[Xiaomi Mi 5 Guides, News, & Discussion] Ifo0:
Hello friends

I made this article because I wanted to share my experience in buying a Xiaomi phone. In my case I bought 2 devices over the past two months. The first is a Xiaomi Mi5, which I ordered for my sister and the second one is the Mi5s, which I ordered for myself.

First, I’d like to talk about my choice of an online retailer. There are a couple of things to consider here.

1. Most importantly you want to be confident that the device will come with the original MIUI software. There are many online retailers that would sell you a device with a Global version of the software, only for you to find that it is actually some kind of a fake custom ROM. You want to avoid that, as flashing the original version of the software, although relatively easy, might be a lengthy and frustrating process for many. After all you'd like to begin using your device from day one, not spend time figuring how to fix it.

2. Secondly, the price. Naturally you'd like to find the best deal possible. You should be aware of the fact that there are many retailers that do fake promotions. They would for instance write down a higher price on the product and allegedly discount it to its original price. You don’t want to fall for such cheap tricks. The best thing you could do is either observe the price of the product every now and then, or compare over a couple of retailers.

3. Delivery. Ordering a device from China sometimes means waiting for more than a month for it to arrive. This depends to a big extend on the shipping agents that the retailer uses.

After doing about a month of research I decided to make my purchase from Fastcardtech.com Why? The driving factors were as follows: I was told that they ship devices only with the original software. The second is that they offered the best price at the time of the purchase. Thirdly, I considered the services they offered. As you can read on their website they have extensively explained their policy when it comes down to the payment, shipment and after sales services (warranty). They also offer secure payment through PayPal, transport insurance and customs insurance. Transport insurance means that they would ship another phone in case the first is lost during transportation. Customs insurance costs 7% of the total order price, but means that you would get compensated if your device ends up in the customs office.

Regarding, the shipping time, I can confirm that the Mi5 arrived for 2 weeks and the Mi5s for 3 weeks. The shipping agents in both cases ware SF post and Netherlands post. Upon booting them up for the first time I was pleased to find out both devices were running the original Global stable and Chinese stable software respectively.

When it comes down to the price at the time of the purchase the Mi5 costed just under $240 and the Mi5s $297. I bought both of them in December. I paid a small fee of around $7 for processing the transaction since I used PayPal. I’d recommend that you use Paypal too, as it is a secure method of purchasing. I also paid $3 for a transport insurance. Both are included in the above stated prices. The insurance is a valuable service offered by Fastcardtech.

Regarding the packaging, unfortunately I have thrown it away but the phones came carefully packaged in a thick layer of bubble wrap. You have the option of choosing different sorts of packaging on the checkout page One aspect about Fastcardtech I'd like to criticize is that they marked both items as commercial. The value they stated was 20usd. You should explicitly tell then to mark them as gifts, otherwise you might have to visit the customs

Now I would like to tell you what it is to use a Xiaomi device. First of all, upon booting it up for the first time I was charmed by the esthetics of the software. In my view it looks better than stock android. Furthermore, I highly value the added functionality. Out of the box the phones have applications like a compass, a file explorer, and a QR scanner. A great addition is the inclusion of WPS office. In fact, I like it so much that I wrote this article on my phone. Really a great office suite optimized to work fantastically on a phone. The security app is also a great convenience tool since it is the one place to go to optimize the work of your phone. It can analyze battery usage, clear unnecessary files from the system and in general makes sure that the phone runs smoothly. You might be wondering what it is to use the phone with a Chinese software and what the differences are with the Mi5, which runs on the Global version. Fortunately, I can make a direct comparison.

All in all, there aren't any big differences between both versions, at least when it comes down to general layout. My Mi5s came with the Google apps preinstalled, however if you do not wish for anyone to open the phone there is a great application by Xiaomi that you can download to install the essential Google services framework and the play store. You can find it on the following link: http://en.miui.com/thread-405166-1-1.html What might concern some of you is the presence of Chinese apps. Some of them are quite useful do be honest. An instance is the fantastic Reader application, which is way better than any other I have seen. The only problem is that it isn't translated in English. Some of the Chinese apps push notifications but it's very easy to mute them. I have just put them in folders and have forgotten about them. As you can expect the Google apps work well. There is this small bug that there isn’t an icon for the Google app. Consequently, I have to use the widget instead. The Mi5, which runs the global version on the other hand has no bloatware has and all the essential Google apps preinstalled. The main difference between both devices however lies in optimization. The global version is optimized to work with the Google apps and other applications like Facebook and messenger. This doesn't mean it launches them faster or runs them smoother. It is just far better at "managing them". By this I mean keeping them in the background more effectively and pushing notifications more consistently. If you want that on the Chinease version, you have to tweak the Autostart options and the hide options in the settings menu so that your favorites apps are managed better. Still, this might come at the expense of battery life. Otherwise as you would expect all native apps are perfectly optimized - notes, calendar etc. Just link them to your Google account and have no worries about missing your reminder.

When it comes down to general system performance both phones are blazing fast and keep apps in memory very well. No issues here at all. Once again I would like to mention the utilities that the security apps provided. I can be set to clear the cache of the phone regularly, remove trash after it reaches certain size, reboot the phone aromatically every now and then. As you might have guessed these are important functions that do not come out of the box in stock android but are essential for keeping the system running smoothly. Speaking of MIUI features, the 8,2 update has brought cool feature like automated tasks and smart assistant which will bring even more functionality and automation to then phone. I have the update available, however haven't taken advantage of it yet, because I wanted to finish my review as it is.

Having mentioned that there isn't much more to tell about these devices. There are 2 issues Mi5s users are regularly complaining about. Battery life and fingerprint. Perhaps the update will fix them. My observation on the topic is that battery life is generally very good. There is some kind of a bug however that's drains the battery but that happens rarely. Still it isn’t very plesant to see it, but a restart fixes everything. The fingerprint is a bit tricky too. Personally, I think it is one of the best available, but needs a lot of optimization. I have seen it rarely unlock the phone after a bear tap on the button, which was intended to just wake the screen. Still more often, you’d have to put your finger in the exact way you registered it so that it is recognized. Which is sometimes inconvenient