Xiaomi Mi 6:The best budget phone
The Mi 6 packs a 5.15-inch IPS LCD with a resolution of 1920 x 1080. This is a fairly modest display by today’s flagship smartphone standards, as you can easily get a 1080p IPS in an entry-level phone these days with most companies opting for 1440p screens instead. However, Xiaomi clearly feels 1080p is perfectly adequate for their flagship, and they’d prefer the increased performance and battery life afforded by the lower resolution.
At 428 PPI, the Mi 6 display still looks great despite its lower resolution. Naturally it’s not as crisp as top-end 1440p LCDs, however the LCD used here is still very sharp for viewing text and imagery, while the near-indistinguishable gap between fingertip and LCD provides a lifelike experience. Viewing angles here are also very good for this type of technology, with minimal color and luminance shift at off angles.
Xiaomi claims this LCD is capable of 600 nits of peak brightness, and I easily validated this claim during my testing (in fact the screen is slightly brighter than this). Xiaomi also uses some marketing fluff about “negative LCD displays”, whatever that means, to describe the excellent contrast ratio of this panel. Again, the Mi 6 performs extremely well for an LCD in this regard, almost topping our charts.
Most phones manage good peak brightness, and the Xiaomi Mi 6 certainly does that reaching 600 nits, but it also does well in the dark – when you want what’s onscreen to be visible but not blinding.
1080p seems the right choice for a display of this size and pixels are impossible to spot. You also benefit from that lower-res screen, which requires less power with the knock-on effect of better battery life – another area in which the Mi 6 really impresses.
The IPS panel on this year’s Mi 6 is superb, displaying 99.2% of the sRGB colour space according to our X-Rite calibrator, while the pixel-perfect contrast ratio of 1,266:1 does wonderful justice to images captured with the Mi 6’s dual rear cameras (more on that later). A maximum screen brightness of 645cd/m2 is incredibly well-suited for use out in the bright sunshine, with one caveat. If you hold the phone horizontally while wearing polarising sunglasses the screen blacks out.
The Xiaomi features this year’s class-leading processor - the octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 - but while its rivals pair this chip with 4GB of DDR4 RAM Xiaomi specifies 6GB. It’s likely to get some competition soon from the upcoming OnePlus 5, which is also rumoured to feature this setup, but for now this powerhouse is unmatched in the smartphone world.
Unsurprisingly, it’s an incredible performer. A Geekbench 4 single-core score of 1,923 is on par with all of 2017’s flagships – including the Galaxy S8, and its multi-core result is just as admirable at 6,729.Graphics power is just as imposing. A GFXBench Manhattan 3.0 onscreen result of 57 fps is splendid and means you’ll be disposing of enemy ships in Sky Force: Reloaded without any hiccups at all.
Considering the high-end specs it’s no surprise that the Xiaomi Mi 6 runs fantastically well. During my few weeks with the device I’ve suffered no lag or slowdown, and the Adreno 540 GPU handles each and every Android game with ease.
Like the iPhone 7 and HTC 10, the Xiaomi Mi 6 manages to pump out decent audio by combining one speaker on the bottom of the device, next to the USB-C port, and another next to the ear piece above the display. It sounds good, much better than the Samsung Galaxy S8, but not as good as the HTC U11. However, it doesn’t really get very loud. It also lacks a punch of bass, meaning it’s fine for YouTube videos but not so much for audio.
In general, the Xiaomi Mi 6 is an incredibly fast phone to use, and that’s partly due to the very short animations Xiaomi has implemented. App loading is still extremely quick though, and the S835 helps make this phone feel snappy throughout the OS and apps.
Xiaomi is shipping the Mi 6 with its own custom version of Android, MIUI 8, atop Android 7.1.1 Nougat. And if you’re at all familiar with Xiaomi devices, you probably already know that MIUI doesn’t come with an app drawer, which means you’ll need to rely on folders to help organize your home screens. This is par for the course for many other Chinese ROMs, but users in the West might have a hard time getting used to it.
