Smartphones sales bounce, Xiaomi biting at Apple's heels Global smartphone sales are continuing to rebound, partly thanks to a "buzz" around high-end devices supporting Gen AI, but mostly due to budget conscious consumers seeking out low-end devices. Market watchers Canalys and IDC have both released shipment stats for calendar Q2, and while their figures may differ in places, the …
I have had 12s Ultra and now on a 14 Ultra - haven't seen a single built in ad and the non-removable apps are about on par with what I had with Samsung (Note 4. 8 & 20 Ultra), in fact the 14 is pretty good in being able to remove most apps I'd say it was better than Samsung in my experience.
Plus, neither device as developed a USBc port problem like both the Note 8 and 20 Ultra have.
The 12s was a China rom and that came with limitations - not having goolge by default meant no android auto annoyingly (though I'm not sure why it cant be added and has to come bundled, but that's more a question for google), also had trouble setting up a google watch - though google wallet worked just fine, occasionally I'd have to dip in to some non-translated menus and guess my way through the Chinese (though a second device to google lens it would probably have made it easier, I feel I've spent enough time with tech to guess what button does what). But in terms of issues, that was it in two years of daily usage, thing still looks virtually brand new even though I took the case off for the last eight months of use in the hopes of damaging it so I had an excuse to get the latest shiny shiny without the missus complaining, I just bought it anyways as it had no sign of dying on me.
The 14 is a global rom and I've absolutely no problems with it over the past three months, would recommend most to stick to global roms to avoid the above niggles if they'd be problems for you (though, appreciate not everyone needs android auto - or, like I did, can just use an old phone for the car).
Solid handsets, plain sailing on the OS side (when using a global rom) and an absolutely amazing camera (for a phone) so what's not to like? I'll be sticking with Xiaomi when it comes to the next upgrade I feel too.
You would think someone clued in enough to be posting on The Reg would be able to google the 5 minute procedure to turn off all ads in a Global ROM. In my experience, the EU ROMS (eg: you bought it from the Xiaomi Store UK and not AliExpress) come with the ads already disabled.
Don't know why you felt it necessary to post this multiple times, but it's straight up not true, been using them for a few years moving from several years of Samsung (and HTC before that) and they're great handsets, better than Samsung in being able to disable the included cruft (and their base apps aren't bad, I use the Notes one heavily).
I've had two Xiaomi handsets and they were very, very good at what they did for the price, and I never had any issues with ads at all unless it was an app I'd installed via the Google Play store. However, both handsets would randomly report a complete loss of network signal requiring a restart of the handset. This was initially every couple of weeks or so but gradually happened more often so that after a couple of years you might need to restart every other day - frustrating and embarrassing when your stood at the till in the supermarket. As this happened for two different models of handset, it looks to be a design flaw or an indication of the use of cheap components.
I've recently switched to a Samsung handset and while it cost slightly more it's a lot more stable, has a much better camera (at least the quality is vastly better but that could be the image processing) and the performance is a lot faster. The only niggle is that the fingerprint sensor under the screen isn't as accurate as the Xiaomi's in the power button. But I can live with that.
Small irony, my >2year old 12s Ultra had no problems like that, but both my Note 8 and Note 20 Ultra's Samsungs did around the two year mark - along with failing USB ports and battery life that dived off a cliff even though I take a cautious approach to charging (ie, at work, not leaving them on constantly, letting them run down, but not all the way etc..).
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