Mobes 'n' mattresses flinger Xiaomi growing like the clappers – outside China, at least

Xiaomi smartphones

I have a small Xiaomi smartphone (Redmi 4x).

So far,it has behaved well, specially given the price of about us$200 for a an 1.4 GHz octacore, 32 GB RAM, 3 GB internal, 5" capacitive touchscreen .

Not a *great* phone, but it works and is cheap.

R

Very happy phone and Stratos watch user here.

Wanted a rice cooker but it wouldn't fit in my luggage.

Poco

Just bought a Pocophone - great name :D

Seems OK. If I get tired of the MIUI customized Android, Xiaomi apparently make it relatively easy to unlock it and stick LineageOS on.

Owned multiple Xiaomi phones, and...

continue to recommend them.

Step dad recently bought one to replace his Samsung and is really happy with it.

SWMBO NEARLY bought one, but let a friend talk her into a Huawei P20 Pro instead.

They are selling so well because

a/ they are well made

b/ the spec is as good as many more expensive phones (with 1 or 2 minor omissions)

c/ they keep pushing out software and firmware updates

My oldest Note1 (3G), is all but dead after my 5 y/o broke the USB port (again), it is as old as she is, and was still getting updates, even though the only way to charge it is to take the battery out and use an external charger (which I got for free when ordering a new £2.50 battery for it).

I don't have one but know people who have and they speak highly of their purchases. Usually the complements are focussed on vlaue for money and these are peope who see their phone as a tool not a statement.

Redmi Note 5 Pro

I've had the Redmi Note 5 Pro for about a year. The reason I bought it was becuase I dropped my S7 Edge and the cost of an eBay screen was about the same as the Redmi.

For the money they are brilliant. I have a few minor bug bears, the touch screen is not quite as sensitive as the Samsung, the auto brightness is a little dark for my liking (there is no adjustment factor) and worst of all permissions. The pre-installed Apps require stupid levels of permission and ignore the default Apps setup on the phone. My example here is that Gallery works fine, you try and open a video, it ignores that VLC is set as the default video App and insists on using MiVideo. The downside to MiVideo? It requires 'phone' permissions to play a video. It states 'needs IMEI for security', somehow I doubt a video player needs to access my phone at all.

Even with the minor issues, I would still buy another Redmi. Maybe it's the fact I am from Yorkshire, but I just can't justify £1000+ on a device anymore. I own 4 cars and I could have bought 3 of them for the cost of latest Samsung.

Video players

Most video players use the "phone" permissions to pause the video when you have an incoming call. Whether that is all they use the permissions for is another matter.