Comment by buybackoff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by buybackoff | Hacker News Reader

For me the greatest value is 2+ days battery and the fact that I'm not afraid to loose/break €200 phone vs €600, while Xiaomi is better in many aspects. Went to it 5 years ago after using flagship Samsung models also for c.5 years, could not stand for abysmal battery and their UI.

Ad bloat could be disabled in settings, I did not see too many suspicious logs in Netguard (calls to Facebook APIs were much more frequent, even from apps that have nothing to do with FB). But that's is an EU country, I've read that Xiomi at least tries not to annoy regulators too much there with privacy issues, going for market share.

Also most bloatware (even their browser) could be uninstalled in 10 minutes, just google "Xiaomi debloat", or go directly to https://github.com/Szaki/XiaomiADBFastbootTools

I would like this to be true (who doesn't want to pay less for the same experience) but it's very much not the case. Eg. two years ago I broke my one plus 6, I went to a local mall - they have a Xiaomi store there and a Samsung shop, I spent like 20 mins playing with the phones in each store and you could immediately see which was the premium brand between the two. I still pass by regularly to check things out and get the same impression.

When it comes to high end hardware the only phones that I've seen come close also cost in the same ballpark. Frankly you get what you pay for, diminishing returns are a thing but you can still see a clear difference between 200€ and 600€ phone. Even the iPhone 12max my wife has can justify the price with the insane photo/video quality for a phone.

Well, I said "better in many aspects", not overall better. For me, the camera is not that much important. It's good enough on Xiaomi, but obviously it's better on iPhone.

It's personal preferences, for me the aspects of long battery life and turning the device into disposable cattle, not a pet, are much more important. The display on Xiaomi is decent, and that plus fast responsive apps the display shows is all I need from a phone.

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