny glass backs - it looks nice brand new, but within five minutes of using it's filled with smudge. Going matte black, like the iPhone or HTC 7 Plus 10, would have looked much better in my opinion. Still, the Mi Note 2, much like the Note 7, is a gorgeous device. Them curves, man.

Despite the Mi Note 2 having the same type of curve as the Note 7 / S7 Edge, I had virtually no erroneous touches on the curved screen during my four days of use. This is amazing, because I had serious problems using the S7 Edge without something accidentally tapping on the screen. I think part of this is due to the curves on the Mi Note 2 not being as drastic, and partly because MIUI's palm rejection software is just much smarter than the one on the Galaxy phones.

One of the new additions to the MIUI 8 that's very useful is the "second space" feature, which essentially partitions a portion of your phone away from the main device's hard drive, so you can store sensitive information you might not want other people to see . Much like the Note 7's Secure Folder, you can download a second copy of apps onto the second space, and it'll behave like a completely separate app from the first copy. That means you can have two Google Play accounts, WeChat or two apps (signed onto two different accounts) on the same phone. Switching back and forth between the "main" phone and the second space takes only a tap, and everything is locked via password, PIN or fingerprint scan.

Speaking of fingerprint scanning, holy crap, the sensor on the Mi Note 2 is fast. This might be the fastest fingerprint sensor I've ever used, topping even the former king, Huawei P9. It's so fast, I never see the lockscreen when I press on the sensor when the phone is in a sleeping state - it just goes straight to the home screen instantaneously.

The one area the Mi Note 2 disappoints slightly is the camera. Despite some gaudy specs ( 22.5 MP, f / 2.0), I found the photos to range from solid to good, which is not bad by any means, but the bar for smartphone photography is set so high. Here are some samples. 
Taken with the Xiaomi Mi Note 2, scaled down.

Taken with the Galaxy S7 Edge, scaled down.

Note 2 mi.

S7 Edge.

Xiaomi Mi Mix Review: It Makes The iPhone 7 Look And Feel So Outdated

Think of any movie or TV show set in a hi-tech future, and there are always the usual cliches: flying cars, sentient robots, and bezel-less digital displays. While the first two is still pretty far off from reality, the last one is (mostly) here in the form of a smartphone, the Xiaomi Mi Mix.

I say mostly, because there is a caveat: the borders around the Mi Mix are not as thin and invisible as Xiaomi's official press images depict. Still, this does not take much away from Xiaomi's accomplishment, because though the Mi Mix's borders are quite visible, they're still much thinner and smaller than the bezels on all other phones on the market right now. And when consuming high quality photos and videos on the screen in full, the visual effect is jaw-dropping. 

There is no getting around this: Xiaomi has crafted a piece of hardware that embarrasses Apple and Google. Some readers are going to accuse me of nationalistic bias because they see my byline photo (which would be presumptuous, because I identify as a Chinese-American with roots in Hong Kong). But put the Mi Mix side by side with the iPhone and Google Pixel 7, and no objective person can deny that one phone looks head and shoulders above the other two in terms of smartphone innovation.

I'm actually not a fan of the ceramic body. It's way too shiny, slippery and a complete fingerprint magnet (a matte black finish like the iPhone 7 would have been just as gorgeous product shots, while being far easier to grip onto). Luckily, Xiaomi includes a free leather case with each phone that's way nicer than any freebie case I've ever seen.

None of this would matter, of course, if the Mi Mix sucked as a phone. And though the camera comes up short (more on this later) against the top dogs, and there are minor annoyances with the Chinese software (more on this later too), this phone is excellent to use.

Chances are, you already know about the top-of-the-line specs: the fastest Snapdragon chip available on the market and the four or six GB of RAM available. What you might not know, the phone is quite easy to use with one hand despite its mammoth 6.4-inch display. That's mostly due to its bezel-less edge-to-edge design: the Mi Mix is ​​almost an extra inch of screen real estate over the iPhone 7 Plus while staying mostly the same size. But part of the ease-of-use is also because Xiaomi's software is well thought out and considerate.

Unlike on the iPhone 7, Google Pixel XL, Samsung Galaxy Note 7 (RIP) or the HTC 10, the Mi Mix lets you trigger the notification shade down by swiping anywhere on the screen. On those other phones, you have to drag your thumb all the way to the top of the screen - good luck doing that one-handed without serious gymnastics hand. Also, Xiaomi offers a floating digital on-screen button (hilarious named "smart ball") that brings more functionality than the same feature on the iPhone. Xiaomi and lets you hide the "ball" completely (and conversely, bring it back out) on-the-fly, unlike on the iPhone, where you either have a floating "assistive touch" button at all times or none at all. Oh yeah, and Xiaomi lets you pull off shortcuts by long-pressing any of the navigation buttons. You can not do that on Samsung's phones (those buttons do one thing and one thing only). There are just more ways to do things on Xiaomi's MIUI software: it's more open than the rigidity of iOS, Samsung's TouchWiz, or stock Android.

