The first step to making a premium smartphone is making it look and feel like a luxury item. Xiaomi somewhat succeeded in doing that with the Redmi Note 3.
And has done it again with the Mi 5. What it has also managed to do is set the two devices apart significantly, and the Mi 5 has a design and build that is patently different from the much more affordable Redmi Note 3. It feels suitably premium, and does not let its mid-range pricing affect that in any way. It’s also extremely light at 129g, and you’ll definitely feel the lack of heft in your hands.
That said, there are definite visual similarities to Samsung’s A and S ranges, particularly the Samsung Galaxy A8 ( Review) . The inwards-sloping sides and curved back in particular look similar, as do the physical home key at the front and narrow borders around the screen. At a quick glance, the Mi 5 appears to have absolutely no bezels at all to the left and right of the screen, but on closer inspection we found that there is in fact a hint of border, coloured black to give the impression of an edge-to-edge screen.
There’s a front camera, proximity sensor, LED indicator, and earpiece at the top, while the Mi logo finds a place in the top left corner. Alongside the home key are capacitive buttons that can be customised with regards to position and function. Both buttons are backlit but are invisible until they are touched. The home button itself is also touch-sensitive when the phone is being used, which can be switched off if you choose.
The entire frame of the phone is metal, broken only by plastic antenna lines at the top and bottom. The dull finish on the metal looks excellent, and the reflective edges only add to the beauty of it. There’s also a great sense of symmetry and evenness all around the phone. The power and volume buttons are on the right, the dual-SIM tray is on the left, the 3.5mm socket and infrared emitter are at the top, and the USB type-C port and grilles are at the bottom. Only the right grille actually houses a speaker, while the left grille houses the microphone, but the symmetry helps maintain the phone’s aesthetics.
The back of the Mi 5 is a glass panel which curves at the sides, another similarity to Samsung’s high-end models. It’s extremely reflective, although the surface is also a grime magnet and will need constant wiping. The top left corner has the camera and flash, while another Mi logo finds a place near the bottom. Although the back panel is not meant to be removable and has no grooves to make it possible to do so, it appears that the panel can come off easily, and slight gaps are visible at the edges. We weren’t particularly fond of the white variant ( our review sample) , and we feel the black variant looks a lot better.
The screen of the Xiaomi Mi 5 is a 5.15-inch full-HD IPS LCD affair, with an impressive pixel density of 428 pixels-per-inch, and Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection. Although other flagship devices sport higher-resolution 1440p screens, Xiaomi explains that in order to keep the thickness of the screen - and the overall thickness of the phone - low, it was necessary to limit resolution to full-HD. This isn’t a bad thing at all, since it’s suitably sharp as it is, and near-impossible to spot any flaws or apparent lack of detail.
It’s also an incredibly bright IPS screen, with a peak brightness rating of 600nits and a minimum brightness of 0.7nits, which is a significantly broader range than many other devices are capable of. The peak brightness is very useful under direct sunlight, and legibility is excellent. Black levels aren’t particularly great though, and this is the only significant flaw in the phone’s screen.
The Xiaomi Mi 5 is the first Qualcomm Snapdragon 820-powered smartphone officially available in India, and is ( at least on paper) one of the most powerful devices you can buy today, along with the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. A notable change between the 820 and its predecessor