I am seeing many posts complaining about MiUI, and the problems others are getting are understandably irritating, but I am more than happy with my Poco F3. I switched from my S8+ (yes, it is an old phone) which I paid £800 for. My Poco F3 was under £300 for 8GB RAM and 256GB storage. My S8+ was very very slow, almost unusable. It is still getting software updates which i admire Samsung for, but I was also really preparing for the worst when I ordered my first Xiaomi phone due to being used to Samsung and Apple pricing! With features and specs that make my friends with S20+ and OnePlus 7T pro jealous, I really can’t complain about any issues, and I don’t have many issues at the moment. I just think you can’t expect to have everything in the world if you paid much less for a phone that would cost much more if a different name was printed on it. Having a Xiaomi beat a relatively new Samsung in any way is impressive in my opinion. I even like MiUI, it seems very fun with smooth animations. Maybe my phone won’t be getting updates for long fast forward a few years, and maybe it will be littered with problems, but I really think I’d be asking too much for Xiaomi to do everything in the world when I paid so little for something that seems like a flagship, at least to me! Perhaps I will be frustrated with this phone in the future, but then I will buy another Xiaomi and the total price of the two phones will still probably be less than a base model of a Samsung flagship. Just my thoughts!
Support XiaomiEnlightened
I’ve owned 3 xiaomi phones, a sony, a one plus and Samsung. Im sticking with xiaomi
If you don’t prefer MIUI, try custom ROMs. Xiaomi phones are popular for their ROM support. Custom ROMs make your phone into a stock android phone. While manufacturers including Xiaomi takes like 2-3 months to release a new Android update (Like from Android 10-11), my phone got it within like 2-3 weeks. If you are into it DM me or Try searching for Poco F3 on telegram. I use a K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro with Evolution X. Copped mine for Rs 23000/ $315 a few months back. In the future if I’m going for Android, I’ll probably stick to Xiaomi and install a custom ROM.
Same. I got a Xiaomi redmi note 9 4GB/128G with nfc and i keep getting surprised by the amount of abilities it has with a so low price. Games runs smoothly and everyday use is like using an iPhone. Quick snappy and no lags or bugs at all. Miui is really nice to be honest and for that price i was looking to buy the Samsung A12 which is nothing compared to this phone
Poco F3 is a beast. Thats the phone that I want now, but my Redmi Note 8 Pro still is more than enough for my needs, it runs every game perfectly…
I just switched from an S21+(Exynos) to a Mi 10T, and honestly the Xiaomi feels like a much better phone.
Of course, the cameras aren’t as good, but you really don’t notice unless you are zooming in and it’s so nice to have a macro camera again!
The only one thing I’ve noticed is that the screen isn’t as bright as the S21, but that’s it and I can put up with that considering I can go almost 2 days on a charge, where with the S21 I’d literally charge it every day, twice a day on heavy days!
If you think MIUI is fun and smooth with animations, then take my advice and,
#DON’T UPDATE SOFTWARE WITHOUT KNOWING IT’S BUGS AND ISSUES FIRST.
And the fast charging is insane! So fast I kinda worry about the battery!
Make sure to turn off every single ad in MIUI and enjoy your phone. 🙂
I have a Mi 10t too and it’s an amazing phone!
Yeah poco f3 is the best price value ratio on the market right now. I’d gotten one if u hadn’t bought my current phone before
I’m in the same boat, I want to upgrade to Poco F3 or Mi 11 lite. But my Redmi note 8 (not even pro) holds up really well and is really fast even after 2 years, and I can run everything on it. I feel there’s no real need to upgrade right now
Agreed 🙁
do you have a rom recommendation? I have the 10t pro and hate many aspects of MIUI. are there any bugs / issues after flashing?
Literally me, i just got mine a week ago and i upgraded from an Infinix (no name company tbh) and i am worried about the power brick everytime i plug my phone in lol
Same here, I switched from Galaxy S8 to my first Xiaomi phone ever and even tho I went with a more expensive Mi 11 I am amazed that it was still cheaper than my Galaxy flagship from 4 years ago. I had paid 800 euro for the S8 and I bought the Mi 11 for only 640 euro. That was with a discount at my carrier, but even the price without the discount would’ve been 770 euro.
