Mi 5: Meticulously crafted Smartphone - Full Review!
Finally, after few weeks later. I am finally here, with the review I told I will post two weeks after I posted my Unboxing of the Mi 5. Sorry la… Don’t be mad at me. I was busy kay? So, for those who didn’t even read my Unboxing, you have a lot to read. I am posting the link below for you to read that and then you continue with the review.
This will be a complete review. And I will be going through one by one. I won’t be going through all the specs and the unboxing as I’ve posted those way back. So, you guys make sure read those before continuing with this. Okay you ready? Let’s go! :)
Build & Design
This phone has a really light build which weighs in 139g. Very light. The metal rails around the phone is very nice, smooth enough. Because when the Mi note came out, the phone had some weird feeling corners. It’s improved over here. But take note, the material used in the phone is very ductile. Meaning if you give a certain amount of pressure and bend it, it will break. No joke. But when you think logically, we won’t be applying that much pressure on our phones. So, it’s a good thing. Dropping the phone will give you small dent marks / scuff on the metal rails. Normal stuff. Might shatter the glass too.
The back 3D glass is very nice. It’s curved in a way that, it feels very comfortable to hold and use the phone. One thing I was scared about is the phone getting scratches. There was very minimal scratches. This is due to keeping in your pocket with coins or your keys by accident. I suggest you stick a protector for the back glass. I’ll be making a post with all the accessories I use with my Mi 5 later when I’m free.
The front display glass is good because I barely could find one scratch or something. I am really satisfied with the front panel because of its nice finish. No protruding glass.
On to the buttons. It’s very clicky and tactile. No issues so far. The Home button acts as a touch panel, so you don’t have to press the button to head home or something. Very nice.
Overall, my score for the Build is 4 out of 5. And for the design, since it’s practical enough, I’ll give a 4.8 out of 5.
Display
In terms of display, the phone has a 5.15” 1080p display with 441ppi. I know it's 2016, and other companies are moving into 2K / 4K panels for their devices. But honestly, at the current moment we won't be seeing a lot of contents which runs at that resolution.
Secondly, the power consumption with a higher pixel display will be high. So in that way, the 1080p does seem alright. Nice. Crisp. Vivid.
But do I want a QHD display? Yes.
I loved Mi devices display, especially the mi4i, Mi Note and the Mi4 as well. The color production is really good. Gives you that true to life color. That's how Mi 5 is.
You can adjust the color tone with via software in the built in option, in MIUI 7. The current version of MIUI that is running in Mi 5. You can find the same same settings in MIUI 8.
My rating for the display, 4.5/5.
Camera
This is one interesting department. As we all know this phone has a 16MP Sony IMX 298 sensor with 4-axis OIS. In terms of spec, yes it does really well. But how about the pictures from the device. Is it really good?
I have to say, I am impressed with this camera. In a way the camera is getting used pretty well. The pictures turned out really good. Exposure is normal. Saturation, neither high nor low. If you are a person who wants you picture to be saturated, you can go into the settings to play with the settings.
Playing with the manual has always been my favorite. And this time I saw something really interesting. For those who uses DSLR for photography, there’s something called Focus Peaking. Here’s what it means. It’s actually one hell of a tool. It assist you when you’re focusing manually. Highlights the area in focus, so you can actually focus quickly and don’t really have to miss some serious and important shots.
According to a friend of mine, he told me that the Focus Peaking is available in Mi Note, Mi4 and other few devices. If photographers wants to step up their Mobile photography, this is one phone to consider. Not the greatest, but it does some good job at it.
In terms of settings, you can take pictures in both 16:9 and 4:3 ratio. When it comes to the video part, this phone can shoot SD, HD, Full HD and 4K.
Can the phone play 4K? Pfft. Of course it can.
The OIS improves taking picture as well as shooting videos at ease. Improves a lot. This helps you to get a non blurry picture and a steady video to watch.
One thing I wish the phone had is RAW shooting capability. At the moment, there’s a lot of camera which takes really great pictures and when it comes to manual mode, you get to do a lot. So, it would be an awesome addition.
Camera, 4.2 / 5.
Performance
As we all know, this phone has the latest and greatest Qualcomm Snapdragon 820. This particular variant I got is the base version. 3 GB RAM, 32 GB ROM and the processor in this is clocked in at 1.8 GHz whereas the 64GB & 128GB is clocked in at 2.15 GHz. It’s indeed fast. But there are sudden stutter, when the background process is very high. But then it rarely happens, so I don’t think this is a huge problem.
When you use it a lot, the phone gets normal hot and not crazy hot. Testing the graphics and all, the phone does a really good job in every part. Smooth, clear and beautiful. Some of the games I tried was Leo’s fortune, NFS No Limits, Limbo and few more.
I am not of a huge gamer. So I thought how about I do the stuff that I normally do. So I tested out Remote desktop with my phone while I was out having dinner and it’s smooth. Very responsive. A lot of phones cannot handle the remote desktop processing, so it ends up crashing. But this one didn’t.