But not every MIUI addition brings to the table is welcome. As mentioned earlier, there are annoyances, and it can be quite major to some. Like other Chinese phones' UI, Xiaomi's MIUI has a habit of killing app background processes completely, which disables push notifications (I had the same problem with Huawei's EMUI). Chinese phonemakers do this because they really want to optimize battery life - but what good is a phone that can go two days with a single charge if you can not get Whatsapp or Gmail notifications unless you manually open the app? There is a way to fix this, involving changing the battery usage / optimization settings, but it's so insanely complicated (seriously, it took me 25 minutes of Googling and meddling with hidden settings menus to do it) it's bound to infuriate the average Joe user .

I do not know why Chinese phone softwares are still so aggressive and killing apps to conserve battery life - they already pack in much larger batteries than the Apples and Samsungs of the world. The Mi Mix has a whopping 4,400 mAh battery that's capable of very fast charging. This thing is virtually impossible to run out of juice during the course of a day. In my testing, I managed to get more than six hours of screen time on multiple days, and I'm a heavy user. I'd leave the house at 8:40 am, and by 2am I'd still have 15-17% juice (and this is after I've turned off all those unnecessary battery optimization features).

That amazing battery life will come in handy because with the Mi Mix, you'll want to consume a lot of media. To me, this alone makes the phone worth buying (considering that the phone is relatively cheap too). The edge-to-edge display just brings a new experience to watching videos and looking at photos. On Instagram's screen-filling story mode, for example, I'm constantly blown away by how immersive the visuals are. It's just something you have to see for yourself.

The 1080p LCD display may not impress like the quad HD AMOLED displays on a Galaxy phone, but as I've said many times before, it's very, very hard to tell the difference between "just" 1080p and dual HD on a mobile screen. I've put the Mi Mix side by side with the Edge and S7 LG V20 and ran through a series of apps, videos and games, and I could not spot any difference in pixels.

The loudspeaker at the bottom of the Mi Mix is about in line with every other non-stereo loud speaker on phones: it's not going to amaze you but it's not bad. It's definitely better than the people on the S7 Edge. Below is a video I made for testing the various speakers.

Xiaomi's Mi Mix Has The Best Battery Life On Any Smartphone I've Ever Seen

Chinese smartphones in general have a few distinctive traits that separate them from everyone else (Samsung, LG, HTC, Sony, etc).

They are:

1: square-ish app icons that resemble how apps look on iPhones

2: a few Chinese bloatware apps that send you unwanted notifications, and banner ads that fill up the whole screen should you open the app (some companies, like Xiaomi and Huawei, let you disable them forever - thank god)

3: the "pull down from the homescreen to search within the phone" thing that most people in the West associate with iPhones

and

4: giant batteries (1000 mAH usually larger than the batteries found on Samsung / LG / Apple / Sony / HTC phones) with very aggressive optimization settings that often break push notifications

The last one results in amazing battery life on Chinese phones. Of course, everyone outside of China would probably sacrifice a bit of battery life for a phone with working notifications. And while I can not speak for the likes of Oppo Gionee or, I can say that Xiaomi's phones, even with the battery unnecessarily strict optimization option turned off, still have insanely good battery life. Like, you-can-leave-your-house-and-9am-and-come-home-and-midnight-with -50% -Battery life good.

I've been using the Xiaomi Mi Mix as my daily driver all week, but today was the first day I really pushed the phone's battery limits. I unplugged the phone and 10am, stepped out of the house and then had a full day out that included streaming Spotify for an hour, playing Zynga Poker for another two hours (requires data), watched a bit of YouTube, took a bunch of photos , used Google Maps to navigate, and even right now, as I'm typing this at 1 am 34, I have 41% left on my battery.  

I've used something like 15 different color as my daily driver over the past year and this type of battery life is unheard of for me. When I used my Motorola V10 last year, I'd start the day on a similar schedule and by 7pm I'd be down to 10%. With the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, I'd need to recharge the battery by 8 or 9pm. My Mix Mi still has 41% battery left. At this rate, I'll go to bed with the phone unplugged, wake up tomorrow and probably make it to well almost dinner time before the phone gives out.

And I want to reiterate that I'm getting this type of battery life after shutting down all of the battery optimization settings in Xiaomi's software, the MIUI. I even went into developer mode and turned off memory optimization (basically, this let all apps run in the background without interference), because it was the only way to fix the broken push notifications.

On top of this, I have also been using the app Glance Plus, which brings something similar to the Always On display found on Nokia and Samsung phones to my Mi Mix. This, of course, eats up extra battery because it effectively leaves on my phone's screen.

After all that I'm still getting four hours of screen on time ... with 41% battery left. That means I'm on pace for like seven or eight hours of screen on time.

And this is not just the Mi Mix and its 4,400 mAH battery. On my Mi Note 2 , I've been using the phone for a few hours gaming and so far I've racked up three hours of screen on time, and my battery is at 65%. 

Bravo, Xiaomi, bravo.