At any rate, for 640€ I got a 6,81″ super AMOLED WQHD+, 120hz screen which can work at that rate without dropping the max resolution. It’s super fast, super bright — no wonder since it’s literally the same screen from the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra…and the 480hz touch sampling rate makes it so smooth I almost don’t need to touch the screen and it flies under my fingers!
Even the 108MP main camera is from the Samsung Galaxy 21 Ultra and the only thing it doesn’t have – the space zoom, I don’t really miss, nor do I think it’s worth additional 500€.
I like the MIUI too, especially now after the 12.5 update! Love the fast animations, the super wallpapers, the battery is amazing…I regularly get at least 6-7 hrs of SoT within approx. 36 hours on a single charge, and that’s with max resolution, 120hz, screen brightness at around 80%, every AI function turned on, 5G turned on all the time…etc.
I compare Mi 11 with my wife’s Samsung S21 which was 50€ more expensive with the same discount and honestly the Mi 11 is a better phone.
And since we’re in Europe, I now finally have the cutting edge Snapdragon chipset – 888, instead of the frickin Exynos you get in European Samsungs.
Oh and not to mention that I got the 55W GaN turbo charger in the box, included in the price (charges the phone from 1 to 100% in 45 minutes)…along with an audio jack dongle and a gel case.
Anyhow, just as I was happy to have switched from an IPhone to Samsung S7 edge – my first android and then the gorgeous S8, I am now happy to have switched to Xiaomi.
Ultimately, whether you get a cheaper version of Xiaomi or the Mi 11, you are getting a lot of bang for your buck! 👍👍
I’m using pixel experience on my Redmi note 10 and it’s feel like using 90hz screen on 60hz phone. The animations are so smooth, unlike laggy and buggy MIUI 12
Same
is there any guide to this? my phone is Redmi Note 8 Pro with MIUI 12.0.5 Global
Who tf calls upgrade to switch from s21 to mi20
I’m pretty sure they mean from the s21+ exynos version
Same
Have you tried Xiaomi.eu ROM?
There’s a lot of guides online, [here is one](https://www.androidauthority.com/remove-ads-xiaomi-miui-1019139/)
They are great phones performance-wise. The major problem faced is the fact you sometimes don’t get the best service because some are missing bands that are fairly common across the entire USA. With some major providers axing 3G access, a lot of these phones will become huge paperweights. I recently moved to AT&T and it has been a **nightmare** getting the phone to work with their network, particularly on LTE bands that my friends are easily getting on their iPhones. The max speeds I get are HSPA+ which is 3.5G. Their only solution is for me to buy a samsung galaxy A51 for $300, no thanks.
Also the batteries are extremely sensitive to heat, but all LiPo batteries are. This might be common in all phones, but I’ve never had it happen like the xiaomi. I left my phone in my car one time and left it on charge. Temperature outside was about 75 degrees. The battery literally inflates itself and you notice your phone start to get a little bit swoll, and your battery performance degrades substantially after about 1 or 2 years. When it does this, it is a must to get that thing replaced before it inflates. I had a Mi 4X for a while and this happened, and it ended up burning out the battery temperature sensor on the motherboard and ungluing my screen from the frame. Spudging tools, patience, and a steady hand are required for phone surgery, but I’ve done it to about 3-4 xiaomi phones and I’d say the most difficult part is disassembly.
I’ve updated my MIUI before because I was excited to get onto the new version. Well, for about 3 months, my phone would not ring. No matter what I did, I could not get my phone to ring. Was a bit of a problem considering I was missing a ton of calls. Luckily this was resolved but it was definitely a bumpy ride.
