Hello guys (again)!
Being in the USA means that there is no official Xiaomi retailer selling Xiaomi phones, and that means that you are on your own in the USA. Buying a phone there is risky and I want to know how reliable they are if I have an issue.
Relying on the subreddit is unreliable at times, and if something went *really* wrong, I can’t do anything to fix it…
I want to trust Xiaomi, but being a American means that I can’t get any support from them, so please tell me what the average life of a Xiaomi phone is and what issues I can expect to face during that time.
Edit: Woke up at 10:30 AM to see you guys with the comments and YOU HAVE BEEN VERY SUPPORTIVE! Thank you all with your own insights and experiences with Xiaomi, and I’ve learned about things that I wouldn’t have normally if I had looked further on the Internet.
I’ve had more problems with Google apps than the phones software. Otherwise, mine runs great. I’ve even been able to replace the glass back myself twice (both times my fault).
I see… are you American?
I’ve used Xiaomi phones for several years, tried them because if you buy Xiaomi phones a bit behind the cutting edge, you get a quality phone for a snip of a price.
I’m writing this on a Note 4, it’s been virtually my only computer for about three years and I’m on it much of every day. The battery life still amazes me.
I drop this phone frequently, at least a hundred times in total, but it doesn’t seem to care at all.
This is the first phone I’ve had with no screen protector, but the screen looks perfect after a lot of use.
It cost me less than two hundred bucks to buy this phone new and unlocked (through Banggood). At that price I can keep a spare new phone in my desk, a spare for me or a gift for others in need of a phone. I’ve made a few converts to Xiaomi among family and friends.
Yup, Texas. I have the Mi 9 running the global MIUI.
I haven’t had any issues with MIUI. I use Google’s apps though, but didn’t have any issues using Xiaomi’s for the short time I did.
The only thing that’s had me considering buying something else is because Xiaomi doesn’t have all of T-Mobile’s bands, which I haven’t run into big problems with since the 9 seems to have all the necessary ones (2, 4, 12, and recently I’ve noticed my city got band 5).
But I would like to see how well things ran if I had all of T-Mobile’s bands and 5G.
Try not being an American
Alright, European with family ties to the US here. I visit frequently for that reason.
Let’s see how non-biased this subreddit is, I’m bracing for downvotes:
**Don’t!**
As amazing as the price/performance of most Xiaomi devices is – you’d have to be at least a little bit nuts to even consider one as an American.
Before you even talk about reliability, have you at least looked into band support?
There are few OEMs limiting band support more than Xiaomi, the cheaper the phone, the fewer bands are generally supported. I don’t think there’s a single Xiaomi phone on the market that supports all bands of any GSM network in the US, but some don’t even support the more vital ones, especially the ones not meant for the global market.
I hesitated getting a Poco F2 Pro because I might spend 4-8 weeks in the US over the next 2-3 years (should they ever get the pandemic under control there) and you want to deal with coverage issues due to lack of band support for the entire life of the phone?
And that doesn’t even cover the restrictive, whitelist-based VoLTE compatibility of most US carriers which is likely to cause further issues.
Alright, let’s assume you know what you’re getting into and looked up what bands you’re likely to encounter in your daily commute and travel and can accept that you are likely to encounter coverage issues more often than with phones designed for the US market… let’s try to answer your actual question:
Xiaomi’s quality control is good but far from perfect. They *do* have slightly more quality control issues than more premium brands like Samsung or Apple and Xiaomi has been known to use multiple suppliers for the same part of the same type of phone with sometimes less than desirable results. So, yeah, there’s definitely a chance you’ll be getting a dud. Phones will rarely be entirely defective, but issues with individual parts aren’t completely outside of the norm.
I have gambled on imports of budget phones in the past (and won each time), but I don’t think I would do that with a current daily driver.
Chances are very high that you’ll be getting a decent, functional phone. But if you can’t spare the money in case things go wrong, I truly wouldn’t do it.
I have a Xiaomi redmi note 7, I have drooped it many times, I once even step on it and bend it( I am 6,4 ), I put it with music while I take showers, I honestly treat this cellphone as if I don’t what happens to it… And so far this is a work horse, it doesn’t complain, what its made for it does well and for some reason I haven’t cracked the glass back or front( and it’s bend )
I would definitely recommend this brand, or at least this model.
