[Xiaomi Mi Max Questions & Answers] IndDoc:
Hey guys, just switched to this phone, and since it's so new to the market, very few resources are available to explain some common problems. I'll try and answer some of those.

How do you unlock the bootloader on the Mi Max?

- apply for bootloader unlock permission on http://en.miui.com/unlock/, wait for a couple of days, download the app. Once you get the permission, then it gets a bit tricky. To unlock the bootloader you need the Chinese Developer ROM . This isn't mentioned ANYWHERE along the official site. It's frustrating. Follow the steps in this guide - http://en.miui.com/thread-307139-1-1.html, but use the fastboot ROM of Chinese Developer ROM instead of the global stable ROM. Once you have Chinese Developer ROM running, make sure you turn on Find My Phone via Mi App. This is important otherwise you will get 'Could not verify' message. Once the find my phone thing is running, it's easy to unlock the bootloader. Just follow the official guide via the app.

How do I root Mi Max?

Once the phone has been unlocked, use fastboot to flash TWRP. How? See here - http://en.miui.com/thread-293031-1-1.html. Once you have TWRP running, download and flash SuperSU, and you're all good.

My Mi Remote app will only show Chinese remotes and not my country's local remotes. Why?

Switch over the locale to your local country in settings > additional settings, and restart the app. All done.

Which screen protector is best for my Mi Max?

Actually, buyer beware - NONE of the tempered glasses work well on the Mi Max. They don't cover the whole screen. The Mi Max has a curved 2.5D screen, so the right and left edges don't get covered by the tempered glass. Looks pretty ugly to be honest. I've ordered a Chinese TPU screen guard from aliexpress that claims to cover the whole screen. I'll update this guide when I get it.

Does the Mi Max have double tap to wake?

Yes it does! But it is turned off by default. Go to settings>display to turn it on.

What other hardware problems are there with the Mi Max?

The charger port is made from aluminum. It is very soft, so just by using it a couple of times, you'll end up getting ridges along the bottom side, where the micro USB cable goes. It's a problem with all recent Xiaomi phones, and you can't do anything about it. See this pic for details - http://i.imgur.com/z7ckOuB.jpg. I've tried to highlight the 2 tracks made by the micro USB cable along the charger port.

Also, the body is easily scratched at the chamfered aluminum edges, so make sure you handle it with care. The metal is just too soft. It is makes the Mi Max very slippery.

How is the speaker on the Mi Max?

Coming from a Oneplus One, the single bottom firing speaker (yes, single. The other is a dummy) was a huge disappointment. It barely gets the job done, and it's one area where I personally feel Xiaomi shouldn't have cut corners.

How is the Snapdragon 650 processor on the Mi Max? Does it lag or stutter?

Let me put all fears to rest - this is the smoothest phone I've ever used, period. I've used a lot of them, but this phone is by far the smoothest. No lags, stutters, out of memory problems, app redraws, nothing. Everything just works.

How long does it take to charge the Mi Max?

From zero to 100%, with a quick charge charger, it'll take around 2 hours. On the standard charger, around 3 hours. But let me tell you - you'll end up forgetting your charger. The phone is a true beast in the battery department. I easily get 2.5 days worth of battery with around 9 hrs screen on time with a single charge. It's unbelievable.

UPDATE -

I was just tinkering around with Mi MAX and trying out LOS14.1, and ran into 2 problems -

My PC stopped recognizing my Xiaomi Mi Max phone all of a sudden. The USB won't work and the phone is not recognized. What should I do?

Assuming your USB cable and phone USB port are working, you can do the following -

(1) Go to C:\Windows\INF

(2) Type “wpdmtp.inf” in search bar provided to the right of the address bar in Windows 10.

(3) Once you have found it, just right click on it and select install. It will take a few seconds.

(4) Connect your device to the pc.

Done.

How do I get past the TWRP screen that asks for a password to decrypt my phone after clean flashing MIUI via EDL mode?

So here's a strange bug I found - if you clean flash MIUI via EDL/MiFlash tool, then flash TWRP and boot into it, it will ask for a password to decrypt. Now, my limited research tells me noone knows the password. So, what now?

1. BACK UP ALL YOUR DATA including songs, pics, contacts AND TRANSFER THEM TO A PC/DRIVE/CLOUD. THIS is very important! What we'll do will format your internal memory completely.

2. skip the password screen

3. go to wipe

4. select the right hand button that says wipe data

5. reboot to recovery again

6. you'll note that if you try to boot into MIUI, you will not be able to do so. This is because you now have an unencrypted data folder but the stock kernel cannot read that. The solution? You need to flash SuperSU on it. But we just formatted our internal memory, how do we get the SuperSU zip? 3 ways to get past this -

a) use an external memory card. Load SuperSU zip on it, and flash the zip, and it'll boot up

b) use USB OTG drive, load it with SuperSU zip, go to mounts in TWRP, mount USB OTG, and flash it from there

c) if you don't have either of these, use adb sideload in TWRP. Go to advanced, adb sideload on TWRP. Download and rename SuperSU to supersu.zip, copy it to your adb folder on windows. Then open command propmt in your adb folder, type 'adb devices' without the quotes to start adb. Then, type 'adb sideload supersu.zip' without the quotes. ADB will flash supersu now, and the phone will boot.

That's it.

Let me know if you have more doubts!