[Xiaomi Mi 2] kyogiro:
First of all, English is not my mother tongue, so I will ask for some leeway.

I have tested the new (well, newest if not new) the Mi 2S (about 1 month) while still having the Mi 2. I wanted to get back to the community in case some were wondering if it was worth a new purchase.

In case, people would ask as to where I bought the phone, I prefer to clear this point at once. My brother in law wanted to buy a Mi 2A for his wife but he only speaks French, so he tried to contact some websites and one held his attention due to some fast replies : www.phonasia.com

I wasn't confident at first knowing some websites where a trust relationship were already built.

Well, since they were using Paypal as a way to pay and he could finalize his payment via phone (they got a French and a UK number) and he got a good price, so...

I had my Mi 2S in his cart and I got it in about 10 days (in Paris, France). Everything went well at the end. For people who would want to buy through this website, I would gladly give my brother in law's email for sponsorship.

Anyway, now this is out of the way, I can begin my In Depth Comparison between the 2 smartphones.

The 2 devices : Xiaomi Mi 2S 32 GB (available since this Spring) and Xiaomi Mi 2 32 GB (available since December 2012).

At first glance, we could say that Xiaomi only changed the SoC (System On Chip), we got the S4 Pro then the S600. Secondly, the Camera got upgraded too, from 8MP to 13 MP (only on the 32 GB version though).

Well, it's not entirely true. Let's go see that.

1) What didn't change

The design of the phone, the vibrator and... that's all. Some photos of the exterior aspect of the two mobiles (we just can't tell the difference) taken from my Canon EOS 350 (a few years old Reflex).

The Mi 2S is on the left here.

More photos here : Dropbox at the bottom of the folder.

2) The Screen

We can't see it cleary on the photos but the difference is quite clear on the naked eye. The Mi 2S' screen is brighter but it's as if it was 2 totally different screens, it's still globally the same screen quality speaking but the difference is there.

Here is the whole screen on screen comparison : Dropbox

The Mi 2S is on the left and the Mi 2 is on the right.

Here is some shots that I selected where I think it would show the difference at its best.

I think the last one with the xda website is the clearer. When you zoom we can see the difference of levels about the white color.

3) Loudspeaker

I don't have yet any device that can measure the sound level (decibels) but it's very easy to tell which one is has the better loudspeaker.

I played a couple of songs while syncing them on both devices and we could clearly hear louder the the Mi 2S.

The downside is that I don't a very good ear, so I couldn't tell which displayed the better sound quality wise.

4) GPS

This is the main change to me. The old Mi 2 (and I tested 3 different ones (my brother in law's, my mother's and mine) had a crappy GPS to say the least. Sometimes it took several minutes, like FIVE which is eternity when you need it. I installed GPS Status, GPS fix but it only worked at first and only sometimes. It wasn't reliable. You can also find some of my posts in the miuiandroid forum in the dedicated topic named "GPS issues" (I think or something like this).

With the Mi 2S, it was like a entire different world, it was like Disney Land. The GPS fixes very quicky like any other smartphone on the market since 2009 - 2010 (my first Android phone was the Motorola Milestone, late 2009 and I never had any GPS issue). Google Maps got a fix and was guiding me within 10 secs. It is really is amazing comparing to what I had before.

5) Benchmarks

Well, I noticed a differential about 10 to 20% in favor of the Mi 2S depending on the used Benchmark. The Mi 2 is displayed on the left and the Mi 2S on the right.

First one : Quadrant Standard

I immediately ruled out that one because of the too great differential which is about 40%. Anyway, here are the results.

Epic Citadel : the difference was nonexistent. I think we got the same results because the GPU is strictly the same, the Adreno 320.

Vellamo : 10 to 20 % better in favor of the Mi 2S.

Vellamo also tests the precision and the latency of the Touchscreen. Let's see the results.

HTML5 test (no idea about the settings despite of the fact that is set on custom)

Next Bench is 3DMark Basic (Mi 2 is above and Mi 2S is below.

Now let's switch 3DMark to Extreme, there is difference of 5%.

Last Bench... Antutu !

The full results (some more details) are available here : Dropbox

6) Battery Life

Well, after 1 month of use, I really can't tell if the battery life is better or not. It seems to be, but it's very hard to tell on the day to day basis since it could seems better because I wanted to believe that and it depends a lot of the usage which is not linear for me. Some days, I would have plenty of work by mid day, the battery would be quite drained and for good reason. Others days, like my days off, I'm hardly touching my phone, and I would have plenty of remaning battery life (about 60%+) to last a second day.

But, I noticed the effect of the new SoC, the S600, the smartphone is not so keen to overheat as the Mi 2 while I'm using it not even intensively but, let's say moderately (emails + Chrome with 10 tabs + Tapatalk + looking at pictures). The Mi 2 isn't overheating but it is warm, at least warm enough to feel it (not hot, not at all, but warm).

7) Photos

Let's turn our interest on the Cameras performance.

Mi 2's shots on the left and Mi 2S on the right. First round of photos in normal mode, second one with HDR. I took the first photos indoor.

(the first shot wasn't set on 8 MP)

The colors taken by the Mi 2S are closer to real life colors. Details wise, I can't really tell the difference yet. The HDR mode on the Mi 2 seems to over saturate the colors a bit.

Anyway, what about outdoors, right ? The shots were taken during a cloudy day, so the lights weren't ideal.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-...0cZzCqQ/s720/IMG_20130610_155745_HDR.jpg[/img

I noticed 2 things :

- the Mi 2S did a better job while lights weren't ideal

- again, oversaturation in HDR mode by the Mi 2. But, overall, in both devices, the HDR made quite a good job. Just look at the sky, we can clearly see the clouds and the sky while in normal mode, everything is "greyish".

2nd day outdoor, cloudy again (it's Paris, what do you expect ?)

These shots were taken with a larger range of colors than before. In normal mode, I can hardly tell that the new camera is an improvement, to me it's quite similar. Maybe someone with more photo experience can tell us more stuff about that.

The downside is that I'm not a photographer and I didn't respect some strict rule while taking photos.

Still, I think the Mi 2S did a better job with the Tree shots.

Let's en this photo shoot by test the cameras in very low lights environment :

The flash is clearly better on the Mi 2S.

The entire photoshoot is available there : Mi 2 Photos and Mi 2S Photos

Some people might draw way better observations than I did.

To conclude this long post :

What didn't change => the global design.

Otherwise, every piece of hardware changed : screen, GPS (!!!), loudspeaker, SoC, Camera and flash.

Overall, the user experience has been quite the same, the Mi 2 is really speedy enough to perform as well as the Mi 2S. But the GPS is a real big improvement to me because I really need it. The other notable advantage, I really felt like the phone isn't getting that warm, at least not as quickly as the Mi 2.

To me, if you got the Mi 2, it's not worth upgrading the Mi 2S unless you're an ultra geek (which I am) and you need the latest stuff out there.

Now, I guess it's time to say good bye and I want to thanks my mom and dad, my family, my friends for supporting me everyday... wait, wait, I think I'm writing, somehow the wrong speech here. I just want to thank you for reading my long post and I hope some of you would have found this one useful enough in their future purchased.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me here or via PM.