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Xiaomi Products (including Xiaomi Mi 9 phone)

UnderAnOpenSky said:
My bad. I heard they were doing a simplified version for lower spec phones and assumed it was this.
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No worries. Have you seen the spec, as well?

8-core CPU
4GB RAM
5.5 inch full HD screen with Gorilla Glass 3
64GB storage
SD card slot
Dual rear 12MP cameras
5MP front camera
3080mAh battery with fast charge
Dual SIM
Headphone jack
Fingerprint reader
Metal body

It's a beast for £180 quid or whatever it is.
 
Fez909 said:
Tempted by one of these: How to buy Xiaomi's new Android One phone in the UK

A Xioami without MUIU or any of that global ROM nonsense - pure Android + Google apps. Basically a Nexus with a few customised apps.
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Have one. It's great. It's honestly changed my opinion of cheap phones. Not perfect, but it's hard to justify having spent twice as much on my Honor 8 when there's effectively no real difference.
 
Chz said:
Have one. It's great. It's honestly changed my opinion of cheap phones. Not perfect, but it's hard to justify having spent twice as much on my Honor 8 when there's effectively no real difference.
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So you are saying that the phones manufactured in the East are the same as phones people in the West pay a lot more for?
 
Badgers said:
So you are saying that the phones manufactured in the East are the same as phones people in the West pay a lot more for?
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What? Aren't they all manufactured within a few hundred miles of each other? But that's simplifying a bit much. If this was two years ago, buying a Xiaomi phone would involve flashing a new custom ROM to get the Google Play store and even then it wouldn't support certain frequencies in the UK so you'd have to be careful with your provider.

For a long time, all cheap phones really were quite rubbish. We've only recently reached a point where the cheap chipsets are actually decent enough to qualify as a "good" experience. I can barely tell the difference in day-to-day use between the A1 and the Honor 8, and I certainly can't tell between that and something more expensive.
 
Chz said:
Have one. It's great. It's honestly changed my opinion of cheap phones. Not perfect, but it's hard to justify having spent twice as much on my Honor 8 when there's effectively no real difference.
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Where did you buy it and did you avoid import fees etc?
 
Fez909 said:
Where did you buy it and did you avoid import fees etc?
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Well, I had good experience with Gearbest so I thought I'd try Banggood. Can't say it was a fun experience - it took about a month and a half to get here and after I received it the "tracker" ID still said it was lost in the post somewhere. At least Gearbest has the option to ship from the EU in return for a little extra on the price. It did skip import fees, but I'd have rather paid the extra from one of GB's EU warehouses and got it before Christmas (despite ordering it November 19th). Or at least before Mrs. Chz's birthday on Jan 7th.
 
Saul Goodman said:
I think he may have been doing sarcasm.
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I just couldn't understand if he meant the manufacturing company, or the phones themselves. I mean, they all come out of some hellhole in China, but the Chinese brands were a total crapshoot in quality and usability before the past year. Maybe a pass for Huawei before then, but they've always had grander ambitions in terms of selling to Westerners. It's a combination of the low-end becoming "good enough" and the Chinese market being able to afford more things that aren't low-end.
 
Chz said:
I just couldn't understand if he meant the manufacturing company, or the phones themselves. I mean, they all come out of some hellhole in China, but the Chinese brands were a total crapshoot in quality and usability before the past year. Maybe a pass for Huawei before then, but they've always had grander ambitions in terms of selling to Westerners. It's a combination of the low-end becoming "good enough" and the Chinese market being able to afford more things that aren't low-end.
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Chinese phones aren't anything like what most people think they are.
Xiaomi have been making excellent phones for years. At least as good as the offerings we get here from the major brands, but at a fraction of the price.
So long as I can buy a phone from China that outperforms a Samsung @ two or three times the price, I'll be buying from China.
 
Saul Goodman said:
Chinese phones aren't anything like what most people think they are.
Xiaomi have been making excellent phones for years. At least as good as the offerings we get here from the major brands, but at a fraction of the price.
So long as I can buy a phone from China that outperforms a Samsung @ two or three times the price, I'll be buying from China.
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Nah, I played with a Mi 5. Not bad, but not Apple or Samsung (or LG or HTC, for that matter) either. And that's before the whole "flash a new ROM, sideload the Google Store, does it work on your frequencies?" nonsense. Their new stuff is solid though. It's that feeling of "it's not going to break if I squeeze it funny" that they've finally nailed. Though I will grant that way back in the mists of time the ZTE Blade was also a really good phone. (Anyone else remember the Orange San Francisco?)

Also, I'm pretty sure that so long as you exclude the last year's models that they've forgotten to reduce the price on there aren't any phones anywhere that outperform things 3x their price. Half? Sure. 3x? Never. Because they're all buying Qualcomm, and that's the deciding factor there. Only Huawei, Apple, and Samsung roll their own silicon, and none of them are interested in giving you a discount on it. Would be interesting to see Huawei or Samsung sell their SoCs to third parties. Might shake things up a bit. All the other SoC players have been unable to produce a "Big" core that doesn't drain the battery in an hour flat, so you only see them in cheap tablets. (Mediatek, Allwinner, Rockchip, etc...)
 
