Pros and Cons of Xiaomi Mobile Phones

Last Updated on March 11, 2021 by Filip Poutintsev

Xiaomi, pronounced “Shee-ow-me”, is a Chinese electronic company founded in 2010 by the former CEO of Kingsoft Lei Jun. The company entered the market as a software company which primarily focused on making custom ROM based on Google’s android and entered the hardware market in 2011 with the launch of the first phone, MI one phone.

Pros and Cons of Xiaomi Mobile Phones

Xiaomi Phones — Photo by Toro Tseleng on Unsplash

The MI one phone had top specifications and an affordable price which has remained Xiaomi’s philosophy from day one. Their logo MI stands for “Mobile Internet” and it stands for “Mission Impossible”, as well, since the company faced challenges in the early years which seemed impossible to elude.

However, within 10 years, Xiaomi has had a meteoritic growth. Today, it is ranked as the fourth-best smartphone and the fourth-largest smartphone brand in the world. With 119 million smartphones sold in 2018, the company has been dominating the smartphone industry.

So, what is the reason behind such a triumphant success of a brand new company in a market which usually is dominated by older brands? What makes these phones so unique? And what are its drawbacks? With more and more people interested in Xiaomi smartphones, we have compiled a few pros and cons of it below.

A Brief History of Xiaomi Phones

With the launch of their first phone, the MI one phone, the company, also, introduced a custom ROM named MIUI which provided additional functionality and a subtle interface in 2011. MIUI was readily available for more than 200 devices and by end of 2013 Xiaomi had over 30 million MIUI users all around the world. Developing their own hardware was a success since their revenue for 2013 alone was $5 billion.

Their success steadily kept on growing as the company prioritized not only their number of sales but rather on customer’s feedback too, which was highly appreciated by the users. They targeted the more price-sensitive market in the south Asian region and provided a smartphone with no compromise at a very low price compared to the competitions which explain their success.

In 2018, Xiaomi became the most popular smartphone brand in India reportedly with 28% of the market share. Today, the company even owns sub-brands Redmi and Poco which was established in hopes of hitting a wider market across the globe. Also, these sub-brands operate independently, allowing them to experiment and avoid risks to their big brand.

Pros of Xiaomi Mobile Phones

Here are the pros of owning Xiaomi phones:

1. Price

Xiaomi devices are known for being cheap. Their philosophy since the early days has been to provide maximum specification at a reasonable price. You can basically pick up Xiaomi’s flagship phone with OLED display, triple cameras and Qualcomm’s latest and greatest chipset at around $400 which is significantly less than Samsung and Apple with similar specs. Their budget phone, too, has good specification and performance that punch above its price.

2. Designs

From a design perspective, Xiaomi looks great with all the design attributes of top of the line smartphone. From all screen and triple cameras to curved displays- you name it. If you keep it aside from the best of Apple, Samsung or Huawei, you wouldn’t be able to spot the difference. Their choice of premium quality materials and lightweight makes it an amazing phone to handle and gives confidence to the users.

3. Operating System

Xiaomi phones come with MIUI which is incredibly fast and fluid to use. With every iteration of its software, Xiaomi has focused on making their OS more stable and easy to use. It’s safe to say that their design element is influenced by a certain ‘fruit-named company’ but it has its unique share of customizability.

Cons of Xiaomi Mobile Phone

Here are the cons of Xiaomi Mobile Phones:

1. Overheating Issues

One of the biggest drawbacks with Xiaomi phones is it overheating issues. Numerous users have reported that their phones overheat during heavy tasks like gaming. On top of that, there are even claims that their smartphones have caught on fire due to overheating. Overheating is a more typical problem of their midrange smartphones. Although Xiaomi has worked on this solving it, the problem stills exist. If you are planning to buy their phone, then this is the number one thing to watch out for.

2. Ads in MIUI

Users always seem to complain about the annoying ads that pop up on their Xiaomi phone. Ads are common in their inbuilt apps like their file manager and settings. While this might not bother some people, it is very irritating to many. Due to the high intensity of complaints, Xiaomi has promised to remove those ads but it still seems to pop up from time to time.

3. Poor Ram Utilization

While this problem might not be seen in phones having 6 GB or more ram, it’s very prominent on the ones with less ram. Their mid-range devices that come with 3 or 4 GB of ram have a tendency to aggressively remove apps from the background which is a huge bummer for multitasking. Xiaomi should provide a software update to minimize this problem and look for a more efficient way of using their ram without compromising performance.

Conclusion

While Xiaomi mobile phones are dirt cheap, it cannot be denied that they have great products. Their budget line almost seems hard to believe given the value their products offer. Although their phones come with certain drawbacks, the company is known for successfully eliminating the flaws with every new update. Thus, this is a great budget-friendly for you!

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