CSI: Xiaomi. Snappy Redmi Note 9 Pro shows every fingerprint, but at least you get bang for your buck Bargain-basement phones like the Redmi Note 9 Pro helped establish Xiaomi. And, having spent time with the Chinese firm's latest blower for the UK market, it's really not hard to see why. First, there's the price: at £249, it sits in that competitive sweet spot between the bottom and middle tiers of the smartphone market. And …
Only if you use it to store media I would say, or take a lot of videos. 64Gb will hold a LOT of photos. I might be tempted to spend the extra cash on an SD card rather than the 64GB if budget were that tight?
Anyway this sounds like a seriously good bang for your buck. And an IR blaster... why is this not more common?! My TVs all claim to support mobile-link via WiFi but it is a waste of time whenever I tried.
The article doesn't mention it but according to GSMArena it has NFC, which is on my (at least) essential list. But no water resistance.
The economics are interesting. An important point re. Apple is that their products work well (battery replacement excepted) for about 4-5 years, which means a £1000 phone costs around £200-250 a year, in simplistic terms. The Xiaomi probably stays up to date for 2 years, or £125 a year. The SE2020 is in no way a competitor, any more than a Mazda MX5 is a competitor for a Dacia Duster. Different market sector.
Now consider that neither the iPhone 11 pro nor the Xiaomi have 5G, which means that in reality the iPhone may be a paperweight in 2-3 years, but with the Xiaomi you don't care.
So unless you really need or want certain performance aspects which the average buyer won't notice, even on a 2 year replacement cycle the Xiaomi is under half the real cost of the Apple (or Samsung) competition. It's quite a high price to pay for helping keep the US economy afloat.
"The economics are interesting. An important point re. Apple is that their products work well (battery replacement excepted) for about 4-5 years, which means a £1000 phone costs around £200-250 a year, in simplistic terms. The Xiaomi probably stays up to date for 2 years, or £125 a year. The SE2020 is in no way a competitor, any more than a Mazda MX5 is a competitor for a Dacia Duster. Different market sector."
But the SE2020 costs £419 which, over 4 years, is £105 pa - beating the Xiaomi. And I have iPhones going back up to 7 years that are still in regular use by members of the family (even a 4S that I use as my backup). [And I've found that 64GB on an iPhone is plenty if you add 79p pcm for iCloud storage. Of course, I don't play a lot of games and photos, video, etc. I need to keep gets moved to desktop storage and backup.]
The Xiaomi looks good as a mid-range phone but it shouldn't be decided on initial purchase cost - it's only best if teh full package best suits your needs. I've recently bought £20 handsets for a befriending service during lockdown - they only need to make voice calls and are handed out to volunteers - when the service is no longer needed, they're disposable as far as I'm concerned. If one breaks, it's quick and cheap to replace. Anything more expensive would be overkill (and not be the best use of resources - especially as the service will be much reduced once lockdown eases).
"Now consider that neither the iPhone 11 pro nor the Xiaomi have 5G, which means that in reality the iPhone may be a paperweight in 2-3 years, but with the Xiaomi you don't care."
Oh come on. 5G isn't even really implemented yet, only being present in small quantities in a few cities. While they may have completed a worldwide roll-out in three years, it's not going to be that fast. They'll have to keep 4G running throughout that process and for a while afterwards, much to their displeasure. While I have no doubt they'll try to get that shut down as soon as possible, it's not going to happen before most Note 9s or iPhone 11s are broken or replaced.
I think it's a reasonable question. Huawei made the mistake of being too successful, and hence economically threatening Apple, Cisco etc. in the USA, so Trump banned them. He says it's for security reasons of course, but I don't buy that personally.
Xiaomi will also be in the firing line if and when they are big enough, if it happens with Trump still in charge.
Huawei was specifically put on a list of companies who are not allowed to use American components. Everyone else is fine. Depending on what you think of the American government's policy, the reason is either because Huawei has stolen technology from American companies and they don't like that, because Huawei competes with a possible American communications company such as Cisco or that proposed Nokia-Erikson merger that didn't happen and they want to take them down, because Huawei has connections to the Chinese government and they have been used by that government but the U.S. can't show us the evidence, or because Huawei is big and Chinese and makes a good bargaining chip. Given my own opinion of the American government, I imagine it's most of those reasons combined and nobody really knows which one matters each day.
To contest the allegation above your comment, it's not about competition with Apple or Qualcomm. There are lots of places that compete with Apple on smartphones, including, despite statements, Xiaomi. There are also lots of places using their own chips rather than using Qualcomm, including Samsung (make their own mostly), and a lot of places using Mediatech for the SOC provider. Not even about modems, as you can get those from Intel, Apple, and a few Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers. If competition is involved, it's about the tech running communication networks, not the components in consumer electronics.
The most important feature to mention when reviewing a Xiaomi phone is not whether it has NFC/Google Pay, although that's second because they have a habit of including it in some markets but not others, but whether the appalling and potentially dodgy Mi Browser can be completely disabled, ideally uninstalled altogether but at least not keep making itself the default browser when you've told it to STFU.
If they're doing one very dodgy thing, it's a prudent assumption that they're doing more. It's reports like yours that help inform my purchasing decisions. Many reviewers, like many consumers, don't care or have the time to care.
I've had one Samsung phone, and privacy and security concerns over what Samsung has done on that, with basic functionality tied needlessly to granting access to contacts, not taking no for an answer, background Samsung processes of unnannounced functionality that you can't uninstall or disable. etc, mean that I'm unlikely to buy another Samsung phone.
I won't buy Apple because of cost. Are there other good brands for those that want basic respect for privacy and security without paying through the nose, and without having to consider replacing the firmware?
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