Xiaomi Mi 5 Review

PROS

• Looks great
• Plenty of high-end specs
• Lovely screen
• Quick, detailed camera
• Super cheap

CONS

• Have to import it
• Camera struggles in low light
• Skin is nothing like Android 6.0

 

KEY FEATURES

• 5.15-inch 1080p display
• Snapdragon 820
• 4GB RAM
• 32GB internal storage
• USB Type-C with Quick Charge 3.0
• Curved Gorilla Glass back
• Fingerprint sensor
• NFC
• 16MP camera
• Manufacturer: Xiaomi
• Review Price: £275.00

WHAT IS THE XIAOMI MI 5?

The Samsung Galaxy S7, LG G5 and HTC 10 are all great phones. No doubt about it. But, they're also expensive. You'll need to shell out at least £500 to buy each device outright or pay £40 a month as part of contract. But what if you could get a handset with a similar spec for hundreds of pounds less?

The Xiaomi Mi 5 is just that phone. It has the same CPU as the HTC 10, a camera with the same megapixel count as the LG G5 and a design similar to the beautiful Galaxy S7. Yet it can be had for just £275.

It sounds like the perfect deal. And in many ways it is. The Xiaomi Mi 5 is a fantastic phone, with one major downside. It's not on sale in the UK, or Europe or even the USA. And it probably never will be. If you want this phone then you'll have to import it.

XIAOMI MI 5 – DESIGN

If you’ve caught sight of any images of the latest slew of high-end phones from Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei and Oppo, it won’t come as any surprise that the Xiaomi Mi 5 is a beautifully crafted piece of kit.

Like the Samsung Galaxy S7, the Mi 5 is a mix of aluminium and Gorilla Glass 4. There isn’t a hint of plastic anywhere – antenna lines aside – and it’s an exceptionally well put together device.

The sides of the rear curve slightly – like the Galaxy S7 – and this makes all the difference to how comfortable the phone feels in your palm.

The front is equally sleek, with a reflective "Mi" logo on the top, alongside the front-facing camera, and an elongated home button sitting below the 5.1-inch display. That single button has an embedded fingerprint sensor inside it, which is fast – really fast.

In my tests, the phone was quicker than both the HTC 10 and Samsung Galaxy S7 and on a par with the Huawei P9. It’s accurate, too, failing to recognise my digit only once in around 20 attempts. Although it's an actual physical button that can be pressed down, it’s capacitive, meaning you can simply touch it to get back to the homescreen.

Xiaomi is playing up the almost bezel-less nature of this phone. And yes, while there is very little space between the edges of the phone and the screen, there’s quite a large black bar running around the display that spoils the illusion somewhat. In reality, the Mi 5 has about the same amount of bezel as the HTC 10.

However, when you consider that the big selling point of this device is its low cost when compared to other flagship phones – it retails for between £275 and £390 on Gearbest.com – the fit and finish on offer here is impressive.

The feel of the metal isn't quite as good as that on the Galaxy S7, and it appears ever so slightly hollow and flimsy, but these are minor issues. In fact, it feels far superior than the odd "metal that feels like plastic" build of the LG G5.

If I’m being really picky, I'd say that the Xiaomi Mi 5 is too light. On unboxing the handset, I thought it was missing a replaceable battery as it was so light; this wasn't the case. I prefer phones that have reassuring heft; the Mi 5 feels like it might turn to dust if it were to accidentally drop to the floor.

XIAOMI MI 5 – DISPLAY

When you consider that the Xiaomi Mi 5 is mostly fitted out with high-end components, it may be surprising to learn that the 5.15-inch display is merely a 1080p panel rather than the retina-slicing quad-HD variety you’ll find on the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and HTC 10.

Does this make a huge difference on a screen of this size? Not really. The LCD IPS display is impressive, and if I'd been told that it had a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution as opposed to 1,920 x 1,080 then I'd probably have believed it.

Pixels are indistinguishable from each other, and since it's an IPS panel viewing angles are actually far better than the AMOLED of the Samsung Galaxy S7. There’s also no pinkish tinge when you tilt the device to the side, something I found quite common on the HTC 10.

The display is superb to look at, offering punchy colours that are saturated and bright – but not overly so. Reds are accurately represented, rather than being almost luminous, and blacks are inky and deep. Whites look great, too, with no sign of any muddiness creeping in.

