Never tried a Xiaomi phone and like to switch around so I went for the Mi Mix 2. In my opinion, all flagships today are great and worth a buy (depending on the price) so I like seeing comparisons between them more than just a review.
BUILD:
The Mi Mix 2 is much heavier than my 5" Pixel 2, at first it was almost uncomfortable to hold with one hand, especially in landscape mode. The Pixel 2 is also much less slippery.
Mi Mix 2, however, it built like a tank. I've owned a dozen flagships in the past few years and my month so far with the Mi Mix 2 shows no wear. Usually I see the small hairline scratch from keys in the pocket or a slight scuff on the corner from god knows what, but absolutely no wear can be seen so far, I'm very impressed with how mint this phone looks after a month. In fact, this has to be my biggest positive for the phone is how well built it feels.
DISPLAY
This comes down to preference, but I want to say I've always preferred AMOLED. The Pixel 2, just like any other AMOLED phone, nails the blacks.
BUT, what I'm surprised about here is the sharpness of the image. It's been a awhile since I've used an LCD (OnePlus 2 I think) and you're probably thinking the 6 inch display will make the pixels very obvious on a 1080p panel. Not in the slightest. In fact, when I go side-by-side, pixels are more obvious on the 5" 1080p Pixel 2 than on the 6" 1080p LCD Mi Mix 2.
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And with the contrast turned up in Xiaomi's display settings, the picture looks damn good. I still prefer AMOLED in the end, but it's so close.
CAMERA
I'm just going to skip this because there's really no contest, the Pixel 2 wiped the floor with every shot I took between the two. The front-facer on the Mi Mix 2 is a joke, and with the camera being on the bottom I don't even want to use snapchat anymore... I hope nobody else decides it's a good idea to place it down there.
BATTERY
This one was close, but the Pixel 2 takes the cake. Pixel 2 gave me 4 hrs 35 mins of SOT while the Mi Mix 2 got me 4 hr 5 mins on average in 3 days of testing. I gotta hand Xiaomi credit for their advanced battery saving settings (which I admittedly did not use) but I don't want to rely on battery saving mode to get me through the day. I buy a flagship for its performance, and don't want it hindered.
PERFORMANCE
About the same. The Mi Mix 2 seems to keep apps in memory longer than the Pixel 2, and while the opening and closing animations are quicker on the Mi Mix 2, actual app launch times are really neck and neck between the two.
MIUI
This is what I was most nervous about before getting the phone... I'm happy to say I am pleasantly surprised with the software experience. While it looks similar to iOS, Xiaomi still has a unique look. The animations are (except Android P) more in depth and visually pleasing than stock android. Gesture navigation is superb if you go the fullscreen route. I can't emphasize this enough. If stock is to go the gesture route with navigation, I hope they go this route. Granted, it's almost identical to iPhone X, but a qucik swipe from the sides of the phone to go back or swiping up from the bottom to go home just feels right. Holding your swipe up to get to the recent apps is a little too slow for me, and it took some getting use to, but it's not bad.
Other than that, the features Xiaomi added are not overwhelming or bloated, and seem like only small beneficial yet optional tweaks you can apply in the settings. I'd rather keep this a little short so if there's any questions about MIUI or the phone in general you have just let me know.
BUILD:
The Mi Mix 2 is much heavier than my 5" Pixel 2, at first it was almost uncomfortable to hold with one hand, especially in landscape mode. The Pixel 2 is also much less slippery.
Mi Mix 2, however, it built like a tank. I've owned a dozen flagships in the past few years and my month so far with the Mi Mix 2 shows no wear. Usually I see the small hairline scratch from keys in the pocket or a slight scuff on the corner from god knows what, but absolutely no wear can be seen so far, I'm very impressed with how mint this phone looks after a month. In fact, this has to be my biggest positive for the phone is how well built it feels.
DISPLAY
This comes down to preference, but I want to say I've always preferred AMOLED. The Pixel 2, just like any other AMOLED phone, nails the blacks.
BUT, what I'm surprised about here is the sharpness of the image. It's been a awhile since I've used an LCD (OnePlus 2 I think) and you're probably thinking the 6 inch display will make the pixels very obvious on a 1080p panel. Not in the slightest. In fact, when I go side-by-side, pixels are more obvious on the 5" 1080p Pixel 2 than on the 6" 1080p LCD Mi Mix 2.
tech news free netflix
And with the contrast turned up in Xiaomi's display settings, the picture looks damn good. I still prefer AMOLED in the end, but it's so close.
CAMERA
I'm just going to skip this because there's really no contest, the Pixel 2 wiped the floor with every shot I took between the two. The front-facer on the Mi Mix 2 is a joke, and with the camera being on the bottom I don't even want to use snapchat anymore... I hope nobody else decides it's a good idea to place it down there.
BATTERY
This one was close, but the Pixel 2 takes the cake. Pixel 2 gave me 4 hrs 35 mins of SOT while the Mi Mix 2 got me 4 hr 5 mins on average in 3 days of testing. I gotta hand Xiaomi credit for their advanced battery saving settings (which I admittedly did not use) but I don't want to rely on battery saving mode to get me through the day. I buy a flagship for its performance, and don't want it hindered.
PERFORMANCE
About the same. The Mi Mix 2 seems to keep apps in memory longer than the Pixel 2, and while the opening and closing animations are quicker on the Mi Mix 2, actual app launch times are really neck and neck between the two.
MIUI
This is what I was most nervous about before getting the phone... I'm happy to say I am pleasantly surprised with the software experience. While it looks similar to iOS, Xiaomi still has a unique look. The animations are (except Android P) more in depth and visually pleasing than stock android. Gesture navigation is superb if you go the fullscreen route. I can't emphasize this enough. If stock is to go the gesture route with navigation, I hope they go this route. Granted, it's almost identical to iPhone X, but a qucik swipe from the sides of the phone to go back or swiping up from the bottom to go home just feels right. Holding your swipe up to get to the recent apps is a little too slow for me, and it took some getting use to, but it's not bad.
Other than that, the features Xiaomi added are not overwhelming or bloated, and seem like only small beneficial yet optional tweaks you can apply in the settings. I'd rather keep this a little short so if there's any questions about MIUI or the phone in general you have just let me know.
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