I’m going to be totally honest, I have dropped my phone more times I would like to admit and it’s super solid. I’m always going to keep one as a backup.
Thing is, that most likely you gonna post somewhere bad opinion than good one, especially when you are not forced with notification etc. If you treat your device good, there is high chance it’s gonna serve you for a long time without major problems or until an accident. I don’t have Xiaomi phone yet, but I recommended one to a friend about half a year ago and he is still happy with it.
I have other Xiaomi and Xiaomi chain brands products which includes: electric scooter, smart band, screwdriver set, set of rechargeable batteries with charger, magnetic pad, backpack, toothbrush, fidget toys. So far all good and working way they suppose for a good price.
Most problems, if you do have any, will mostly be with software. Owned a Xiaomi in the US since as of this year, so far no problems only a few nit picks with MIUI.
They’re pretty reliable with updates. But for repairs you’re out of luck there, if you buy from a reliable seller on Amazon you should be good
Mi9 running in the UK . No problems solid phone.
My xiaomi phone’s tend to last 2-3 years.
The software sucks but god damn if the hardware isn’t reliable. I have had issues with only one Xiaomi phone in the past, my Redmi note 4, which had a few dead pixels in the beginning, and mysteriously died while charging (though that seems to have been an issue with the charger, since the board was burnt, and the charger didn’t work after that) .
So I’ve owned a few Xiaomi homes over the years (Redmi Note 3 , Redmi Note 5, and now Mi 9 Lite). All 3 phones still work and are pretty great , and MIUI seems to have gotten better with time.
I would just be wary of band support in the USA. I am Canadian and all the major LTE bands by my carrier are supported by Xiaomi global phones, but this isn’t the case for Americans.
My family has owned 5 phones from xiaomi. All of them last pretty long and had no issues other than the one with mediatek soc which pretty much just fried the phone. If you are concerned about reliability, I think that their phones are very reliable, but just don’t get the ones with the mediatek soc.
My mi mix 2s was a bit of a gamble, yes, but it cost half what an equivalent phone did. Still using it now.my only problem is wireless charging broke a few months ago. Great damn phone.
I don’t think Xiaomi is making anything as compatible as this phone right now though. It’s a bit of a bummer.
Edited to add: live in Florida, have driven across the country with this phone a few times. Love it.
I’m using the 9S and using Cricket, it doesn’t use all their bands, however it doesn’t matter because the area I’m in sucks. With my other phone, I had never gotten 4G in my area, but with the 9S I actually got 4G on rare occasions. I just wish I made enough money to switch to a different and better carrier because I do doordash for money.
If the T-Mobile coverage is good in your area, check out Mint Mobile or Ultra Mobile. Ultra has like a 50GB plan right now for $40 a month
My mom still uses an old redmi note 4 since 4 years ago.
It’s still running perfectly.
what i really hate is all the crappy Chinese software and the MIUI interface.
Also , the materials used on the phones are sorta cheap , paint goes easily and display glass is really fragile sou you must use some cover and a screen protector.
In general score i’d give the brand a total 8/10
-Software: 5.5/10 , MIUI tends to have some bugs and likes to mess things up.
-Design: 7/10 Most of Xiaomi phones don’t bring something fresh on their design.
-materials: 6/10 don’t expect premium or fancy materials
-Camera :7.5/10 ( must use 3rd party camera ( gcam)) , standard camera is really bad because it does some stuff on your skin , like a default Beauty mode .
– Battery: 9/10 4000mah is their standard , so it will last 2 days and give you 6-8 hours on screen time, but once again , it would last longer if MIUI optimización wasn’t that bad
And 0/10 most of their phones are not water resistant!!
Just do it. Almost every phone released in the U.S. is not manufactured in America anyways.