>My S8+ was very very slow, almost unusable.
eMMC degrades in performance over time, with smaller capacity lasting longer than larger capacity. And that’s why we shouldn’t care about more than two years of software updates, because the eMMC will be so slow, it will be painful to use. A research paper about this: [https://oscarlab.github.io/papers/mobisys19-wearout.pdf](https://oscarlab.github.io/papers/mobisys19-wearout.pdf)
And that’s why it doesn’t make sense to spend $1000+ on a damn phone. Just buy a $300 to $500 phone and replace them every two years. Unless you’re filthy rich or your self esteem depends on what brand is stamped on your phone.
>The only one thing I’ve noticed is that the screen isn’t as bright as the S21
AMOLED vs IPS LCD. If the LCD gets brighter then the blacks will be grey. But now even the Redmi Note 10 Pro has AMOLED… and the Poco F3 also has AMOLED. We get so spoiled with choices for so little money.
>But nowdays, MIUI has gotten better that I don’t bother with ROMs anymore.
I just set up my mom’s Redmi Note 10 Pro. Surprisingly, the MIUI doesn’t bother me at all! Especially with the ability to have an app drawer with Alphabetical scroll bar on the app drawer. Even Lawnchair doesn’t have that feature.
The only thing, and I mean, the ONLY thing that grind my gears is the inability to SWIPE LEFT to dismiss notifications. What’s that all about?
Lineage OS is always the way to go for overall stability and weekly OTA updates. Feature-wise, it has more than stock Google’s Pixel OS but less than other ROMs.
For even more features, CrDroid and HavocOS have very active developers and community. CrDroid have more features than LOS but less than Havoc.
Depending on how active the maintainer for the particular phones, some ROMs are more stable on a particular phone compared to other ROMs. Some ROMs have OTA updates, some don’t.
There are some features that Lineage won’t add (due to it not being open source or other reasons), but available in other ROMs, like: the Face Unlock which uses Motorola’s code library, extensive Quick Settings modification, scheduled turn off/restart, placement of status bar network traffic indicator, etc.
imo, i kinda like miui, it’s clean and have alot more feature
When it comes to Android, I’m Xiaomi only. Ridiculously good value, a pretty good MIUI, and some brilliant specs. I agree, you can’t expect Apple levels of support and updates when you’re paying a fourth of the cost.
And a lot of the problems other than some of MIUI’s inherent problems are due to people tinkering with their phones a bit too much. Prolly a reason why Apple restricts customization so much so people won’t run into such problems.
hahaha
Totally understand your vanced and aggressive ram management issues! All my WhatsApp contacts had their numbers displayed instead of names due to contacts permission being revoked. I was also surprised that killing apps almost worked like force stop on Samsung. Samsung is great if you want an Android phone to just work, they are very reliable! My problem was that the company knows this, thus the prices just went too high, for me at least.
Yes I have and thank you! Personally I didn’t find it too much of an issue since I just have to do it once and then forget about it.
Yeah, these are all valid points. The drawbacks are more than made up by the cost of the phone! I once owned an iPhone 6, but it was so restricted. Since it was optimised and restrictive, it remained usable for a very long time despite inferior hardware, but then I got my S8+. I enjoy customisability and Apple was just too restrictive in all ways!
Maybe my Samsung experience was ruined by exynos? I mainly needed a new phone due to it being usable from the slowness!
No I haven’t, is it much better?
Wow, that sounds scary! I live in the UK so the service is all right with Three mobile. I can live with most issues, but I agree that calls not ringing ruins the whole point of a phone in a way! I’ve been recommended to research on issues before updating!
dude that’s an awesome write up, thank you.
Agreed! Tech is something moving forward, and the old tech degrades quite fast. Used to own an iPhone for the brand! Then I switched to Samsung, now Xiaomi. I guess I just have to be logical instead of thinking anybody will notice what phone I’m using.
Yeah it most definitely was, the Exynos variant is far inferior to the Snapdragon one. Sorry bro
I’ve gotten girls, businesses, jobs, etc. while using an iPhone, Xiaomi, Nokia, BlackBerry, Nexus, and Samsung. Phone brands do not affect your opportunities in the world. Well, maybe if you’re in high school…
my banking apps don’t like rooting and no matter how hard I try they keep detecting 🙁
Yeah I agree. Once you’ve experienced android’s customisability and it’s other perks, iPhones suddenly seem very restrictive. I can’t use an iPhone as my only phone. Just impossible lol.
