Comments Locked

34 Comments

Back to Article

  • pikahatonjon - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    Hey brian!
    thanks for being one of the first/only (as far as i can tell) tech sites to cover the unveiling of the Mi-TWO. Even though i followed the whole liveblog thingy on FB its always nice to read about professional opinion on the whole shebang props!
    -j
  • LaMpiR - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    NIce article. This phone looks amazing. But is it even possible to order it in Europe?
  • vectorm12 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    Why do all of them insist on using skins on Android? Sure it does make it easier for them to differentiate from all of the others by having a unique look and feel but in the end all it does is paint users into a corner. I'd love to see more Google Experience-phones as it would be awesome to have some real alternatives to the Google reference models.

    For instance I'd love to swap out my current Nexus S for a Galaxy S III but in the end I'd rather wait for the next Nexus as I'll at least get a few major updates instead of just one as with the Galaxy S.

    In other words distribute this with Stock Android and make sure drivers are ready for Android 5.x and you've just sold me a phone. Skin it and I'll hold off for the next Nexus.
  • OCedHrt - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    Because Xiaomi is promoting MIUI, obviously.

    But of all the popular ROMs that people make, you either have AOSP or MIUI. Worth giving it a try.
  • niva - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link

    Right on, I refuse to buy anything that's not pure android and guarantees updates as soon as they become available. I've had Jelly Bean running on my Nexus since the beginning of July, by the time SG3 gets it there will probably be another major software revision out. I had hope that now that Google has bought out Motorolla they would release vanilla android phones across their line, so far my hope is dwindling...
  • Death666Angel - Saturday, August 25, 2012 - link

    If only Nexus devices had SD card slots and better SoCs. I bought an SGS2 when it came out and am still happy with it. Better than the Nexus S at the time which was already showing its age in mid 2011 and the upcoming Galaxy Nexus was too far off.
    But so far, because of its popularity, the modding community has been great with providing ROM updates to it. Unless Nexus devices get discreet SD card slots in the future or the NAND storage gets drastically improved with little extra cost, the faster software updates will not sway me towards buying them.
  • piroroadkill - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    Holy shit, do we really need 2GB of RAM in our PHONES. Shit, son.
    I'd be happy with the Mi-One specs in my handset.. Doesn't mention the most important part, though, the battery.
  • deepb84 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    The Battery is quoted in one of the images as a 3000mAh!!!
  • piroroadkill - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    Oh damn, now THAT'S how you spec out a phone.
  • ebolamonkey3 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    It's definitely 2000mAH on the slide.
  • ebolamonkey3 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    Ok, so saw the slides on Engadget, and there is a 3000mAH option. Yay!
  • natheo - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link

    it's 2000 mAh BUT it's UPGRADEABLE to 3000 MAH!!
    2000 mAh is already crazy, but 3000 mAh is out of the world.
  • André - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    This genuinely looks like a great phone on paper!

    For that price I would try it out just to play around with Android (in which I have absolutely no experience with).
  • A5 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    MIUI is barely Android. It's evolved from it's original design (which was basically to rip-off as much of iOS as possible), but I still don't really like it.

    There are plenty of people who do like it, but don't go into it expecting to learn anything about how to use any other Android device.
  • shabby - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    Barely android? It is android, it just has a custom launcher(which you can change) and a heavily skinned menu system which can't be changed unless you have sources, which aren't available for miui from what i gather.
  • OmegaBloodedgeZero - Sunday, September 16, 2012 - link

    You seemed to have a lot of knowledge regarding to XiaoMi devices, I think you are the one the I should go to since I am about to pre-order this phone but still have some question regarding to XiaoMi M2 that might be a deal breaker. Although MIUI is as good as many people deemed, I prefer to stock android UI over MIUI so I would like to make sure that is there really no way to get back to stock android UI with app drawer? I heard from the person who brings in XiaoMi M2 to my country said that there are no storage expansion available for us end user to upgrade the storage, at the same time I have found a few conflicting source regarding about storage expandability. Can you enlighten me on these issue?
  • KitsuneKnight - Saturday, August 18, 2012 - link

    Despite what most people assume, MIUI's interface isn't actually based on/inspired by/ripped off from iOS. The look and feel of the interface is based off of an older interface only really ever seen on some phones in Asia (pretty sure they were made by Nokia). Sadly I couldn't find what it was called just now (it was closer to 2 years ago I used MIUI).

