Hey guys, I’m Roland the Techusiast.
I’ve promised to release the review within 2 weeks of the hands-on video, but a few things
had come up and I had to make it later, apologies for the delay.
And As promised, here’s my full review of the Xiaomi Mi 8.
I’ve spent more than 20 days with this device, using as my primary – which left my Pixel
2 XL in the dark.
I’ve used it heavily and very lightly, and I must say, I am extremely impressed.
I’m so impressed that I dare to say that if you are someone who actually likes Xiaomi’s
take on Android with their own custom User Interface, this might even be a better choice
than the Pixel 2 XL, and it’s a lot cheaper too.
But lets not get to the conclusions just yet, and lets talk about the design.
The design… well, it looks hell of a lot like the iPhone X when compared with it side
by side – and even without it.
You can clearly tell that Xiaomi was inspired by the Apple design on both the front and
back, including even the new trendy notch on the top of the device – more on that
later.
Overall, the Mi 8 is slightly larger than the iPhone X and it has a curved glass back
and an aluminium frame that is very comfortable to hold and use in one hand.
The back glass is extremely slippery and it’s a fingerprint magnet, but at least its shiny
and looks really great.
I like the design, but I really do think Xiaomi could have put slightly more effort into making
it a little more unique to their branding – maybe on the Mi 8S we will see some tweaks
and improvements.
The internals are as fresh as it can get, it’s powered by the Snapdragon 845 chipset
with 6GB of RAM and has storage options of 64/128 and 256GB options with no SD Card support.
The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 5 and it’s a massive 6.2” FHD+ Super AMOLED
panel that offers vibrant and overall very pleasing colours.
The camera on the back is a dual shooter at 12MP and the selfie on front is 20MP.
My unit runs MUI 9.5 Stable with Android 8,1 on top of it
It has NFC, Bluetooth 5.0 and an 3.5mm adapter inside the box and a USB-C port.
The battery is 3400 mAh and it even managed to perform better than my Pixel 2 XL
I’ve used the Mi 8 all day and night for 2 weeks and in that period, it has never let
me down – it has always worked very fast and very smooth, and it never showed any signs
of sluggish experience, although a few glitches in the software were apparent at times – that’s
something an update can easily fix though – but more on that later.
As mentioned previously, the display is a 6.2” Super AMOLED panel with a resolution
of 1080 by 2248 (~402 ppi).
I am very used to QHD displays by now although I have only noticed that this is perhaps not
as sharp as my Pixel 2 XL, it never let me down and provided excellent viewing angles,
deep blacks and pleasing colours when watching movies or just browsing the web.
I think it’s worth noting that the night filter could be tricky at times, so when it
turned on at night, the screen become way too vibrant for my likings when playing games
– so I had to tweak it many times to find the sweet spot.
Even after tweaking it, I just wasn’t pleased with the filter itself as I don’t feel like
it provides the best yellow colour to my likings, so I often ended up turning the feature off
altogether.
The additional features to turn off the notch worked great, when it was properly supported
both in the system and third party apps.
After seeing how badly it was handled in many popular applications, I ended up disabling
it – that provided a much better support overall as the top of the display wasn’t
cut off.
Recently, I’ve received a few updates that improved it by a lot, so Xiaomi is clearly
working hard on giving it a much needed support.
The gesture navigation was brilliant with great little animations, although it prevented
me from using Google Assistant when I most needed it – sure, I could have just trigger
it by saying the key phrase, but I often prefer to long-press a button to get it up and running
– sadly the long press combination is only an option if you use the on-screen navigation
buttons.
Performance wise, I have never come across any issues whatsoever.
It was always butter smooth, and at times, it even felt faster than my Pixel 2 XL.
Scrolling and multitasking worked really great too, it never showed any signs of slowing
down.
I have tried out a few graphics intensive games, and they all worked really well – though
a few hiccups did occur, mainly upon loading screens and in the menus which did not cause
any issues while playing.
The battery is fairly large at 3400 mAh and it even supports Quick Charge 4.0.
Charging was very fast, but luckily, I didn’t have to charge the Mi 8 too often as it’s
incredibly well optimised and I usually had an average screen on time of about 4,5-5 hours
with my usual applications: the list includes playing clash of clans a little bit, using
twitter and Facebook, watching videos and movies on Amazon and YouTube as well as using
Facebook messenger and a few others.
I was extremely surprised by the battery results and it even beat my Pixel 2 XL – which I
expected to win by a small amount.
If you want a phone that can handle a lot of tasks and you can play some games on the
go, this is a solid choice for you.
The Xiaomi Mi 8 currently comes with Android 8.1 Oreo on top of Xiaomi’s own custom MIUI
9.5 Stable version.
This offers great features and overall enhancements, but there is still no sign of MIUI 10 – which
is supposed to give much a much needed overhaul to the platform and offer AI and other great
features right out of the box.