What are you on about? Yes they do
I partly agree with this. Although I have never had a Xiaomi phone fail on me (Mi 4, Redmi Note 5, Redmi 4a, Mi 5, Mi Mix 2, Redmi Note 9S, Redmi K30 5G Speed Edition), there is quite a number of complaints online. So it really pays to do your homework in terms of band support and after-sales availability. The cheaper models do have more issues and less support from online vendors so it might be better to opt for an equivalently priced phone offered locally.
I own Xiaomi phones since a lot of years (first Redmi Note 2 then Redmi Note 3 then Mi Note 2 and now Mi 9T), changed them because I needed more power/wanted something new, not because they were bad devices, they always did very well and never had any hardware issues with them 🙂
Don’t read such a subreddit to decide if a brand is safe, it’s like checking /r/roadcam to decide if roads are safe and finaly you will freak out just after few crashes videos. The idea is the same here, people who don’t have issues with their phones, won’t talk about them, so basicly you just see a subreddit just full of people having issues with their phones, that’s probably the same for every brand….
>Kimovil is super useful.
They are partially water resistant but they cheap out by not officially testing them. I already dropped my Mi Note 10 in the bathtub (filled with hot water), took out the phone and it worked. The only problem is that the phone thinks water is your finger so expect random swipes all around the screen.
I’m not saying you should take your Xiaomi phone with you every time you take a bath, but it most probably won’t hurt it. (every phone is built differently, the Redmi Note 4 might get problems from water while my Mi Note 10 doesn’t have any problems with it)
They have good coverage in my area, same with At&t but unfortunately Cricket refuses to allow me to have access to the 4G in my area despite the fact I’m paying these assholes more money than they deserve. Especially after they suspended my account WHILE I was working and AFTER they took my money demanding I pay $15-20. I tried to pay it that night and they said they aren’t available. I couldn’t even reach them until the next day because apparently their customer service is only available from 9am-9pm PST despite the fact their customer service is in India.
I have been thinking of switching though because I just hate how I’m constantly losing service in my area and it’s Cricket, not the phone.
Although I am not American an only recently bought a Xiaomi phone I have several friends who have used and enjoyed xiaomi’s offerings in the budget and midrange segments. One of my friends bought a (then around $130) Xiaomi Redmi note 3 and used it for a good five years without issues before upgrading. I’d recommend it.
I bought a Xiaomi phone once, as someone who lives in America. After 2 months it stopped turning on for some unknown reason during work. I tried everything, but their was literally no signs of life, bought a new battery for shits and giggles and no luck.
Edit: I Bought the pocophone.
i’ve been using Xiaomi phones for 7 years now, been to the service center only once.
Reliability 8/10
Canadian here, my Mi 9t pro is doing amazing with stock software still. Have dropped it a bunch of times with a light case on and it functions perfectly to this day, pop up camera and all (knock on wood)
You can encrypt the entire OS when the phone is off.
They do support encryption. In fact, it comes on by default.
Living in the USA
I’m on my 3rd Xiaomi phone
3 year each phone
Mi note
Mi max 2
Mi note 10
I really like them
Became a Xiaomi fan after my first phone
And been buying accessories from them too
Buy from a seller on Amazon or eBay
That way you can return it if something goes wrong
If you want a better miui, unlock your bootloader & put xiaomi eu
Buy the latest redmi note…… It’s better than any phone twice the price
I know. I’ve been using Pixel Experience since day one. And in most cases its more stable than MIUI. Just the other night I spent a couple hours guiding my friend through the install process for Pixel Experience on his Mediatek RN8Pro.
If you really don’t like MIUI, you can just unlock the bootloader and flash a custom ROM. It’s a bit of work but you get a phone with good specs for less money than the competition. I don’t really like MIUI too, but I love the hardware.
My Redmi Note 4 started ghost touching a little over a year, replaced LCD assembly then dropped it and cracked it, was working fine til I replaced it again.
My Amazfit Bip battery is dead also after a year.
Haven’t used my Xiaomi Robot Vacuum (1st gen) much so can’t tell on longetivity.
VERY RELIABLE! Me and my friends have owned hundreds of Xiaomi phones and i think i have a decent sample size here. From this experience, the only times any of us had to go to the store was to repair a broken screen (my phone has survived multiple falls without a screen guard and had remained scratchless. The only time i broke the screen was when the phone fell out of my pocket at 60km/h from a bike)
No battery issues. No hardware issues.
