Hands-on review: MWC 2016: Xiaomi Mi5

By Gareth Beavis

The Xiaomi Mi5 is a phone that beggars belief, a handset with a Snapdragon 820 CPU, 4GB of RAM, a 16MP Sony sensor and a sleek design that weighs just 129g. And all for around $300.

Most people in the western world not entrenched in the smartphone game won’t have heard of Xiaomi, but it’s a company that sold 70 million phones last year, mostly in Asia, where the brand is number one in China for smartphone sales.

It’s made this reputation on delivering high end phones for low, low prices and this Mi5 very much continues in that tradition.

The display is the only thing that’s not high-end on this phone – it’s a 1080p option with LCD IPS tech. It looks pin sharp and both contrast ratio and color reproduction are very clear and crisp.

It uses Xiaomi’s MIUI 7 on top of Android 6, which is really rather nippy in use – as you’d expect with those specs. There’s not a lot of pre-installed bloatware either, which is nice to see.

The Mi5 has a metal and glass combo for the chassis, with a seamless design that does feel really nice when …read more

Source:: techradar.com – Phones