Even though we’re using the latest version of MIUI on the Mi 6, the core experience hasn’t changed much at all over the years.Some extra features include a Dual App mode that allows multiple iterations of the same application, a Deep Clean application that helps to clear the phone of junk files, and included Mi Cloud storage if you have a Mi account. If there’s one thing we always enjoy hearing about with MIUI, it’s how often it gets updated due to feedback in the Mi forums. All in all, if you’re familiar with MIUI (and, really, any Chinese ROM) there isn’t much else that differentiates this new version.
Xiaomi Mi 6:Camera
Like the Mi 5, the Mi 6 takes detailed images in bright conditions. Where the camera on Xiaomi's latest flagship differs is when shooting in low-light conditions — it's no longer a hit-or-miss affair. The Portrait Mode is particularly interesting, as it allows you to leverage the dual camera system to blur the background, putting the subject in focus.The auto HDR mode does level out exposure, but it doesn’t work well for every shot.
There are a couple of issues we have with the pictures, but considering the price I can forgive Xiaomi. The HDR mode, which boosts shadows and saturation, has to be manually enabled every time you take a photo – so it’s either all or nothing, and this can lead to certain bright photos looking almost fake. Exposure can be a little erratic, too; you’ll often find yourself using the manual exposure slider to level things out. I’ve also found the autofocus to be on the slow side, and if you’re quickly firing off shots then you’ll need to ensure you’re holding the phone very steady.
Having OIS on the main sensor does improve low-light photos and it’s possible to get good night shots. The stabilisation makes a bigger difference in video, where the Mi 6 captures footage that’s much smoother than the juddery OnePlus 5.
On the front there’s an 8-megapixel sensor that has a nice wide-angle lens. It takes great selfies, offering balanced skin tone and lots of detail. One particularly strange feature of the front camera is a software tweak that tries to guess your age and gender. It doesn’t work, but is good for a quick giggle.
Xiaomi says that one of the reasons for ditching the headphone jack was to allow for the bigger battery, and the 3,350mAh cell tucked inside the glass body certainly is large for a 1080p phone of this size.
Whether or not the extra battery life is a valid trade-off for the lack of headphone jack is up to you, but I’ve been thoroughly impressed by the battery life on offer here. Getting through the day is no issue at all, and on numerous occasions I’ve forgotten to charge the device overnight and it managed to get to lunch the following day. The lower-res screen – when compared to other flagships – also means it consumes less power when streaming and gaming. An hour of Netflix ate through 8%, which is impressive.
Quick Charge 3.0 is supported, and using my own charger the phone took about 90 minutes to fully charge.
Sweetening the deal is the Xiaomi Mi 6’s battery life and despite all that power, longevity hasn’t been hurt. The Mi 6 reached 13hrs 48mins in our video playback test with flight mode engaged and the screen set to 170cd/m2. Should you run dry, 30mins plugged into the mains will give you roughly 25% of juice; alas there’s no fast charging here.
The Mi 6 is a well-designed phone with top-notch internals and a capable dual camera system. Combine that with the best iteration of MIUI we've seen in years and all-day battery life, and the Mi 6 continues Xiaomi's tradition of offering great value-for-money phones.
Xiaomi’s Mi 6 ticks all the right boxes. It offers a fantastic alternative to those pricier handsets, without a single sacrifice in any aspect: from performance through display quality to battery life. In fact, looking back through this review, the Mi6 scores full marks in every section. That’s no easy feat.
Its price is what sets it apart from the rest. No two ways about it, the Xiaomi Mi6 is ridiculously cheap, even in the context of the £449 OnePlus 5 and as a result, impossible not to recommend. If you don’t mind the risk involved in purchasing a phone you might find difficult to get fixed if you drop it, it’s definitely one to add to your shortlist.
One of the best phones in existence.
Xiaomi saw a resurgence in 2016 on the back of strong sales in India and China from its entry-level Redmi series. Eager to continue the momentum, the manufacturer course-corrected its strategy at the end of last year, now focusing on offline sales to boost growth.
OPPO and Vivo relied on a similar strategy to amass millions of customers over the last two years, with the two manufacturers accounting for over 13% of the global handset market. Xiaomi doesn't have the production line facilities or the resources to make its phones available at thousands of retail stores, so the brand is being smart about its offline strategy. Over the next two years, Xiaomi is looking to establish over 100 Mi Home stores in China, exclusive storefronts showcasing the best the brand has to offer.