The only problem with Xiaomi is that the software and build quality (recent phones are far better). Im using MI 9T pro and it’s very good. I have used iphones and samsung and this was way better for the money i paid.
I can buy new phones faster as new features come out because it’s cheaper (but the phone will last 2 to 3 yrs no problem).
If you are buying an unofficial phone anyways you should (if its in your budget) go for a mi 10 ultra china version.
Side loading google play and stuff is easy and you can remove all bloatware (it’s english of course)
The biggest downside of xiaomi has always been the software because the notification menu and some other parts weren’t exactly beautiful in my opinion and more importantly it so many animations missing that were really noticable over other ui’s but that totally changed with miui 12.
The only downside is that it only receives wifi direct but can’t send files from it (and bluetooth is slow af)
As I said, I don’t think a “failed” phone will likely be an issue. It’s not impossible, but incredibly rare for any manufacturer these days
But a display with not insignificant uniformity, color or (at the lower end) light bleed issues, for example, that’s definitely a possibility. Xiaomi had the occasional touch input issues, especially at the lower end, for years. And if you’re going Mediatek, even internals can occasionally cause issues.
All of this is reasonably *rare* these days and I’m not even aware of widespread issues with any of the recent hardware.
But certainly not rare enough for me personal to gamble on imports.
With Xiaomi phones, problems typically can be solved by a lot of forums on the net. You’ll just really need support if you destroy the glass, which you can also fix by yourself
I’m in the UK and literally cracked a part off the circuit board of my Mi6 – still works!
As a technician Id say the quality of the internals are well made.
Holy f. $40 for 50 gb? In Romania you can get that for $5 at some carriers even unlimited internet for the same price.
$40 a month?? In the UK, unlimited data plans start at £18/month. Crazy how different the prices are.
>mediatek soc.
Bit of a noob here. What is that?
Does this apply to all of them or is it just very likely to have problems with mediatek? After k30 ultra was announced I havent had my eyes on any other phones and the amount of people saying they have problems with mediatek upsets me.
Their most popular phones are pretty reliable. I have used redmi note 3 for around 2 years and then upgraded. And now I currently use the note 5 pro for 2.5 years and it is still going strong. No hardware issues whatsoever.
No different from any other phone brand. If anything ive heard of more issues from Google. Remember the Nexus 5S bootloop? That was LG afaik
System on a chip, basically the heart of your phone. Snapdragon ones are used by good reputable brand. Mediatek is used by manufacturers who cheap out. Xiaomi does both, but be sure to always get the Snapdragon ones in Xiaomi phones
I got a good experience with the hardware, and loved miui 11.
however I’m using a custom ROM now, and it feels much better to me. maybe since you’re in the US a custom ROM could help if there restrictions due to region.
at least you can just unlock your bootloader without flashing anything to be able to reflash if software goes wrong.
I’ve been running my mix3 in the US since 2018. Runs fine. Scratch free.
I’d say to be safe I would go for a qualcomm soc. My redmi note 4 with the mediatek X20 runs very poorly and is very slow and it only lasted about 1.5 years before it became borderline unusable. My sister’s redmi note 4x with the snapdragon 625 lasted way longer and its still usable now, and it still feels quite smooth.
The performance of mediatek soc seem good in the first year or so but if you push it hard it will fall very quickly due to overheating. Even though thier benchmark scores would seem higher than the competition in the long term it has dropped significantly and runs slower than soc from qualcomm.
Mediatek might have improved, but I certainly won’t buy a phone from them until I’m sure that they have fixed their long term reliability issues.
Fell into a pool with mine. Works fine after some drying. I’ve had it for 2.5 years and it’s been quite good
I’m using a redmi pro 9. US carrier. Shit signal strength compared to other phones like Cubot (what ever that is?).
I should add it’s not waterproof in any way, as a matter of fact I turned it on too soon and it still had some water under the screen. It’s completely gone now, though
Hello! I’ve gotten my redmi note 9 about 1 week ago, and I have overheating problems already. It’s even worse when I have full-screen display on. From what I’ve heard, this is because of the mediatek cpu. So, you can go with a Xiaomi phone that has a Qualcomm cpu.
