[Xiaomi Mi MIX  Guides, News, & Discussion] wendyalison:
Little background

I am currently using a Huawei P8 Max and have been a fan of phablets (i.e screen size 6 inches or larger), so when I saw the Mi Mix, I definitely was intrigued. This sliver of sheer goodness fits the bill nicely. Though I still love my Huawei P8 Max (portable but massive huge screen), the only reason why I am going for the Mi Mix is the really amazing bezel-less look plus NFC (Android Pay and a few other FinTech apps that need it)

I bought the 6GB RAM, 256GB storage version. I also bought the 4GBRAM 128GB storage white version. Both from stores in Hong Kong. The latter is a gift to my significant other. They former costs HK$4780 and the latter cost $4300. The white version is much more limited in numbers and has the added benefit of hiding all your fingerprints, unlike the glossy black version, so you pay a premium for that despite the lower specs.

Notes before buying

It's good to check out the plethora of reviews (like this really good one) and videos on this phone to make sure it is right for you (do your research, duh!) Specs aside, ask yourself if these are absolute killers for you:

1) This is a Chinese phone meant to be sold in China ONLY. if you have anything against Chinese phones, MIUI (the manufacturer's overlay on the Android platform), software and interfaces, look elsewhere already.

2) Be prepared to pay a premium for this, since it's meant to be shipped to China, and not anywhere else (yet), it'll cost you a hefty penny as well as shipping unless you're getting it from Hong Kong.

3) If you are tinkerer and plan to root or mod your device, you need patience, though Xiaomi phones are known to be fairly straightforward to modify and root (if you are no tinkerer, you still get lots of customization options over the interface), you need to wait for them to grant you permission to unlock your bootloader (and there is no getting around it).

4) You need to put a case over this when you're on the go with it because this phone is slippery has heck, so if you like your devices nude but you're prone to dropping your phone (even from low heights like a meter from the ground), this might not be for you if you care about aesthetics. This phone looks great when it's without cover, but with one, it loses much of its outer appeal.

5) There is no external storage slot, thus the reason for the big allocation of internal storage even on the lower-end spec and you need to backup frequently if you don't want to lose data.

6) The camera is just average, especially the front camera. Don't expect it to compare with the higher-end shooters like those in Pixel, S7, and the like. It does an adequate job and takes really decent crisp pictures given enough light. In low-light settings, expect lots of noise and mediocre snaps. Also, if you're big on selfies, the front camera is located at the bottom of the screen, so you might need to keep tilting your phone upside down to take your usual selfie shot the way you're accustomed to.

7) The phone uses Type-C USB charger, so if you've been on micro-USB all along, be prepared to buy extra adapters/cables, good thing they come cheap, especially off Xiaomi's official site (if they ship to your country).

8) The phone does not have an in-built earpiece for projecting voice phone calls and instead uses some nifty technology called piezoelectric speaker, so if you use your phone regularly without headset and put the phone next to your ear(anywhere, even the back), you can hear the call. It works fine in my opinion, though some noted it's strong on bass and if too loud, it's audible to those in surroundings. So if you are constantly making private calls and hate headsets of any form, this is not the phone for you.

Look and feel

This is a jaw-droppingly beautiful phone, the fact that it's nearly bezel-less is going to turn heads. The black one has the advantage of making the screen look seamless towards the edge. The white one has the white ceramic trim surrounding it and this edge gives the false impression it's thicker than the black one merely for being prominent, though it's way less of a fingerprint magnet than its darker counterpart. If you are getting the black one, you would probably be wiping smudges and prints from your phone constantly.

The body is extremely slippery, if you place it on any slanted surface it will start sliding on its own. The case that comes in the box will tackle that problem, though it makes the phone significantly less pretty. Suggest you get a clear plastic one or a thin matte skin over it. The unit is definitely hefty to hold. For female users or those with smaller hands, you can easily wrap your hands around the unit, despite the large screen size. One-handed operation is also feasible by swiping the navigation bar at the bottom left or right (start from middle home button then the direction of your main hand).

The phone is known to be fragile although it's fairly understandable given the material it's built on. Unless you give it very thick protective gear, you need to keep reminding yourself to be careful with it and not to drop it. This scratch and bend test shows it's VERY resistant to scratches and bending so if you are still able to manage to scratch yours, I seriously don't think this is the right phone for you. For drops, however, that's where it's very vulnerable as you can see here. Repairs could cost an arm a leg just for the screen alone. So I don't think I need to reiterate that users must be careful handling this device!

What else is in the box

Besides the phone unit, the box comes with a matching case (black for the black version and pearly white for the white version) which is very lightweight but a tad thick. They provide ample protection for your phone. Then you get the 2-pronged adapter plus Type-C USB cable as the charging kit, and a very brief starter's guide next to a packet that contains the SIM card ejector pin/tool. That's it. There are no free earphones or anything else. I did purchase both the Mi In-Ear Headphones Pro and Mi In-Ear Headphones Pro HD and they're perfect for this phone, so try to get your hands on either pair.