One of the reasons Xiaomi can sell its devices for so low is because of its manufacturing process. Instead of making millions of devices at a time, it makes phones in smaller production runs, giving the brand the ability to eke out more profits over the course of a phone's life cycle as component costs come down.
Unlike OnePlus and Huawei, Xiaomi has yet to become a household name outside of its native China. But although Xiaomi’s devices may not be so easily available in Europe and America, some of them are certainly worth hunting down.
The Xiaomi Mi 6 is one such device; a compact Android phone offering plenty of power and a lovely screen that undercuts even the OnePlus 5 for value.
Xiaomi Mi 6:Design
The Mi 6 manages to stand out with its design. While it doesn’t stray too far from past Xiaomi phones, we still applaud the company for trying to be unique. The Mi 6 variant in this review is also the ceramic edition, which makes it quite a bit heavier than the standard glass model. The combination of the small display, heavily curved sides on the rear and the slightly curved screen mean that if you’re looking for a phone that’s comfortable to use one-handed then this is it.
It’s very rare (although not unknown - remember the LG G5 and the Google Pixel XL) for a company’s flagship to look anything short of amazing. And so it is with the mirror-finish Xiaomi Mi6, though this phone appeals for more than its basic good looks.
Part of the reason this phone’s bezels are so large is to accommodate the fingerprint sensor below the display. Like most phones these days, the Mi 6 fingerprint sensor works extremely well, and functions as a home button without any struggle. Flanking the sensor are capacitive navigation buttons on either side, which are configured to back and the app switcher. Rather than printing specific icons on the phone for these functions, Xiaomi has just used dots as you can switch the order in the software.
It looks great too, and considering the price is well built in the main. While there’s no plastic to be seen, except for some mushy volume keys, some corner-cutting has evidently taken place. The Mi 6 picks up scratches like no other phone I’ve used in a long time; I even discovered a deep scratch on its rear when I took it out of the box. In addition, the back glass panel has already started to come unstuck in the bottom corner, and with little force I can pry it away leaving a visible gap.
Xiaomi saw a resurgence in 2016 on the back of strong sales in India and China from its entry-level Redmi series. Eager to continue the momentum, the manufacturer course-corrected its strategy at the end of last year, now focusing on offline sales to boost growth.
OPPO and Vivo relied on a similar strategy to amass millions of customers over the last two years, with the two manufacturers accounting for over 13% of the global handset market. Xiaomi doesn't have the production line facilities or the resources to make its phones available at thousands of retail stores, so the brand is being smart about its offline strategy. Over the next two years, Xiaomi is looking to establish over 100 Mi Home stores in China, exclusive storefronts showcasing the best the brand has to offer.
Unlike OnePlus and Huawei, Xiaomi has yet to become a household name outside of its native China. But although Xiaomi’s devices may not be so easily available in Europe and America, some of them are certainly worth hunting down.
The Xiaomi Mi 6 is one such device; a compact Android phone offering plenty of power and a lovely screen that undercuts even the OnePlus 5 for value.
The Mi 6 manages to stand out with its design. While it doesn’t stray too far from past Xiaomi phones, we still applaud the company for trying to be unique. The Mi 6 variant in this review is also the ceramic edition, which makes it quite a bit heavier than the standard glass model. The combination of the small display, heavily curved sides on the rear and the slightly curved screen mean that if you’re looking for a phone that’s comfortable to use one-handed then this is it.
It’s very rare (although not unknown - remember the LG G5 and the Google Pixel XL) for a company’s flagship to look anything short of amazing. And so it is with the mirror-finish Xiaomi Mi6, though this phone appeals for more than its basic good looks.
It looks great too, and considering the price is well built in the main. While there’s no plastic to be seen, except for some mushy volume keys, some corner-cutting has evidently taken place. The Mi 6 picks up scratches like no other phone I’ve used in a long time; I even discovered a deep scratch on its rear when I took it out of the box. In addition, the back glass panel has already started to come unstuck in the bottom corner, and with little force I can pry it away leaving a visible gap.