My GF and I have owned the Redmi Note 4, Redmi Note 5, and now we both have the Redmi 8a. The note 4 had an issue where the battery swelled to the point it started affecting the screen but I had the phone for 3 years and put it through hell honestly. It had been dropped more times than I can count, water damaged and just straight abused lol. I’m surprised it lasted that long. My 2yo daughter threw the note 5 in the toilet and it lasted for a day or so before it quit working. So far so good with the 8a’s. I think for the price, Xiaomi would hard to compete with. I definitely recommend.
I’m honestly surprised that RN8Pro is so stable considering it’s mediatek, which means they have no access to MediaTek’s blobs and must rely on the Xiaomi ones. (Compare that to Qualcomm’s CodeAurora CAF project)
So yea, kudos to the developers on the RN8Pro
Check out ShareMe (also known as MiDrop)
It uses WFD to transfer apps, photos and basically any files you wish at a pretty good speed.
You can also install it on non-Xiaomi phones too, and it’s a great app imho
unlimited for $5? Wow.. $5 here in the Philippines is 15gb AND, is only for a week AND, is very slow. see how fucked up our ISP’s here.
I swear. Huge props to the Devs. I did have a mini heart attack when he said he couldn’t access fastboot at one point in the process though
Get a pixel 4a or se
Romania is pretty fucked up too. At least we have cheap fast internet, so i guess it’s not that bad
Wow there are no xiaomi stores in USA? :O
I had redmi note 4- no issues. Now I have Mi9 and after 2 months of normal usage pcb connecting motherboard with USB type c broke and had to be replaced as charging was very slow.
My uncle uses Note 7 since about 1 year and it started freezing randomly and reboots 2-3 times a day.
This is my experience.
My sister uses my old MI A1 with no issues at all. That phone is 3years old now and I don’t see him stopping any time soon. Xiaomi has a lot of popular phones and there are a lot of cheap parts out there if something goes wrong. Just get a case so if you drop it doesn’t smash.
Dont worry i got my f2 pro about 2 weeks ago and i was thinking that too but aparently its only coming out on China ,no global rom as well as the mi 10 ultra
The first one i got died the next day. The replacement is with me for 5 months now and no issues. Nice phone
I’ve owned the Redmi note 5a, note 5, mi A2 lite, note 7 and now the note 9s. All have them have out performed what I was expecting. Only issue I ever had was my note 5 charging port cause reboot. But it still worked perfectly find the rest of the time
I got 4 Xiaomi phones. They were all built like rocks. Fell hundreds of times without issues. And the one with ceramic back are even better because you don’t get scratches. The internals are also really good, they are easy to open and it’s easy to find replacements parts if needed. The only thing that I find hard to get is a replacement battery though, all the replacements battery I bought tend to be of dubious quality (they with a month then degrades). Because they are usually recycled and not directly coming from Xiaomi sadly.
Xiaomi Mi5 -> Redmi Note 6 Pro -> Redmi Note 9 Pro
I love them, never cracked a screen or any other problems…
You guys are getting paid?
Extremely reliable.
Is reliability the only factor when considering buying a phone though? Here a couple major problems that are worth talking about.
1-you are supporting China.
2-Xiaomi has internal ads. So if you click on the setting app, a 5s non skipable full screen as pops up about 20% of the time. Yes you can unable this feature, but I’m telling you with every Miui update they relocate the “how to disable ads” section and will take 1-3 hours to find.
3- in my opinion, the Miui applications are clunky and non nearly as user friendly as Google’s. So be prepared to dl all the usual Google aps. (Photos, messenges, maps, fit, chrome/brave, etc…)
I agree. I’m surprised by the lack of nuance regarding miui in this thread. I have a brand new redmi 9 and it crashed maps 2 or 3 times. only during heavy use tho
Had Redmi 3S, Redmi 4X (wife’s current phone), Redmi Note 4 (kids’ current phone), Redmi Note 7 (current phone) in my family in recent years.