It might lack some of the vibrancy you’d get with an AMOLED panel, but you'll truly only notice this if you have multiple phones lined up next to one another.

XIAOMI MI 5 – PERFORMANCE

Instead of making only a single model of the Mi 5, Xiaomi is offering a few variations, each with a slightly different internal spec. For instance, the base model on review here comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 CPU paired with a respectable 3GB of RAM and 32GB internal storage.

Next in line is a 64GB model with the same CPU and RAM, but with a slightly higher clock speed. Finally, there’s the Xiaomi Mi 5 Pro with a beastly 128GB of internal storage, 4GB of RAM and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 with an even higher clock speed. Considering the high-end model will still only set you back £380, it’s a pretty strong deal.

However, I can’t say that I've been particularly clamouring for the extra gig of RAM or faster clock speed. Even the base model of the Mi5 is an absolute powerhouse. That top-end Snapdragon CPU paired with more than enough RAM and a lower-resolution display than the competition combines to make one of the fastest phones on the market.

The Mi 5 speakers are poor, with heavy distortion

It will handle anything you throw at it with ease, even intensive gaming. The Adreno 530 GPU can manage pretty much any title – from Hitman Sniper and Real Racing to Monument Valley – and will run it without lag and dropped frames.

It manages to do all this without ever becoming hot, or even slightly warm for that matter.

In our usual suite of benchmarking tests, the Mi 5 excelled beyond its modest price. It scored 4,722 in the multi-score test and 1,919 in the single-core version, which puts it just behind the Huawei P9 and the HTC 10. Again, in AnTuTu it scored admirably with 111,215. That's higher than the Huawei P9 (98,000) but well below the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge (128,000).

If there's one issue with the Mi 5 then it's the speaker, which is incredibly poor. While the handset may appear to have dual speakers on the bottom, only one actually pumps out sound. The other, I assume, is a microphone. Music sounds distorted, even at low volumes, and there's no bass or detail in vocals. It will be sufficient for your morning alarm, but certainly not for anything else.

During my testing I was using a UK SIM on Three. Even though it's an import device, 4G worked fine and call quality was decent. As mentioned, although the loudspeaker produces distorted sound, the microphones pick up my voice with crisp quality.

4G will work in the UK, but, as a result of the bands used on the device, you'll be limited to 3G speeds on US networks.

XIAOMI MI 5 – SOFTWARE

I often feel like a broken record when talking about software on Chinese phones. Whether it’s Huawei, Meizu or Oppo, the issue remains that all feel the need to tinker and change Android so much that it’s almost unrecognisable from Google’s creation.

Xiaomi, however, takes this to another level. The Mi 5 runs Marshmallow 6.0, and the phone can be shipped with the Google Play Store installed, but if you didn’t already know then you'd the handset featured a custom piece of software designed by Xiaomi.

There isn’t the faintest hint of Google’s Material Design here: no app-drawer, a completely different notification shade and settings app, and a whole new way of multitasking. The experience is more akin to iOS than Android.

It isn't ugly – a word I'd use to describe Huawei’s EMUI. In fact, much of it is actually quite nice.

The frosted notification shade, the simple yet functional native apps, and the clean settings sheet are all well done. However, if you’re coming from another Android device, especially the Nexus 6P, then it will feel like stepping into the unknown.

You can, of course, install a custom launcher and this will bring back the sacred app drawer – but it won’t change much else.

Most important is that the custom skin, which Xiaomi calls MIUI, actually works. It’s quick, it isn't full of bugs and it appears to play nice even when you begin installing a number of Google apps. There are frequent pushes to set up a Mi Account – which requires you to input your mobile number – and you’ll have to do this to use any of the custom themes, but it isn’t mandatory.

If you’re picking up a Mi 5 expecting a pure Android experience, then this isn’t the phone for you. However, I've been using it for a few weeks now and I’m not as annoyed by it as I expected to be.

I'd have liked to be able to use Google Now on Tap – which is completely unsupported – and the multi-tasking view is only a single line of icons; but these are my only two real big issues.

Note that issues may arise when Android N launches later this year, in terms of whether or not this phone receives an update. It's difficult to know, although other Chinese manufacturers have always been slow to get their phones on to the latest version of Android.