Xiaomi Mi 6:Display
The Mi 6 packs a 5.15-inch IPS LCD with a resolution of 1920 x 1080. This is a fairly modest display by today’s flagship smartphone standards, as you can easily get a 1080p IPS in an entry-level phone these days with most companies opting for 1440p screens instead. However, Xiaomi clearly feels 1080p is perfectly adequate for their flagship, and they’d prefer the increased performance and battery life afforded by the lower resolution.
At 428 PPI, the Mi 6 display still looks great despite its lower resolution. Naturally it’s not as crisp as top-end 1440p LCDs, however the LCD used here is still very sharp for viewing text and imagery, while the near-indistinguishable gap between fingertip and LCD provides a lifelike experience. Viewing angles here are also very good for this type of technology, with minimal color and luminance shift at off angles.
Xiaomi claims this LCD is capable of 600 nits of peak brightness, and I easily validated this claim during my testing (in fact the screen is slightly brighter than this). Xiaomi also uses some marketing fluff about “negative LCD displays”, whatever that means, to describe the excellent contrast ratio of this panel. Again, the Mi 6 performs extremely well for an LCD in this regard, almost topping our charts.
Most phones manage good peak brightness, and the Xiaomi Mi 6 certainly does that reaching 600 nits, but it also does well in the dark – when you want what’s onscreen to be visible but not blinding.
1080p seems the right choice for a display of this size and pixels are impossible to spot. You also benefit from that lower-res screen, which requires less power with the knock-on effect of better battery life – another area in which the Mi 6 really impresses.
The IPS panel on this year’s Mi 6 is superb, displaying 99.2% of the sRGB colour space according to our X-Rite calibrator, while the pixel-perfect contrast ratio of 1,266:1 does wonderful justice to images captured with the Mi 6’s dual rear cameras (more on that later). A maximum screen brightness of 645cd/m2 is incredibly well-suited for use out in the bright sunshine, with one caveat. If you hold the phone horizontally while wearing polarising sunglasses the screen blacks out.
Xiaomi Mi 6:Performance
The Xiaomi features this year’s class-leading processor - the octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 - but while its rivals pair this chip with 4GB of DDR4 RAM Xiaomi specifies 6GB. It’s likely to get some competition soon from the upcoming OnePlus 5, which is also rumoured to feature this setup, but for now this powerhouse is unmatched in the smartphone world.
Unsurprisingly, it’s an incredible performer. A Geekbench 4 single-core score of 1,923 is on par with all of 2017’s flagships – including the Galaxy S8, and its multi-core result is just as admirable at 6,729.Graphics power is just as imposing. A GFXBench Manhattan 3.0 onscreen result of 57 fps is splendid and means you’ll be disposing of enemy ships in Sky Force: Reloaded without any hiccups at all.
Considering the high-end specs it’s no surprise that the Xiaomi Mi 6 runs fantastically well. During my few weeks with the device I’ve suffered no lag or slowdown, and the Adreno 540 GPU handles each and every Android game with ease.
Like the iPhone 7 and HTC 10, the Xiaomi Mi 6 manages to pump out decent audio by combining one speaker on the bottom of the device, next to the USB-C port, and another next to the ear piece above the display. It sounds good, much better than the Samsung Galaxy S8, but not as good as the HTC U11. However, it doesn’t really get very loud. It also lacks a punch of bass, meaning it’s fine for YouTube videos but not so much for audio.
In general, the Xiaomi Mi 6 is an incredibly fast phone to use, and that’s partly due to the very short animations Xiaomi has implemented. App loading is still extremely quick though, and the S835 helps make this phone feel snappy throughout the OS and apps.
Xiaomi Mi 6:Software
Xiaomi is shipping the Mi 6 with its own custom version of Android, MIUI 8, atop Android 7.1.1 Nougat. And if you’re at all familiar with Xiaomi devices, you probably already know that MIUI doesn’t come with an app drawer, which means you’ll need to rely on folders to help organize your home screens. This is par for the course for many other Chinese ROMs, but users in the West might have a hard time getting used to it.