I used to like MIUI and Mi Devices, but since they chug out too many variants and experiencing Stock Android from Oxygen OS i left it, waiting for MIUI to be a little more faster on updating on android versions
Completely agree, especially for major updates like Android updates. They must be rolled back at least two times.
Maybe consider getting a custom ROM too. MIUI can get kinda taxing when you’re trying to do some power work on your phone. I’ve been able to impress everyone I know with the fact that I got a basically notchless dotless Google pixel 4 with a huge screen. Pixel Experience is a good one. Very close to AOSP minus the fact that it tricks Google into thinking you actually have a Pixel, this allowing you to take advantage of the recent infinite photo storage policy change.
Haha wait till you will lose thousands of euros because your redmi will change its password by itself, now i know that better buy more expensive phone
Lol, literally what the fuck?
What do you think of the scrolling speeds compared to Samsung?
I’m a avid Samsung user in the US that recently switched to OnePlus but I’ve always been interested in purchasing a xiaomi device but I was wondering if anyone could point me in the best direction possible as far as purchasing one and which device to go with. I’m currently interested in the Mi 11 but would be open to any suggestions anyone could throw my way.
Well my Poco has a higher refresh rate and touch sampling rate, not sure about newer Samsung’s though.
I fcking not joking, i live alone and my phone changed its passcode in the night, i woke up and 2-5-8-0 easiesr pincode is not working, lost 2 years worth of memories photos, thousands in passwords, btc accounts, emails, files. Fingerprint not working, thank you xiaomi
I’ve also made the same switch…After 4 years with my S8 I’ve switched to a phone which costs less than half of what the S8 costed and I am now wondering why I’ve paid so much for phones in the past. Except for minor inconveniences, for example the spotty proximity sensor, I’m very satisfied with the F3. The 8 GB model wasn’t available in Germany when I was getting the phone, but the 6 GB model is doing fine. And the S8 did have it’s issues too: the camera module wasn’t focusing properly within 6 months of buying the phone. I’m glad I’ve made the jump over the years: iphones –> Samsung –> POCO. I’m not paying crazy money for phones any more.
this was helpful to me thanks. do you have any idea of what is other section in the storage and how to clean it
Yepp
Pretty sure Xiaomi would receive major backlash and be forced to recall products if this was their fault? I can’t find anybody else saying this is an issue with their Xiaomi phone.
Well first i lost a realy good job when the alarm was not working after an update, now i lost lots of money and yeara of memories because of xiaomi. I cant find this problem aswell, only 1 ppst i found with the same issue. I never had problems like these with apple or samsung.
Please tell me, what else could happen? I live alone and sudenly my very same password dont work
Yeah I had the S21 Exynos and honestly it’s a pile of crap, battery life sucks and at times it was a laggy mess. With the Mi 10T I’ve had no lag so far and have actually noticed much better 4G connectivity
And with that phone you’re also stuck with only 4G connectivity, what is the point in that??? Unless there’s an Exynos 5G variant that I am not aware of?
I got myself a Black Shark 4. Which is a VERY good value gaming smartphone. Just need to buy some accessories next.
I’ve heard good things about it! Flossy Carter recommends it to people who don’t even game on phones too. Looks very cool.
No the Xiaomi also has 5G, but where I live there won’t be any 5G for at least 2 years and by that time I’ll have changed phones
Yeah I know, I was referring to the S21
Yeah. I will upgrade when my mom or someone close needs a phone, so I’ll give them mine lol
There is some great information here… I didn’t realize you could do so much with your phone (different ROM’s, etc.). Can you tell me what network you are on in the US (if that is where you are from)? I am seeing some information on using Att or T-mobile but I was wondering if anyone had some advice on the best option?
I have a poco f3
Thank you.
just did to my Redmi 7A, 12.0.3 is ways worse than 12.0.2, imma going unlock the bootloader and flash the old miui 11 from xiaomi.eu ffs