I love the hardware, despite the MASSIVE notch, no headphone jack & fingerprint on the back (coming from a Moto Z with a defected battery). One thing I should note is that the phone sounds hollow when you tap on the back of it. It doesn't feel solid, even with a case on.
And then the title. I hate the Mi 8 because of MIUI. On the first day it decides to terminate almost all the background services, resulting in the smoothest performance I've ever seen, at the cost of NO notification. I was terrified. As a result, I have to use Xiaomi's "Security" app to lock down apps that I want to keep in RAM. And I had to choose from the list of almost 200 apps. I first locked down 169 apps but the device started lagging horribly, so I had to sort the list AGAIN. This time just from 169 apps! Hurray! Now only 123 apps are locked down.
On top of that it doesn't sync my Google contact, which has more than 300 people there. What's a phone if it doesn't have contact data?! Google services work like s**t. I had to Bluetooth the whole contact list from the Moto Z (plugged in 24/7 now luckily it didn't die). But then I lost all the "Labeling", which is still very frustrating. But still better than having no details.
Now comes the (default) camera with its stupid beautifying AI. Horrendous. I don't even look like myself. I look more like a white out Mannequin (sp?). And the background blur is absolute trash. It doesn't recognize my glasses or my hair so it just randomly blur sections around my face. Nasty. I tried Open Camera but goodness that thing is a lag fest here.
And there's this stupid notch, which is very likely a blacked out bar shaped into the UI's notification bar. When I turned on the rotation in Chrome, the whole UI had a hard time deciding what to do with that "black bar" so it just resets itself & turn off the screen. And I have to manually turn the screen on again. Nice.
Honestly, if you're not living in China, stay out of this phone. Or wait until LineageOS pops up, which I sincerely hope to come soon.
In the end, I enjoy the hardware. MIUI has some nice features, but I just can't live with a defunct, half-assed iOS-skinned horrendous garbage.
Should have spend just a little more and get the OnePlus 6 instead. I want to support Xiaomi because of OnePlus' incidents in the past & look where it takes me
Should have trusted those damn YouTubers
And then the title. I hate the Mi 8 because of MIUI. On the first day it decides to terminate almost all the background services, resulting in the smoothest performance I've ever seen, at the cost of NO notification. I was terrified. As a result, I have to use Xiaomi's "Security" app to lock down apps that I want to keep in RAM. And I had to choose from the list of almost 200 apps. I first locked down 169 apps but the device started lagging horribly, so I had to sort the list AGAIN. This time just from 169 apps! Hurray! Now only 123 apps are locked down.
On top of that it doesn't sync my Google contact, which has more than 300 people there. What's a phone if it doesn't have contact data?! Google services work like s**t. I had to Bluetooth the whole contact list from the Moto Z (plugged in 24/7 now luckily it didn't die). But then I lost all the "Labeling", which is still very frustrating. But still better than having no details.
Now comes the (default) camera with its stupid beautifying AI. Horrendous. I don't even look like myself. I look more like a white out Mannequin (sp?). And the background blur is absolute trash. It doesn't recognize my glasses or my hair so it just randomly blur sections around my face. Nasty. I tried Open Camera but goodness that thing is a lag fest here.
And there's this stupid notch, which is very likely a blacked out bar shaped into the UI's notification bar. When I turned on the rotation in Chrome, the whole UI had a hard time deciding what to do with that "black bar" so it just resets itself & turn off the screen. And I have to manually turn the screen on again. Nice.
Honestly, if you're not living in China, stay out of this phone. Or wait until LineageOS pops up, which I sincerely hope to come soon.
In the end, I enjoy the hardware. MIUI has some nice features, but I just can't live with a defunct, half-assed iOS-skinned horrendous garbage.
Should have spend just a little more and get the OnePlus 6 instead. I want to support Xiaomi because of OnePlus' incidents in the past & look where it takes me
Should have trusted those damn YouTubers 