Even though we’re using the latest version of MIUI on the Mi 6, the core experience hasn’t changed much at all over the years.Some extra features include a Dual App mode that allows multiple iterations of the same application, a Deep Clean application that helps to clear the phone of junk files, and included Mi Cloud storage if you have a Mi account. If there’s one thing we always enjoy hearing about with MIUI, it’s how often it gets updated due to feedback in the Mi forums. All in all, if you’re familiar with MIUI (and, really, any Chinese ROM) there isn’t much else that differentiates this new version.
Xiaomi Mi 6:Camera
The Xiaomi Mi6 has two cameras on the back. Rather than offering a secondary monochrome sensor as with the P10, or a wide-angle lens as with LG’s G6, Xiaomi has gone the same route as OnePlus and Apple, supplying a secondary, 2X telephoto zoom sensor which works in tandem with the main camera.
If you have been following the trend of this review, you may notice that the Xiaomi Mi 6 seems to take a lot of the best features from previous devices and puts them into one complete package. That’s definitely true for the camera, which is a dual lens system that provides a 2x optical zoom aside the original wider angle. Zoom can be quite important to shutterbugs and Xiaomi has done well to provide one for picture taking in particular. Zoom capabilities are unfortunately not available for video recording, which is a rather significant downside.
Like the Mi 5, the Mi 6 takes detailed images in bright conditions. Where the camera on Xiaomi's latest flagship differs is when shooting in low-light conditions — it's no longer a hit-or-miss affair. The Portrait Mode is particularly interesting, as it allows you to leverage the dual camera system to blur the background, putting the subject in focus.The auto HDR mode does level out exposure, but it doesn’t work well for every shot.
There are a couple of issues we have with the pictures, but considering the price I can forgive Xiaomi. The HDR mode, which boosts shadows and saturation, has to be manually enabled every time you take a photo – so it’s either all or nothing, and this can lead to certain bright photos looking almost fake. Exposure can be a little erratic, too; you’ll often find yourself using the manual exposure slider to level things out. I’ve also found the autofocus to be on the slow side, and if you’re quickly firing off shots then you’ll need to ensure you’re holding the phone very steady.
On the front there’s an 8-megapixel sensor that has a nice wide-angle lens. It takes great selfies, offering balanced skin tone and lots of detail. One particularly strange feature of the front camera is a software tweak that tries to guess your age and gender. It doesn’t work, but is good for a quick giggle.
Xiaomi Mi 6:Battery Life
Xiaomi says that one of the reasons for ditching the headphone jack was to allow for the bigger battery, and the 3,350mAh cell tucked inside the glass body certainly is large for a 1080p phone of this size.
Whether or not the extra battery life is a valid trade-off for the lack of headphone jack is up to you, but I’ve been thoroughly impressed by the battery life on offer here. Getting through the day is no issue at all, and on numerous occasions I’ve forgotten to charge the device overnight and it managed to get to lunch the following day. The lower-res screen – when compared to other flagships – also means it consumes less power when streaming and gaming. An hour of Netflix ate through 8%, which is impressive.
Quick Charge 3.0 is supported, and using my own charger the phone took about 90 minutes to fully charge.
Sweetening the deal is the Xiaomi Mi 6’s battery life and despite all that power, longevity hasn’t been hurt. The Mi 6 reached 13hrs 48mins in our video playback test with flight mode engaged and the screen set to 170cd/m2. Should you run dry, 30mins plugged into the mains will give you roughly 25% of juice; alas there’s no fast charging here.
Conclusion
The Mi 6 is a well-designed phone with top-notch internals and a capable dual camera system. Combine that with the best iteration of MIUI we've seen in years and all-day battery life, and the Mi 6 continues Xiaomi's tradition of offering great value-for-money phones.
Xiaomi’s Mi 6 ticks all the right boxes. It offers a fantastic alternative to those pricier handsets, without a single sacrifice in any aspect: from performance through display quality to battery life. In fact, looking back through this review, the Mi6 scores full marks in every section. That’s no easy feat.
Its price is what sets it apart from the rest. No two ways about it, the Xiaomi Mi6 is ridiculously cheap, even in the context of the £449 OnePlus 5 and as a result, impossible not to recommend. If you don’t mind the risk involved in purchasing a phone you might find difficult to get fixed if you drop it, it’s definitely one to add to your shortlist.
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