Gadgets & Gizmos: Fast And Light

For months preceding its launch, people have been talking about Xiaomi’s Mi 5 smartphone. Very recently, it was brought into India, which apart from China is to be its biggest market.

Positioned as a device that can beat the best of them, this showcased at the MWC (Mobile World Congress) tech show some months ago, but Xiaomi’s Vice President International, Hugo Barra, explains how it’s been two years in the making and its every detail crafted with care. Whereas previous Xiaomi phones have been compared with the iPhone, the Mi 5 makes people see a resemblance with Samsung’s Galaxy S7 — but who copied who, is not clear.

For all the buzz surrounding it, the Mi 5 is definitely a nice-looking device. But perhaps not as revolutionary a design as the company makes it out to be. The back is curved glass or “3D glass” but looks and feels for all the world like plastic. Handing the device to others who hadn’t heard of the phone, and asking them what they thought it was made of, I invariably got a “Plastic, of course,” response. It’s an elegant enough chassis, very understated and clean, but I wouldn’t say it’s stop-in-your-tracks lovely.

Xiaomi is particularly happy with the way the metal frame and sides have been designed. Carefully angled and rounded off, the edges are meant to enhance in-hand comfort. It doesn’t feel particularly soft, but it’s narrow and good to grip. Loosen that grip though, and the device can slide elegantly to the floor where, if it really is glass, it’ll probably break. Best therefore, to put it into a case.

The Mi 5 is a nice size. Its 5.1 inches of screen put it in a not-too-large category by today’s standards and those who have been hard put to it to find smaller phones should consider it. The price, Rs 24,999, disappointed fans who thought it should be roughly equivalent to that in China putting it closer to Rs 20,000, puts it in the mid-range segment but where, like the OnePlus devices and a few others, it competes with some of the top enders because of the power and performance it offers at its price. I didn’t find it heating up.

One of the fastest features on this phone is the fingerprint sensor. It unlocks the phone when you press down on the home button, doing a job of waking and unlocking so fast that you don’t see the separate action. In other devices, there is a wake action and then an unlock, either by swiping, a pattern, or password or swiping the fingerprint sensor. On the Mi 5, the two happen simultaneously and fast. The only time I had to enter a pattern or pin was when coming back from total shutdown.

The Mi 5’s display is very comfortable. Not extremely crisp but rather, pleasing and easy to work with. It works in bright light and sunlight and has a wide range of brightness possible. It also has a blue light filter for comfortable reading.

The Mi 5 is the first to come into India with the 2016 flagship processor, the Snapdragon 820, a powerful driver that addresses many of the problems of the previous 810. On the Mi 5, it couples with 3GB or 4GB RAM, except that in India it’s just the 3GB with 32GB internal storage that’s available for now. Hugo Barra says that this is because they would have taken longer to bring in the other variants into India — but no word on if and when the situation will change. Buyers’ choices also seem limited to the white version and neither the famous gold nor ceramic variants are to be had at the moment.

All the same, even as it comes, the Mi 5 is a snappy speedy performer that beats many others, including the Galaxy S6, on benchmark scores. The Xiaomi MIUI interface sits lightly on Android 6.0 and is simple with lots of little customisations. Little thoughtful additions such as being able to switch the functions of the two buttons (back and recents) or enlarging the font to more than the usual degree, have been put in that are really user friendly, even thoughtful.
The lightness extends to the the way the phone feels as well. Despite a 3,000mAh battery, when you pick the phone up, it feels like they forgot to put in the battery. But of course, it’s there and its performance is very good.

The tricky part with the Mi 5 is the camera. It is so touted and compared with the top phones, that one forgets that it beats many of those on budget and mid-range phones while it doesn’t match up to the flagships like the iPhone or Galaxy S7 phones. It’s a hi-res camera but doesn’t do such a great job indoors in low light. Not enough has gone into keeping the noise down. The 4-axis optical image stabilisation for video, works passably. Outdoor shots are good, with natural colours. On the front, the camera is a 4 megapixel — with beauty modes.
'
The Mi 5 is a dual nano SIM with no expandable storage possible and supports all currently relevant 4G bands. It uses the USB-Type C connector and has fast charging 3.0 though you may not get the relevant charger in the box. As an overall package, it has much of what users in India enjoy, including a Child Mode.