Hardware, parts and insides of the phone

On top, you have 2 mics (tiny holes) and standard headphone jack. I tried different audio plugs to it and it fits securely and snugly with a satisfying soft click when it's inserted all the way. At the bottom, you get your charge/transfer port in USB-C format as well as two speaker grilles (one for the primary mic and the other is for the loudspeaker). USB-C type is, in my opinion, better than Micro-USB (they're not compatible, btw) so you do need to get extra cables if you plan on charging or transmitting files to PC in different locations. On the left is where your dual-SIM card slot is located, you can open it by pushing the ejector pin to the hole. To the right would be the power button and volume rocker.

The screen is beautiful and viewable outdoors on a sunny day even without the brightness dialled all the way to max. Compared to my Huawei P8 Max, things look crisper and colours are lusher. Though white seems more reddish (or my Huawei P8 Max's white is more blueish).

Screen, bluetooth, Wi-Fi & tethering, GPS, ultrasonic proximity sensors, NFC, and cameras all work without a hitch. I heard that hardware can sometimes fail when you're on a non-official ROM, another reason why I strongly advise against it.

This video dismantles the whole unit and shows you all the innards of the Mi Mix. You can probably tell that getting parts won't be easy, although it looks fairly uncomplicated to disassemble and reassemble.

Stock ROM

After powering on, the first thing you see after you're done going through the starter's guide of your phone is a cheesy-looking home page with HUGE icons and HUGE fonts for each application. This is MIUI, more on that later. Not too impressive or appealing at this stage, so it's good to go to Settings > About Phone to check which MIUI version / ROM you have. When I got mine, it was the Chinese Stable ROM (V8.2.2.0.MAHCNDL). This explains all the Chinese apps pre-installed. The great thing is, you can easily uninstall any of them that are not system apps.

I ran the system update to find there's one (V8.2.3.0.MAHCNDL), so I proceeded with it (I later realise it's somewhat of a mistake, new doesn't always mean better). If you have no Chinese apps and Google-related apps, commonly called gapps here (Google Installer, Play Store, Play Music, etc.), then you are likely on the Global Stable ROM. If you don't see the word "Stable" in your ROM or it's not recognisable as anything from the official site, then you're likely on a vendor or non-official ROM and it also means your bootloader is likely unlocked. This may spell trouble if you plan on using your phone's NFC for payments as most payment apps won't allow your phone to be on anything other than an official ROM and that your bootloader remains locked. Frankly, if you just need Google apps, you can still get them on either the Chinese or Global Stable ROM. I don't advise going for any other ROM if you're already on these. for security reasons. I also assume you're on MIUI going forward. I am on Global Stable ROM myself.

The difference between Chinese and Global ROM is that the former tends to be updated more frequently, have Chinese apps (meaning you need to run Google Installer APK to get all the Google goodies), and they have way more themes (though some at cost of Mi Credits) and the ability to change font (though only Chinese fonts which is not much use to the English-speaking world and everybody else). The Global ROM lags slightly behind in update frequency, but they have gapps and Xiaomi’s own Chinese bloatware removed (you can do this yourself in the Chinese ROM with basic uninstallation). However, they don’t have as many themes (but more than enough, and all of them are FREE), you also cannot download new ringtones or fonts.

If you have a very old version of a stable ROM pre-installed, simply run the system update to get the latest version. If you want to switch between China and Global ROM, try to follow this guide using recovery mode (you need the Chinese version of PC Suite for it to work (the English one doesn't unfortunately :(). Do note that “V8.2.3.0.MAHCNDL” Stable China ROM was not recognised by Android Pay as an official ROM, so you need to downgrade it back. I explained in in this post. If anyone tries it and got it working then, please let me know and I’ll update this part.

MIUI 8

Xiaomi's phone is known for MIUI, their version of Android. In past iterations, I've never really heartened to MIUI. I felt it tried too hard to mimic iOS, at the cost of user-friendliness and simplicity that comes with stock Android. To my surprise, this has all changed.

The learning curve for MIUI has become much lower, and the interface is probably one of the most aesthetically pleasing I've seen. I've used Samsung, LG, Sony, Asus, Motorola, and Huawei stock ROMs, and every time, I can't help but quickly install Apex Launcher to customise the interface and eventually finding my way to fully root the phone to tweak the way stuff on my status bar looks. Not anymore. MIUI 8 is just amazing. You click on the "Themes" app and you can see that there are plenty of really great designs out there. And if you only like parts of it and parts of others, you can actually customise your theme the way you want it directly in the "Theme" app (Theme > Settings > Customize Theme). Some theme icons are actually animated, for crying out loud!

