Hey.
Xiaomi are famous primarily for their price / performance ratio. Rather, to be precise, a combination of characteristics / price. During the formation of the brand's image, such praises to the address Xiaomi were sung by almost all specialized publications that prophesied a cloudless future for the company. In some ways, these predictions came true, because contrary to the opinion of skeptics, the company still feels confident in the market. However, in the modern lineup you cannot find such tasty prices as before. Having strengthened, Xiaomi swung into the middle and even high price segments. It soon became clear that one powerful iron was not enough to enter the A-brands club. Need to do something with design and materials. The first swallow was the controversial flagship, aka 'caliph for an hour', xiaomi Mi5.
The metal frame, covered on both sides by tempered glass, marks a new milestone in design Xiaomi.
The device turned out to be very beautiful (a matter of taste), light, thin and powerful.
It would seem, what else is needed for an unconditional victory? We also need reliability and a low defect rate, which, alas, Mi5 could not boast of.
Yes, the new chassis is actually great. With characteristics comparable to the flagship of the A-brands, the Mi5 was thinner and had a battery of comparable or higher capacity, and it was also significantly lighter. The very first impression of the device – wow, how light, thin and beautiful.
It impressed even fans of the principle of 'a quality thing must be felt in the hand'.
I wondered what kind of beast it was and I begged for Mi5 from my friend for a couple of months.
Mi5 made a very good impression.
It is important that the phone was in use for about a year before me. Despite this, he received no visible damage. This is partly the merit of the proprietary cover, so most of the time it was operated by the owner in this case and with glued glass from the kit. It is necessary to make allowances for the possible frugal attitude of the owner of the smartphone, but knowing him, I am tormented by vague doubts that the smartphone was greatly cherished.
The case is in excellent condition. The edges are without mechanical damage. The screen was under protective glass all the time, and therefore there is no doubt about its safety. As you can see from the photo, the protective glass has repeatedly saved Mi5 from unpleasant moments and possible damage.
For appearance and resistance to external factors, you can put a solid five.
Problems
But in any barrel of honey there is a fly in the ointment, and in the case of the Mi5, this spoon turned out to be the size of a ladle.
As stated above, the public very warmly received the smartphone from Xiaomi in the new design. Like the rest of the company's devices, the Mi5 quickly became a bestseller. And here the users faced a number of serious problems, which they began to actively write about on forums and thematic resources.
The most important problem faced by many device owners was the spontaneous disconnection of the smartphone, after which it was impossible to turn it on.
The phone did not react to any resuscitation actions and many masters at first sinned on the failure of the motherboard, which meant the need to replace it for an impressive amount.
Subsequently, with a deeper analysis of the problem, inquisitive minds found out that the problem was not in the motherboard, not in the memory and not in the processor, but only in the power controller, which failed with a strong battery discharge.
It turned out that you can order a separate controller, and after receiving it, replace it at a reasonable price in almost any normal service center. In addition, some managed to do without replacing the controller at all. It was enough to just charge the battery directly, and the smartphone came back to life.
But trouble doesn't come alone
Users began to complain about cases of incorrect screen calibration, due to which the screen was noticeably yellow. Well, these users Xiaomi will not surprise you, the yellow screen appeared in Redmi Note 2. But unlike Redmi Note 2, in Mi5 it was not about calibration and in the matrix itself, or rather in the use of low-quality glue, which is why over time, after periodic heating of the operating device, yellow spots began to appear on the matrix.
It's good that this was recognized as a defect, and the displays were changed under warranty. However, the situation resembled a well-known anecdote – 'we found spoons, but the sediment remained'. It's unpleasant.
Together with the problem of the controller and the yellowness of the screen, users began to massively complain about the incorrect operation of the fingerprint scanner. For some, it only worked at a certain angle. For others, the scanner worked correctly only when you pressed the left side of the button, while crunching, and there were those for whom this function completely disappeared from the menu, and the scanner stopped working completely.
In the case of the disappearance of the function from the menu, the main reason was an unsuccessful update released by the company, and therefore many were helped either by rolling back to the previous firmware version, or waiting for the next version with fixes.
But there were also those who were not helped by any updates and flashing. The problem was hardware.
Oddly enough, in most of these cases, the reason for the complete failure of the scanner was the ingress of moisture due to careless use and design features, due to which condensation accumulated in the area of the 'Home' button, which disabled the fingerprint scanner.
On the other hand, how many devices do you know that have a fingerprint scanner massively out of order due to moisture ingress?
As a result, users figured out this, too, depending on the problem, either experimenting with firmware, or changing the button completely.
How, more to come?
It would seem that there will be enough misfortunes. I flashed the phone, replaced the button, re-soldered the controller and enjoy life. But not with Mi5.
There is only a little left – bubbles under the lamination of the long-suffering 'Home' button. If you press down such a bubble harder with your finger, it disappeared, only to reappear after a while. Decision? There are only two ways – either to accept it and not pay attention, or to change the 'Home' button again.
And also, interruptions in the quality of Wi-Fi reception – firmware or repair.
Not tired yet?
The devices Xiaomi, with all their advantages, have always had one weak point – the camera. Mi5 is no exception.
He shoots rather mediocre, especially when it comes to low light conditions. Here the camera frankly fails, lathers and grains. But even in good conditions, with sufficient lighting, the quality falls short of the best camera phones.
However, this is not the main problem. The main problem was the problem of pink or purple stripes, which began to appear when using the camera with third-party applications such as Viber, WhatsApp and others like them. So, pink or purple stripes, as well as blurring of corners, were added to the not very high quality of shooting.
Someone managed to fix the 'pinkness' and 'purpleness' by a simple flashing, while someone had to change the camera module. I am glad that the latter are in the minority.
conclusions
If you look at the price of the device, which is currently in the region of 10-13 thousand rubles, and try to close your eyes to possible problems (can you surely succeed in doing this?), Then Mi5 will turn out to be an extremely interesting device with outstanding characteristics, excellent design and capacious battery.
Thanks to its hardware and price, mi5 will be relevant for at least another year, despite the fact that even with so many difficulties and marriage, it managed to become a bestseller.
However, before thinking about buying, I would advise you to weigh the pros and cons. The price / performance ratio is not always the main thing. Sometimes calmness and confidence are more important.
P.S. The sample I used did not show any of the above problems. A lottery in its pure form, in which the owner of the device draws a winning ticket.