XIAOMI MI 5 – CAMERA

Like much of the Xiaomi Mi 5, the camera outshines what you'd expect at this price.

On the rear of the handset you'll find a 16-megapixel Sony IMX298 sensor, coated in sapphire glass and packing optical image stabilisation. In terms of megapixel count, that's more than both the Samsung Galaxy S7 and iPhone 6S, and on par with the LG G5.

But how does it perform? Actually, very well. The camera app is super-fast and packs a well-rounded manual mode, while daylight shots are almost universally fantastic. Colours are vibrant and there's plenty of detail.

As you can see from the examples below, bright colours do have a tendency to look a little oversaturated – take the leaf, for example – but whether or not this is an issue is a matter of personal taste. For most, the photos will look superb.

There's plenty of detail in landscape shots, with strong colours

Macro shots look impressive, too. Plus, those funky, blurry-background bokeh-style shots are easily achievable. Unlike the Huawei P9, though, you don't need to jump into a special mode for this to take effect.

Macro pictures look great, with a nice blurry background

That's not to say that there aren't an excess of novelty options, because there are. There's one for capturing fisheye-style shots and another for beautifying your subject; both produce mediocre-looking results.

Low-light shots are less impressive, but they're still much better than those produced by other phones in this price range.

The four-axis optical image stabilisation – the majority of phones still use two axis – keeps things steady, but there's still plenty of distortion around light sources and details.

As you can see in the below image, some of the light sources are wildly over-exposed, and there's just a general blurriness to the snap. It's still quite bright, though, which is down to the wide f/2.0 aperture that allows plenty of light into the sensor.

4K video looks pretty decent, aided by that improved OIS. It's steady, smooth and packed with detail. The 60fps, 1080p looks even better – obviously, it isn't quite as sharp – and that's the one I'd tend to go for.

Around the front you'll find an 8-megapixel sensor that takes fantastic selfies. It can't quite compete with the HTC 10, but it's still one of the best out there.

It's nice and wide for cramming in multiple faces, but it does feature an odd mode that likes to take a guess at how old I am, and then insists on covering me up with a beauty filter. According to Mi 5, I'm a 25-year-old female – which I might just take as a compliment.

XIAOMI MI 5 – BATTERY LIFE

Another strong area for the Xiaomi Mi 5 is its battery life. The 3,000mAh non-removable cell tucked under that glass back has managed to easily get me through the day, normally with about 10-15% to spare – even with intensive use.

I managed to drain it completely only on a single occasion, and that was when I installed around 50 or so apps.

A 30-minute gaming session playing Hitman Sniper eats through 13%, while a less-intensive title such as Monument Valley consumes around 8-9%. An hour of Spotify streaming on my commute takes up around 5%, which is quite impressive and on a par with other phones with a 3,000mAh battery.

All in all, the Mi 5 should get you from morning to bedtime without having to reach for the charging cable. But it won’t go for multiple days. This isn’t a phablet; nor is it the Moto X Force.

On the bottom of the phone is a USB Type-C port, taking the place of the once standard micro-USB. This is good news, especially since USB-C is finally starting to break into the mainstream.

That USB Type-C port also utilises Quick Charge 3.0, so even when you do hit the red you’ll jump back to 100% super-fast. It juices up fully in about an hour, but you’ll get to 60% in just over 30 minutes.

SHOULD YOU BUY THE XIAOMI MI 5?

With its fantastic array of high-end parts, the Mi 5 is a superb option. The package is only made sweeter by the its low price.

The Xiaomi Mi 5 is around £300 cheaper than rival devices – such as the Galaxy S7 and HTC 10 – that run on similar hardware . Yet, it doesn’t feel like it. While it may not be quite as sturdy as those higher priced phones, it performs just as well.

However, you won't be able to simply stroll into a Carphone Warehouse, plonk down £275 and walk out with Xiaomi Mi 5. You'll need to import it, and even then it hasn’t been built for UK or US networks, and support if things go wrong isn’t clear-cut.

Those willing to accept this, and the fact that the software is more like iOS than Android, may just pick up what might be the best-value phone of the year.

OVERALL SCORE

SCORES IN DETAIL

• Battery Life8
• Calls & Sound7
• Camera7
• Design8
• Performance9
• Screen Quality9
• Software7
• Value10