Xiaomi buyer’s guide - Everything you need to know - Android
In certain countries, Xiaomi is the most popular smartphone brand by volume. In other countries, though, a majority of people may never have even heard the name (much less know how to pronounce it). This dichotomy brings a lot of potential confusion surrounding the brand and its products.
In the article below, we’re going to give you everything you need to know about Xiaomi. Hopefully, this will help you make sound decisions when buying a new smartphone. Conversely, it can also help you understand a bit more about one of the world’s largest smartphone brands that might not even have a footprint in your area.
When you compare Xiaomi to other huge smartphone brands — including Samsung, Apple, LG, Huawei, etc. — you notice one thing quickly: how young the company is. Xiaomi started in 2010, which makes it the youngest on the list of the top ten smartphone manufacturers around the world.
Xiaomi — pronounced “shee-yow-mee” — began when CEO and founder Lei Jun assembled a team of tech veterans as staff for a new venture. Based on the credentials of the staff (which included former Google and Motorola employees) as well as the mission statement of the company, Jun was able to raise millions in early seed funding.
Related: Xiaomi in 2020: Up for the challenge
Within a few months, Xiaomi had announced its first product: MIUI, the Android skin that would go on to power most of its smartphones. It wouldn’t be until a year later, though, in August 2011, that the company would launch its very first phone: the Xiaomi Mi 1.
The Mi 1 was an instant success. Sales were no doubt helped by the phone’s low price of just 1,999 Chinese yuan, which is about $296 today. However, the device was only available in Xiaomi’s native China, so it didn’t see any Western adoption.
After several successful smartphone launches in China, Xiaomi expanded to other countries. Today, it has smartphone products available in China, India, most of Europe, and many other countries. However, it has no smartphones available in the United States. In addition, the company sells many other non-smartphone products.
In the next section, we’re going to go over the Xiaomi smartphone lines in detail. Before we do that, though, we want to touch on a curated selection of other products Xiaomi offers. This is not a complete list, as the company creates and sells many different types of electronics. Instead, this is a list that focuses on the biggest categories in the company’s portfolio.
Xiaomi sells laptops under its Mi Notebook branding (with the sole exception of the Mi Gaming Laptop that launched in 2018). The Mi Notebook line borrows heavily from the design aesthetic of Apple’s MacBooks. Inside, though, Windows powers the devices.
Related: The best laptops you can buy right now
The most recent laptop from Xiaomi is the Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition, which is the company’s first for the Indian market. Like its smartphones, Xiaomi only brings its laptops to specific countries in which it operates, so you might not be able to buy one in your area.
Xiaomi hasn’t released a new tablet in quite a while, but you can still buy them in certain areas. The newest tablet on its roster is the Mi Pad 4, which landed in 2018.
Xiaomi has made some of the most successful fitness trackers on the market. Its line of Mi Band wearables brings high-end features to incredibly low-priced products. Here at Android Authority, we’ve given glowing reviews to nearly every Mi Band we’ve tried.
The latest in the wearables portfolio is the Xiaomi Mi Band 5. As usual, we gave this device a glowing review. This is one of the few high-profile products Xiaomi creates that you can buy here in the US, too.
Xiaomi also makes audio products. It sells both wired and wireless headphones in various styles, including in-ear and over-ear. However, its most recent product is the Xiaomi Mi True Wireless Earphones 2, which are pictured above. The true wireless earbuds look very much like the industry-defining AirPods from Apple.
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