Very few issues:
* Redmi 3S – worked normally for 3+ years (I replaced it with RN4), then after a while battery bloated, took it out of commission.
* Redmi 4X – going on 3 years, zero issues.
* Redmi Note 4 – abused it pretty bad (had to change screen twice), after 18 months or so charging port broke, while waiting for replacement part (under 2€) to arrive from China I had to buy RN7. Works perfectly after 2,5 years.
* Redmi Note 7 – had it for over a year, works perfectly.
>Being in the USA means that there is no official Xiaomi retailer selling Xiaomi phones, and that means that you are on your own in the USA. Buying a phone there is risky and I want to know how reliable they are if I have an issue.
it could be any reliable brand and I wouldn’t buy anything if you don’t have any chance of sending it to fix. Although have you seen if there are unofficial technical services that support Xiaomi phones?
independent of that, my experience with my Mi A1 has been very good, it will be 3 years now and I don’t have any issue apart from lowered battery life (normal) and a bit of problems with the power button. I use it with a case but without screen protector and I haven’t had any issue.
My wife’s Xiaomi had a problem with the charging port after around 2 years, it got fixed already and took less than a day (in some random technical service). A cousin had a similar problem but only like 1 year after buying it
If you are going into Xiaomi, don’t touch or wait for the A series. Xiaomi decided to neglect this branch due to the high level of interest by the public. They started being afraid that the consumer would ditch miui (their android rom) for stock android. The software is just a joke and it doesn’t require as much work as a costum rom but they messed it up anyway.
I had to sent my Mi A3 to the warranty because there was a conflict between the WiFi and Bluetooth. The final result was that the problem was due to the software. Even they couldn’t understand what the hell happened.
Stick with miui but if you want stock android, try the pixel 4A or 1+ Nord.
In terms of experience with miui I can’t talk much but I bought a redmi note 7 for my mom and it is great from what I have experienced!
I loved my mido (note 4) until it drowned in water and damaged the board ;-;. Bought a note 7 and i cant be more satisfied, both of these phones are the best purchases ive ever made.
I bought my first xiaomi in august 2019, the mi9t. I had no issues at all. It’s still fast, battery life is still very good and the camera is beautiful. I suggest you to try this brand.
I’ve been a long time user of Xiaomi, ever since the original Note. Overall, they’re fantastic value, not at all cheap Chinese knockoffs. With Xiaomi Mi A1, which I chose because they’re were enrolled in the Android One program, i had issues with the Type C charging port, which is not your regular 2$ port having a chip to regulate the fast charging. Being a grey market phone, I had to repair it myself. I sold it a got a Mi A2, same issue, port broke down, replaced it, broke again. Software bugs like echoing voice (they hear you saying whatever twice) went unpatched for almost half a year rendering the phone useless for calling. That’s no way of treating a paying customer and seems that parts quality control is an issue. So, I’ve been very satisfied but in the last 2 years, they dropped the ball. I don’t about the newer ones, I got a Pixel and never looked back.
…or slap a launcher like Lawn Chair or Pixel launcher on it, same effect, no pain.
I am in the USA. I just got a note 9s international. the 128gb model. Only had a couple of weeks but so far I am impressed. In the past, I had Motorola and Huawei phones. Huawei had a battery swell issue and the last Motorola I had just got to buggy to use. The note 9s was under 250 on Amazon. I don’t expect it to last more than a couple of years but I don’t think that’s a problem at this price point
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085S45ZZS/ref=ppx\_yo\_dt\_b\_asin\_title\_o03\_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085S45ZZS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
I also got this case which is nice
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08CMWHHKZ/ref=ppx\_yo\_dt\_b\_asin\_title\_o03\_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08CMWHHKZ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
How about the system apps? They’re unremovable.
If you don’t like the MIUI launcher only, yes, you can just use a different launcher. If you don’t like MIUI as a ROM, just flash another ROM.
Yes, they are, but I wouldn’t call them bloatware, they’re not near as heavy as Samsung, for example.
I’m pretty sure you already have a good selection of responses to form a decision here…but anyhow.
I live in the US and have had several Xiaomi/Redmi phones through the years (As well as fitness bands, vacuums, etc.)