Next was Screencasting on to my Mi Box, which worked great too. The media content which was casted to my TV was clear. Everything synced perfectly.
And finally my power intensive test, VR. I test the devices I get in VR to see how good it performs and how responsive it is. I viewed contents like the Insidious Chapter 3, vrse, Youtube 360 videos and a space game. As usual, the phone got hot. Really hot. The phone maintained the performance throughout the whole session and there was no weird frame drops. Which is a good thing. Sending feedback to the device was responsive and every gesture worked fine. Sensors were working fine.
RAM Management in this device is not the greatest. Out of 3GB of RAM, I only have 1GB RAM free. Sometimes, it’s weird that I’ll just have around 800MB free, no matter how many times I clear. But take note, "The more times you clear the ram, the less you're going to get back, 'cause some apps just keep restarting after you close them, thus taking up more ram in the process." - A tip from a friend.
Other things like the IR Blaster, fingerprint sensor works fine and its really good. The fingerprint sensor is fast af. No joke. Tested out with an iPhone 6S, and the Mi 5 unlocks faster than iPhone.
Only thing is that is the phone was clocked in at 2.15, I am pretty sure it will be really great.
Performance, 4.3/5
Battery
This phone has a 3000 mAh battery. It’s indeed smaller than the 4000 mAh battery found in the Redmi Note 3. The performance is okay. I can get screen on time up to 5 hours. Normally at the end of the day, I’ll have around 20% left and my stamina Mode turns on.
I forgot to take a screenshot of the Battery usage, But I’ll upload one soon.
If your phone battery is down, this phone supports QC 3.0. And it has the all new USB type C, which is reversible and can charge your device around 80 percent in one hour and 25 minutes.
Battery, 4/5.
I/O
The phone has 2 ports. One is the 3.5mm jack located on the top and the USB C port at the bottom. The USB C, can be a scary story. Since this cable is not popular yet and its not something you can find in shops everywhere, you might have to buy your USB C accessories like ton load just to be safe.
Software
In terms of software, Mi 5 runs MIUI 7.3 out of the box. MIUI is Xiaomi’s own custom UI which runs on top of android. The android version running in Mi 5 is Marshmallow, 6.0.
MIUI 8 is already on its way for the Mi 5. It fixes some bugs, there’s a lot of new features and many more. The features found in MIUI is useful, and there’s a lot. It has a built in Mi Cloud which backups all your personal data in a safe area and you get to restore when you get a new Mi phone. Which is neat. Under security, you get more features like blocking call, giving either wifi/data connection to certain apps and many more.
One thing I am really disappointed with the software department is, none of the M Features we saw in Google I/O works in MIUI. Including useful features like the Doze, App permission and Google Now on Tap. If you guys don’t know, you should check out the older Google I/O to know the features available in Marshmallow.
MIUI overtakes those feature and let us use only what they offer which is a bit of a disappointment. Well, hope you guys can do something on it yea! Software, 3.8 / 5.
Cellphone Reception / Wi-Fi
The Reception with call is great. And in case you guys don’t know, this phone supports VoLTE, which is a latest iteration of Voice call, which is not implemented completely yet. What it does it, it places call on LTE instead of the traditional call. In short, your call gets a whole lot better, crispier and more clearer.
One issue I am facing with the Call, is that irritating noise when you move around while talking. Not sure its the Telco problem or the software problem. But if its the software problem, it’s time for you guys to correct it.
Wi-Fi, supports a/b/g/n and the new ac which can take in a very high download and upload speed. So far, no issue with the Wi-Fi and its perfectly fine.
Cellphone Reception, 4 / 5 and Wi - Fi, 4.8 / 5.
Conclusion
Mi 5, is the company’s flagship device and I am impressed to see all sort of new features and technology in this beast. Is it worth the buy? Yes. Not a lot of company offers the best in class performance, a nice camera and a great display + form factor, especially at this price. One thing Mi has to really work on is with their UI. The features are top notch, awesome. But I have to say, the bugs should be fixed time to time. Not just on developer ROM but also to the stable ROM.
But one thing for sure, it’s that the price offered for Mi 5 is far more better. Mi 5 is available through dealers officially starting 27th June 2016 for RM 1549. You can grab your own unit real soon. But if you want a higher variant, a 64 or a 128 GB Version, you might as well import it but it will cost a lot. So, you guys do the math. :)
One advice, please get the accessories for your phone before you buy it. It helps.
Is it worth upgrading from a Mi4i, Mi4 or Mi3? Yes. I came from a Mi4i. If you guys have any questions, be sure to comment below and I will answer you guys as soon as possible.
As always, thank you so much for reading my review. Be sure to follow me on my social networks for more awesome insiders. And I’ll catch you guys real soon.
This is Prithivi Raj / Vesper
