Posted 12 hours ago
Can we talk about Xiaomi?
Ended up with a Xiaomi today and I'm seriously seriously impressed. Why are we still buying into the joke of Apple and Samsung? Why did I not know about this sooner??
As an added bonus to their price, the device comes with a screen protector pre-installed and case.
Was all the negative press about data privacy a hoax by the big players? I read the data privacy and it seems like they are genuinely collecting data to improve their devices... What's the catch??
As an added bonus to their price, the device comes with a screen protector pre-installed and case.
Was all the negative press about data privacy a hoax by the big players? I read the data privacy and it seems like they are genuinely collecting data to improve their devices... What's the catch??
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39 Comments
sorted byMy youngest son has an old Xiaomi hand me down, i usually buy Samsung and my wife loves Apple. You get what you pay for, if you want budget you can't beat the Samsung A series.
You can also get great deals on Samsung bringing the price way below RRP. My S24 Ultra 512GB cost me £660 (without trade in). (edited)
I believe I was given this Xiaomi for a reason, and I wrote about this phone because I could end up with 10 phones in the next few years because of this experience!
I guess really and truly what I learnt yesterday, is I don't need the highest end flagship phone, I may actually be better off living with A series from now on. This is going to be interesting, but I will be after an S22 in a while 🤭
Xiaomi has been big news on HUKD for many years!
But there is a large Group of people running their own software anyhow, but that means tinkering around yourself and not everyone wants that. (edited)
Apple don't really do budget, so top tier Android is a closer comparison.
I have nothing against the Chinese brands. I was very happy with Huawei/Honor and ZTE phones I’ve had in the past, and have a TCL TV, Haier kitchen appliances etc… But adverts embedded in the OS put me off Xiaomi altogether from then onwards.
Ultimately I ended up with iPhone by chance for my first time since the 3GS after that experience, and stuck with it ever since. (edited)
HUKDs is full of Chinese phone deals. Dozens are posted a week.
I believe Huawei was shut down simply because they became too big a threat to Samsung, Google, Apple, etc. Everyone who had the P30 Pro or the Mate 20 remembers it fondly.
The thing behind the shutdown was that there was concern that the infrastructure could expose information to other countries - in this case China. There's a similar concern building in parts of the more sensational press at the moment about Chinese car manufacturers at the moment.
But there are one or two things that were a bit strange about the Huawei thing. Firstly, is the fact that (iirc), Huawei used to have a centre which worked with GCHQ so they could show there are no security issues in the software for infrastructure. (Again, iirc, the only thing they concluded was the quality of the software was poor). The second thing is that the backdoor in infrastructure also applies to some other countries, as some US companies have the same issue where they can be requested to provide access for Government agencies - the difference being the US is regarded as friendly.
For me, it's because of the seamless echosystem.
I've been on the brand for years now after samsung wouldn't fix one of my phones that burnt out the charge port and sent me a "voucher" to cover help getting a new phone. Have used a samsung after using one of these Chinese brands and would never go back
Can't really remember the set up with the former as it was some years ago but with the Note 10 Pro I had a bit of a rigmarole blocking ads and tweaking settings, getting rid of bloatware, more than Chinese brand phones I've had, say, ZTE, Huawei (even my current Honor).
It's probably minor for most but if you're really not into phones and want them to 'just work' this aspect might be a slight pain.
Allowing ads no doubt helps keep their devices budget-friendly but it's very user-unfriendly! (edited)
The community in Germany and also here in UK has been loving Xiaomi as a price value killer. In the beginning alot of this was also down to chinese brands simply not paying all the license fees some other brands had to pay. Since the international launch of Xiaomi prices have gone up but now all licenses are paid.
What i specifically find amazing that nearly all products of them are high quality at a great price. Can you find better products, for sure. Can you find cheaper products, also for sure. But finding better price value is hard.
I also have to say though that their clear brand proposition has been washed out a bit with soo many products from so many categories.
And in the phone market there are now also other strong competitors (that are not Samsung/Apple) - Oneplus (Part of Oppo another chinese brand) with their new flagship phone Oneplus 12 killing Google and Samsung (in terms of price value) and what many dont know, but Poco that is killing it as well, is a subbrand of Xiaomi.
But the one im most curious about will be the new car - looking like a porsche taycan starting at 30k USD (of course international prices will be very different again - but still):
reuters.com/bus…28/ (edited)
Edit - Sorry if I wasn't clear about my moan. Biggest hurdle for me switching from Apple is the lack of equal video capabilities in another phone. I can live without everything else, just not the video capturing. (edited)
£179 black friday 2020
5g... 6gb ram 64 storage but sd card and headphone slot
HDR display
33w charging (edited)
This is what makes the world such a nice place to live. The ability to have your own opinion. 😄