Hardware wise, they are as good as any other OEM out there…SOLID (I hate using cases or screen protectors on any of my phones and have never broken one).
You have to be mindful when picking your device to make sure its the Global/International version, and that the phone has band support for your carrier. I have T-Mobile so their core bands are 2, 4, 12, 66, and 71. ([gsmarena.com](https://gsmarena.com) is a good resource for checking this information)
Most of the Xiaomi devices support 2, 4, (and by default 66) What I mean by this is that band 66 with T-Mobile is a broad spectrum of band 4…so anywhere that I am that has a band 66 tower, my phone shows I am connected to band 4.
I manage IT and travel quite a bit for work. (NM, CO, AZ, TX, OK, KS, AR, MO, IL, IN, OH, NC, SC, GA, MD, DC, NY…just as a few examples) I also recently moved from New Mexico to North Carolina. I have traveled to many states for work and have never had an issue with signal or coverage even inside buildings and server rooms. VoLTE and VoWiFi also work fine and can easily be enabled with a simple dialer code on the phone.
What’s important to me as well is Google Pay support as I use it daily…again, gsmarena is a good resource for the phone details to make sure that it supports NFC.
As for the OS itself….MIUI is not my favorite interface, but that can easily be changed by downloading a different launcher from the app store (Lawnchair has been my go-to for years after switching from Nova). Other than that, I tend to download the plethora of Google apps that I have used for years (messages, keep notes, calendar, photos, etc) so I don’t ever really even mess with the preloaded Xiaomi versions of these apps.
Let me know if you have any other specific questions
I’ve only ever bought Xiaomi for the last 7 years (previously iPhone then Samsung)
Not one of the phone faulted in any format (thats about 4-6 phone and my wifes had the same). Each time I’ve either upgraded or cracked the screen. It has been a slight pain that nobody wants to replace the screens for you here in the US.
So other than my fault cracking the screen no issues
I’m american, been running for just over a year with no issues. I know that’s not a super long term test but so far it’s a pass from me
I bought the redmi note 9 pro a few months ago.
Love it. It replaced a Huawei mate 9 and don’t regret it at all.
I’m in Canada and found mi4canada that sells with a 1 year warranty.
I’m certain there is an American version.
My mom owned a Xiaomi mi5s and it was still perfect after 3,5 years of usage. My Pocophone is close to 2 years old, still perfect.
Am from the US, I have a weird ghost touch problem occasionally on my Redmi Note 7, it’s by no means, like, the end of the world or anything, can just be kind of irritating at times. Contacted Xiaomi for support and they basically told me to fuck off, YMMV
I have Redmi Note 7. Dropped the phone multiple times, but I just buy the screen from aliexpress.com and replace myself.
Note 6 Pro, 2 years old and still running like new.
I used to buy Samsung. But they became too expensive. 3 years ago I bought my daughter the Mi A2. Solid til now. For my youngest daughter I bought the Mi A3 android one phone. Great battery life. And last year Oct I bought 2 Mi9T global version. I am in Canada and it works great. We drop our phone so many times. Still looks like brand new. What impress me the most is the batterie life. I get 8 hours of screen on time on average over two days . The Highes I ever got was 13 hours screen on time over 24 hours. I use the Mi 9T to shoot my YouTube channel. Recently I shot for 7 hours straight on my hike and battery was still at 20%. The quality of the cameras are decend for what I paid. Here is the link for the videos.
I am still using Lineage OS 17.1 on it,has great battery life for a 3 year phone..
Try builds with 4.9 kernel. They are even better and have much active development. ;). The day my mido broke, the first 4.9 rom came out 🙁
Honestly, the mido community is the most active of all.
I have the note 9s and I am in Texas on TMobile. The 9s has the bands. The note 9 pro doesn’t have band 4
Oh yeah, data is ridiculous here. The $40 is just the price from an mvno too. If you want post paid from the big brands that own the towers (at&t, TMobile, Verizon) it’s even more expensive.
Mint Mobile, Red Pocket, and Ultra have been the best deals I’ve been able to find, but they’re all mvnos so gotta deal with deprioritizing if it gets really busy. Luckily my area isn’t bad, but places like Houston can get congested.