There are still some quirks, though. For example, resizing of widgets is somewhat restrictive (not all widgets can be resized, unlike in Apex launcher). Also, it's very hard to preview widgets with the MIUI, but these aren't real biggies. With a big phone, you'd also expect more real estate but things are HUGE until you change your themes but this doesn't fix the UI scale issue entirely for apps (unless Xiaomi decides to upgrade the phone OS to Android 7.0 or Nougat where UI scale can be customised).

After downloading about 90+ themes and tweaking, here is what my lock screen and home screen looks like:

[IMG="Lock Screen"]https://preview.ibb.co/itXqJv/get_thumbnail.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG="Home Screen"]https://preview.ibb.co/bTVzBF/Screenshot_2017_03_22_17_42_52_796_com_miui_home.png[/IMG]

You can also find a lot of great stuff with MIUI besides customization. You can create "second space”, allowing your phone to pretty much have 2 accounts. So what happens in space one remains in space one, and what happens in space two remains in space two. You can theme each space differently, you can log into the same apps but with different logins in both spaces. This is very neat as your phone can literally be 2 devices in one body. If you don’t actually need to have an entirelly different space but need to have dual accounts on your phone, e.g. Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., you can do so using their Dual Apps feature. There's also an inbuilt app lock, and what's special is that it hides the content of your messages in the notifications bar and locked screen notifications, but you still get the notification. All these features you can find and access by heading to the "Security" app on your phone.

Phonecalls and loudspeaker

I'm no audiophile, so let's get that out of the way first, so below is merely my impression of the phone's audio qualities.

Calls on the device are made via what Xiaomi calls "cantilever piezoelectric ceramic acoustic technology" and it works like a charm. In a nutshell, rather than a regular earpiece which would inevitably make your phone bezels much larger to accommodate it, Xiaomi's technology here converts electrical energy into mechanical energy and you capture sound through vibrations. Sounds are not muffled and if you pick up calls in a relatively quiet area, you can get audibility easily at low-to-middle volume with your ear against it. Because the technology doesn't localise sounds into the earpiece, sound transmissions vibrate throughout the phone, meaning you can listen to your call even on the back panel. In noisier environments, however, you would instinctively boost the call to higher or even max volumes, this is where your call can get loud and audible to those around you, you don't even need your ear next to the phone. The ultrasonic sensor is Xiaomi's solution for Mix's lack of the standard proximity sensor and it also works. You don't have to worry about your face mashing buttons while you're on a call. The loudspeaker is also quite good, compared to my Huawei P8 Max, music at max volumes produced less static noise or buzz on the Mix. I use Spotify, mind you, and I'm happy with it. Audiophiles might do everyone a favour by putting in their two cents so as to describe in better ways than I can how audio fares on the Mi Mix.

Camera

Here is where Mi Mix scores the lowest in most reviews. Some even think the camera is crap as it performs strikingly poor in low-light settings and does not have OIS (optical image stabiliser). Well, it's definitely not the best shooter around but it's really not as bad as people say it is, especially when there are apps that can make the camera much better such as Camera Zoom FX or Snap Camera HDR. Frankly, for those who diss on the phone mainly because of the camera, please do get yourself some other device. This is a truly well-rounded phone and I think the camera is not as bad as people say it is.

Gaming

The phone's RAM, snappy processor plus massive storage and screen size make it a good gaming device. I played Mortal Kombat X on it and it's smooth and graphics look amazing. However, the phone's body is slippery so if you are playing a game that requires you to have a good grip on the back, best to play with a case. The phone gets warm gradually where your fingerprint sensor and camera lies and above, but it cools off quickly once off the game.

Mi Account and Mi Cloud and MIUI Forum

You'd want to set up a Mi Account for phone support as well as Mi Cloud. Since my phone's storage is 256GB, I'd pay to get a backup so you don't lose everything in case your phone gets lost, stolen or bricked. I pay the HK$118/yr for extra 100GB of space on Mi Cloud which backups your contacts, messages, photos and videos, notes, recordings, and lets you find your device. You might want to get something else if you need to backup your apps.

You also can find lots of good tutorials, information and reviews in the official English MIUI forums.

You would need a Mi Account tied to your phone to unlock the bootloader in order to root or flash ROMs.

Rooting and flashing new ROMs

If you really and absolutely MUST root your phone, there are two really helpful guides here and here.

I didn't see the need to, but I applied for unlocking the bootloader. Do be warned that it's going to void warranties if you truly proceed to unlock. Online guides tell you to go here, it didn't work for me, so I had to do it via the Chinese site. After filling in the forms, all you can do is wait. I got access to it 2 days later after applying. Xiaomi will send you an SMS saying you've been granted the permission to unlock. Go back to the website here while logged into your Mi Account and click the "Unlock Now" button, and you should be able to download the unlock tool that lets you unlock your Mix's bootloader.

I'm happy with my MIX as-is without rooting it or flashing any custom ROMs on it. Would be glad to answer any questions regarding the MIX.