Chz said:
Nah, I played with a Mi 5. Not bad, but not Apple or Samsung (or LG or HTC, for that matter) either. And that's before the whole "flash a new ROM, sideload the Google Store, does it work on your frequencies?" nonsense. Their new stuff is solid though. It's that feeling of "it's not going to break if I squeeze it funny" that they've finally nailed. Though I will grant that way back in the mists of time the ZTE Blade was also a really good phone. (Anyone else remember the Orange San Francisco?)

Also, I'm pretty sure that so long as you exclude the last year's models that they've forgotten to reduce the price on there aren't any phones anywhere that outperform things 3x their price. Half? Sure. 3x? Never. Because they're all buying Qualcomm, and that's the deciding factor there. Only Huawei, Apple, and Samsung roll their own silicon, and none of them are interested in giving you a discount on it. Would be interesting to see Huawei or Samsung sell their SoCs to third parties. Might shake things up a bit. All the other SoC players have been unable to produce a "Big" core that doesn't drain the battery in an hour flat, so you only see them in cheap tablets. (Mediatek, Allwinner, Rockchip, etc...)
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I'm sorry but I have an Mi5s here, and it's every bit as good as a Samsung, if not better.
I have no idea where you're getting this sideloading Google Playstore nonsense but it is nonsense. The phone came with the play store installed, as has every xiaomi phone I've owned, and everything worked flawlessly out of the box.
The only reason you'd flash a new ROM on a Xiaomi phone is if you wanted to do away with MIUI, but if we're thinking of reasons not to stick with original ROMs, then there's no greater argument than Samsung, and its massively bloatware ridden ROMs.
I'm currently using a Xiaomi Mi6. At the time I purchased it, it was just over 1/3 the price of a Galaxy S8, and it uses the same SoC (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835) as the Galaxy S8... and, performance wise:


27807406209_c5cc79f016_b.jpg
 
Nonsense, you were lucky. The stats on the Mi5 show it was... let's be generous and say not the most well built device. It has a reputation out there for fragility and overheating. Reviews didn't pick that up, but user experience afterwards has been quite loud about both.

And much as I don't like Samsung's UI, comparing from MIUI is throwing stones in glass houses. I left out such comparisons for a reason.

And I'm going to just say "I don't believe you" about the price thing. The S8 was available for £600 within a week of launch, and if you got the Mi6 for £200 that's not what 99% of people got it for.

On the ROM side, I admit it's either sideload or flash for the early ones. Certainly when I looked at them, there was no option for a working Google image from the factory. I know that's been fixed at some point, but I didn't realise the Mi5 got it as well as the Mi6.

Eh, what does it matter? They make good phones now, and I own one. :)
 
It's about 2 years since I bought the Mi5s. I've never had a single issue with it, but I'm sure if you type the model of any phone into Google, and add 'overheating' or 'battery drain' to the search, you'll find results for pretty much every phone. Mine barely gets warm.

I'm not comparing the Samsung UI to MIUI. You said you need to flash a new ROM if you buy a Xiaomi. I assumed you meant because you don't like its UI. If I was mistaken, can you explain why you'd need to flash a new ROM?

I paid €295 for the Mi6 on preorder/prerelease. The cheapest S8 was €800 at the time (in Ireland). That's not much over 1/3 of the price.

I just tested both the Mi5s and the Mi6 on the latest Antutu benchmark, and both of them beat their respective Samsung Galaxy SX competitors hands down.

40033381925_9bf900fafb_z.jpg
40033380975_70189a8625_z.jpg


They're a very long way from the crappy phones some people seem to think they are, and every bit as good as the best offerings from the top name brands.
 
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07DPWSSYW?tag=22

Tempted

Currently using an old and battered Samsung Galaxy Note 4 which is starting to turn itself off and other similar annoyances.

The cost of £170 for this Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 (E7s) (Hybrid Dual SIM) 64GB is very good compared to the £50 a month I paid (for TWO YEARS with contract)

Am I losing out anyway moving from Samsung (been a long time) to Xiaomi?
 
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Badgers said:
Am I losing out anyway moving from Samsung (been a long time) to Xiaomi?
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In my opinion, not in the slightest. I've owned lots of both Samsung and Xiaomi phones, and I'd never buy another Samsung. I've had too many problems with them in the past, and I think with the amount of unwanted shite that's pre-installed on Samsung phones, they should be giving them away for free.
 
Badgers said:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07DPWSSYW?tag=22

Tempted

Currently using an old and battered Samsung Galaxy Note 4 which is starting to turn itself off and other similar annoyances.

The cost of £170 for this Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 (E7s) (Hybrid Dual SIM) 64GB is very good compared to the £50 a month I paid (for TWO YEARS with contract)

Am I losing out anyway moving from Samsung (been a long time) to Xiaomi?
Click to expand...
Same manufacturer, but for that price I'd rather have the Mi A2 Lite because it's stock Android and you'll get Google's monthly security patches.
 
AirPods are great. They feel very comfortable and have a great battery life, and just work. You can't even see them under a hat.

These Xiaomi ones however make the same mistake as most of the other competitors, with those horrible rubbery ends which block your ear canal and virtually all external sounds.
 
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skyscraper101 said:
AirPods are great. They feel very comfortable and have a great battery life, and just work. You can't even see them under a hat.

These Xiaomi ones however make the same mistake as most of the other competitors, with those horrible rubbery ends which block your ear canal and virtually all external sounds.
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Most people would consider that a good thing for sound quality. Apple's earbuds have historically been horrible on that front.

If you want to hear outside sound as well as your music, get those bone induction things that the cyclists use.
 
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