I have the Redmi Note 1, Note 3, Note 4, Mi 3, Mi 5, Mi A1, Mi A2, and the Redmi Note 7.
The Note 1 and Mi 3 were plastic and they tend to break after 2 years of use, chipped edges and such. The Note 3, Note 4, MI A1 and A2 were metal and they tend to last a long time, but the screen frames on the Note 3 and 4 have a tendency to get chipped and the had very brittle screens. They tend to get broken after the slightest drop. The A1 and A2 has been solid so far, with multiple drops without so much as a scratch. The Mi 5 and Note 7 have glass back, but the glass on Mi 5 was also very brittle. The glass on Note 7 has been very solid and I think it’s Gorilla Glass.
Point is, the later Xiaomis are durable, unlike their older phones.
I know but the other person needs an app for that
Then Google’s “Nearby Share” which is available for users using the latest GMS. Works basically like AirDrop on Android
Yeah but no one has that already so hmmm.
But also files by google offers a similar functionallity
It should be in everyone’s Quick Toggles within the next few weeks if it’s not there yet 🙂
Most people sadly don’t often do their updates
There’s nothing wrong with Mediatec processors that would affect the reliability of the phone.
Mediatec vs Qualcomm/Snapdragon is a little like Intel vs AMD in PCs: for sure one is faster and more expensive, but the other is still plenty capable.
I’ve had several people bring me their phones and tablets that would just fail to boot, and they all ran Mediatek chips. Recovery tools didn’t work, even after I worked out the silly MTK software.
Same happened to my Redmi 6A, poor bastard got accidentally dropped on the toilet and I tried to turn in on because I was nervous.
Got the Mi Note 10 year in and still using the case it came with, have dropped many times, no scratches on glass at all. Super reliable and affordable
I’ve had about 3 generations of Xiaomi phones and haven’t had any of them fail thus far.
Only replaced them due to old age, however they work until this point without any issues.
what service provider have you been using?
I just saw that this phone had recently came out and it seems to be pretty amazing but what exactly is side loading? Is it pretty much just downloading the google play store and then getting all your apps from there? also, why get the china version over the global version?
Mint right now
I think it basically is just that if you have any problems google is your best friend.
You should get the china version because there is just a China version.
You should really take a look at the mi 10 ultra the specs are incredible for the price, 120W charging – 50% in 6 minutes and the currently best camera on the market, because of the cooling technology also the fastest and it’s so cheap because of all the bloatware that gets them money
I bought mi mi9t without knowing anythings about bands but fortunately it works. Wish I knew about it first because after I found out whilst waiting for delivery I started to panic!
I’d agree about MIUI, rather have plain Android like my Xiaomi Mi A1. I’ve ordered about 10 Xiaomi for family, all good. Not had any problem with Ads, I believe the Indian rom’s do have though.
As for supporting China, Its pretty hard not to, Apple, Motorola and Google make phones in China too….
Thank you that’s quite helpful. Redmi k30 ultra has never been my first choice but Ive had my eyes on the k30 series ever since I started looking into phones. So following your advice Im finally just gonna stick with redmi k30 5g.
That only applies to the current Mediatek processors but the Mediatek Processors lower than a G90T is utterly unreliable and prone to overheating plus they were nowhere near to their promised performance. The Mediatek Processor of the Redmi Note 4X and other phones from other brands with the same processor could fry an Egg. The G90T was the first Mediatek chip that had a reliable performance but even then it requires a Liquid Cooling to keep it at normal temperatures. It was a game changer for Mediatek. Dimensity series of Mediatek is highly awaited for those who want to have a Upper Midrange to Flagship performance for a lower cost.
Redmi Note 9 has optimization issues due to the Helio G85, making it’s performance nearly the same as the Redmi S2. It has MIUI12 coming though.
Go for a Mi 10 Lite 5G instead for future proofing
Because the US government does not Xiaomi sell in US. So they can not support you directly
Nope, got a mix 3 5g,fongerpront scanner stopped working and just Google ” +xiaomi radio power off”