    If you've never tried out MIUI, and you're comfortable flashing your phone (and it's actually available for your phone), it's definitely a good ROM to try. It has a huge amount of functionality (the theming system was amazing... having to flash your phone to change the look is just due to it being such a hack in mainline Android), and is incredibly polished. I used it as my main ROM for a while, and only switched to get Gingerbread and to try out CyanogenMod (which was quite a disappointment). Unfortunately, my phone had only a very tiny community around it, so nothing was ever maintained for very long for it (even CyanogenMod doesn't get any updates). If the hardware defects hadn't driven me to get a new phone, I'd have gone back to MIUI.
  • dishayu - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    315 Dollars for this beast?

    I can't imagine the BoM being too far under 300$. This is an absolute steal, IMO. Hope we see more quad-core krait phones soon.
  • geniekid - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    If only this phone were available in the States. I'm not even talking about the internal hardware (which is awesome), just a 4.3" phone with 720p resolution and a decent battery.

    I've been on the fence for months about upgrading my OG Incredible, but the S3 and One X are too big, the One S is only qHD, the Inc 4G LTE appears to have bad battery life according to AT's review, and the iPhone 4S is too small and without 4G.

    I prefer Android over iOS, but if the iPhone 5 delivers on the rumors (bigger screen, LTE) while maintaining its traditionally fantastic screen and battery life, I may have some very difficult decisions to make going forward.
  • bigboxes - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    I have the EVO LTE 4G (One X for Sprint) and it is not too big. I think the difference is that it is so thin. That makes it very manageable and light. Have you held the One X in your hand? I thought I wouldn't reasonably fit the phone in my pocket and would have to buy a holster. I was wrong. Great phone.
  • stm1185 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    So many hours to be billed suing them!
  • bigboxes - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    It is rectangular with rounded edges, makes phone calls and has a touch screen. SUE!
  • madmilk - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link

    This is why you will never see a Xiaomi in the United States, and why we're stuck paying $600 for unlocked phones that are still worse than this.
  • armodons - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    Hey Brian, you have the price as 1999HKD but the announcement was in renminbi or CNY. The conversion rate is a little different. Thanks.
  • iamkyle - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    The price is indeed in Renminbi, which would put 1999 of it at about $315 CAD.
  • edwpang - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    It looks so much like a oversized iPhone 4S!
  • dcollins - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    If it has an MDM 9615, does that mean it will be able to support LTE? I know people in Hong Kong, could I theoretically activate this device on Verizon? It looks just about perfect.
  • GuniGuGu - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    Surely these chips will be in the next nexus device... i mean support for any modem, great speeds. Well accepted and standard built qualcomm chip.. why not?
  • aryonoco - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link

    I very much doubt we would see a qualcomm chip in a Nexus device again.

    Google has pushed for as much as the Nexus device's code to be available as open source. This includes GPU drivers, which Qualcomm likes to keep proprietary to themselves. If TI can make the OMAP 5 ready for this holiday season, then I'm sure Google will opt for that again.
  • tuxRoller - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link

    TI uses img pvr gpus, which are as proprietary as it gets. There are, otoh, two open source projects reverse engineering the arm gpus and qualcomm's adreno.
    Assuming the next gen a15's aren't available, the only real option for the next nexus is qualcomm's krait.
  • Tanclearas - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link

    It is very sad that we would have to pay $500+ (likely $600+) to get those specs in North America.
  • HardwareDufus - Saturday, August 18, 2012 - link

    I like this phones specs and price... just get rid of the skin... I want plain vanilla. MIUI I think is a Simbian (Nokia OS) look alike, no?

    You should see what we pay for Unlocked Smart Phones in Mexico!!!
  • tetsuk - Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - link

    MIUI is a skin developed by Xiaomi. It used to be based on CM, but it is now based on stock. The MIUI skin is very popular and it is widely used on rooted Android phones, including my Nexus S.

    It is very well made and it has features, such as reply to calls with SMS messages, since at least 6 months ago (when I started using it). Might not be for everyone, but worth a shot.
  • pugster - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - link

    ¥1,999 cost $310 US whereas 1999 HKD is $258 US. I wish that it cost 1,999 HKD.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now