The fingerprint sensor can be found on the back of the device and it has always worked
reliably and very fast, although I didn’t use it all that much.
That’s right, I did not use the fingerprint sensor a lot of times because of the built-in
infra sensor that can be found in the notch.
Xiaomi has made an IR sensor that scans your face and unlocks your device – I found no
option to get Google Pay or PayPal to allow me to sign in and make a purchase, so I assume
support for that will only come at a later point.
Anyways, back to the sensor.
The IR face scan worked so reliably and it was so comfortable that often I even forgot
that this phone has a fingerprint sensor on the back.
I tested it in both bright and pitch black conditions and it never missed or was in doubt
even for a second.
It also didn’t matter if I wore glasses or not, it always unlocked my device lighting
fast.
There are two ways to navigate the device.
Xiaomi was very keen to copy this from the iPhone, and I think they have done a much
better job than Apple, or even Google with the latest Android P Beta release.
For starters, the on-screen navigation buttons do not need any introduction.
You can tap to go home, back to previous pages and to get to the recents – nothing new
here.
The new gesture navigation is amazing.
You can swipe up from the bottom to go back to the homescreen or swipe up and hold to
see your recent applications.
If you’ve played around with the iPhone X, you probably have nothing new so far.
By now, you’re probably wondering how you would go back to a previous screen – and
that can be done by swiping on either side of the lower end of the display.
You will also get a pretty cool looking animation guiding you and giving you some feedback that
you’ve went back.
This setup is brilliant and it made the usage of the device a lot more comfortable and easy
– it took me some time to re-adjust and learn, but once you get it – it’s natural
and you don’t want the on-screen navigation buttons back.
I have had one really bad and annoying issue when using Nova launcher.
I’ve noticed that whenever I would restart the device and use the custom launcher instead
of Xiaomi’s own MIUI one, it would always ask me to give permission to open up applications
– for every single app.
For some reason in this version of MIUI – all previously granted permissions will simply
be denied and turned off after a restart – so I quickly started getting used to the built-in
launcher which worked great most of the time, although I still much prefer custom gestures
and the overall feel of stock Android.
This issue will hopefully get fixed in a future update, until then, I would strongly recommend
getting used to the thought that you will only want to use the built-in launcher – or
wait for the fixes to come.
One more small issue that I come across is with the Haptic motor.
The feedback that it provides is simply not as hard as I would personally like – and
definitely not as good as on other very expensive and high-end devices.
It still gets the job done, don’t get me wrong, but every once in a while you may not
know that your phone is ringing or you’ve received a text message.
The Xiaomi Mi 8 has a dual rear camera setup.
The primary sensor is 12MP with f/1.8 aperture with Optical Image Stabilisation and Phase
Detection Autofocus.
The secondary is also a 12MP sensor but with f/2.4 aperture that is solely there to provide
2x optical zoom and to enhance portrait images.
There’s also a Dual LED flash setup on the back.
The selfie shooter on the front is a 20MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture that can record
in 1080p.
In bright conditions, it captures beautiful looking images that look great on all screen
sizes.
In dark or low-light scenes the camera captures quite a bit of noise and the contrast and
sharpness are not on par with current flagship devices – although I still think these would
look good with a few tweaks.
The 2X optical zoom in my opinion is just a gimmick.
It doesn’t zoom in a lot and it really doesn’t seem to offer features that I would consider
to be worthy.
For portrait shots, It does indeed help that there is a secondary sensor, but overall the
bokeh effect is just not on par with recent flagship devices.
The same can be said for the selfie shooter that offers great colours and overall takes
a nice photo, but the blur is not as nicely cut out as on the Pixel 2 XL – which by
the way, only uses a single sensor.
I’ll let you be the judge for the images – if you’re a casual photographer and
only share things on social media, this is a solid choice as it can manage to take great
photos overall – just don’t expect it to come any close to a DSLR.
All in all, I think that Xiaomi really deserves a lot more appreciation for creating such
a great device that doesn’t seem to compromise too much – for a price that is so low, when
compared head-to-head with popular high-end flagship devices.
The Mi 8 provides an excellent battery life, lighting fast performance that doesn’t get
choppy under load, and it can also shoot some very usable and great images.
The Mi 8 costs roughly £400 or $450 US Dollars.
If you can afford it, I would definitely recommend picking this up if you ever need a secondary
device, or you’re due for an upgrade at the price of a mid-ranger.
This Mi 8 can accomplish everything that you throw at it, and if you can live with Xiaomi’s
own integrations, I really do think that you are getting an amazing piece of hardware and
software both in the short and long term.
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