Hey everyone,
I’m living in the New York/New Jersey area and looking to buy a Redmi phone within a budget. I’m not too picky about the model as long as it’s reliable and works well in the U.S. My main concerns are:
It should work with most SIM cards here (T-Mobile, Mint, AT&T, etc.)
It should be budget-friendly
Good for basic daily use (calls, apps, internet, casual photos)
Preferably available online (Amazon, eBay) or from somewhere I can get it delivered locally
One important thing I want to confirm:
Does the Redmi phone support auto call recording without announcing it to the other person? I heard some models use Google Dialer which announces recording, while others with MIUI Dialer don’t. I’m hoping for a phone that allows silent automatic call recording.
If anyone here is using a Redmi phone in the U.S., especially in NYC/NJ, I’d love to know:
Which model you recommend?
Does it support automatic call recording?
Does it work well with your SIM?
Any advice or suggestions would be super helpful. Thanks in advance!
You need to have T-Mobile or an MVNO that uses the T-Mobile network like Mint Mobile or Tello to use Xiaomi phones. AT&T and Verizon don’t allow them. Some people claim that you can use AT&T pre-paid which is a completely separate service from regular AT&T that the majority of people have. If you were an AT&T customer and wanted to switch to AT&T pre-paid you would need to go through the number porting process. If you want to use unlocked phones in the United States T-Mobile is the only carrier friendly to that option.
As for call recording–as far as I know no phone sold for use in the United States supports automatic call recording because it’s illegal unless both parties on the call know that the call is being recorded.
Google Phone only has a call recording feature in countries where it’s legal –it’s deactivated in Europe and North America.
If you wanted a Redmi with automatic call recording you would need to buy a Chinese model running the Chinese ROM. The China ROM can be run in English and uses Xiaomi Dialer which includes call recording.
The China ROM would not come with any Google apps installed so you would need to manually install the Play Store app. The China ROM can run most Google apps but anything requiring a Google Certified ROM won’t work.
If you can unlock the bootloader on your Redmi phone (which is much easier said than done these days) the custom ROM Xiaomi.EU includes features like call recording that are in the Chinese ROM but not the Global one.