Comparison of Xiaomi Mi5s, Mi5s Plus and Mi5 smartphones: design, performance, camera, functionality. Comparison of Xiaomi Mi5s, Mi5s Plus and Mi5 smartphones: design, performance, camera, functionality Appearance and ease of use

The speaker in the Xiaomi Mi5S does not give any reason for joy or pride - it is average in all respects, starting with volume and continuing with sound quality. If you don't turn the volume slider all the way down, it reproduces music flatly and dispassionately, completely devoid of low frequencies. I definitely don’t want to “twist” it to the maximum for the sake of music - we get a dirty and sometimes wheezing sound with a “cartool” tint. Cheap Alcatel reproduces sound in approximately the same way, and in the Samsung Galaxy S7 and LG G5, for example, the speakers are so much better that it’s even inconvenient to speak...

But the sound in the headphones is wonderful: after the budget Redmi Note 3 Pro and Redmi 4, the volume especially catches the eye and envelops the ears. The sound is clear, neutral, the volume is sufficient with reserve even for 60-Ohm monitors. For comparison, OnePlus 3 produces a “dirtier” and harsher sound, LeEco Le Pro 3 with a USB Type-C-AUX adapter slightly wins in detail, but loses in volume. ASUS ZenFone 3, Moto Z Play and Huawei nova sound noticeably worse, but the flagship Samsung, we must admit, wins in sound quality. Xiaomi is far from the audiophile “Chinese”, but the Mi5S did not pretend to such heights. In short, the sound quality in the headphones is slightly above average - there is nothing to criticize or praise.

Iron

Qualcomm Snapdragon 821, ladies and gentlemen, is the coolest processor of 2016. Until models based on the 835th “dragon” began to flood the shelves in February 2017, the Xiaomi Mi5S hardware platform retained gold and silver in the ranking of coolness among Android phones. Only Huawei currently has a faster processor - the Kirin 960, on which the huge Mate 9 is built.

Fans of the brand have been waiting for the release of the fifth iteration of the flagship from Xiaomi for more than a year and a half. And it seems impossible to say that the wait was in vain; Mi 5 turned out to be a good device overall, but not without its shortcomings. But we didn’t have to wait long for the updated model – Mi 5s came out just six months later. This rush is primarily due to increased competition in the domestic Chinese market and, perhaps, including the need to rid the flagship of the shortcomings of the original model. We express our gratitude to the store LstoreMobile for providing us with a smartphone for review!

Packaging and accessories

This year, Xiaomi moved away from its corporate packaging style, when smartphones were placed in a box either made of fiberboard or thick cardboard, which was deliberately cheap and durable. Packages began to be covered with film and an image of the device was applied to them. The box for Mi 5s is not similar to either the first or the second option, but it is similar to the box from the iPhone 6 (not 6s) - white and made in a minimalist style, with the MI logo embossed on the front. The package contents remain the same: smartphone, type C sync cable, power adapter, documentation and paperclip.

Appearance and ergonomics

Screen

The screen in the new product remains the same; the Xiaomi Mi 5s has a matrix with FullHD resolution, a diagonal of 5.15 inches, a maximum brightness of 600 nits (cd/m2), a contrast ratio of 1500:1 and a color gamut much larger than the sRGB field. The system has a so-called reading mode; when activated, the color temperature shifts greatly to warm shades and working with a smartphone puts less strain on the eyes in the evening and before bed. If you set the display settings to Standard mode, the color display will be converted to the sRGB standard.

Hardware platform and performance

If the Mi 5 was one of the first smartphones to run on the Snapdragon 820, then the Mi 5s was one of the first devices to be equipped with the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 821. This chip is still manufactured using a 14-nanometer process technology and includes four Kryo cores and an Adreno 530 video core, but it is overclocked from 2.2 GHz to 2.4 GHz. Both modifications of the Xiaomi Mi 5s are equipped with a slightly lower frequency version of the system-on-chip. The younger version is equipped with 3 GB of LPDDR 4 RAM and 64 GB of permanent memory corresponding to the UFS2.0 standard, the older version has 4 and 128 GB, respectively. There is no slot for memory cards in the device.

The results of synthetic tests should satisfy even the most demanding user; in AnTuTu, the smartphone scores 142,918 points; for the Geekbench 4 singlecore test, the result is 1,745 points. Practical performance is still excellent, in addition, since the release of Mi 5, serious work has been done to optimize the firmware; the new product has no problems with smooth operation or speed of response to user actions. Under prolonged heavy load, the smartphone body heats up, but the temperature is within comfort limits.

Cellular communications and interfaces

The set of LTE frequencies supported by the smartphone includes the following bands: B3, B7 and B38; in Russia, Xiaomi Mi 5s will be able to connect to most LTE towers. It is very likely that the international version of the smartphone, if released, will support a larger set of frequencies. The device has two slots for nano SIM cards and one radio module.

The usual set of wireless interfaces for Xiaomi, including Wi-Fi ac and Bluetooth 4.2, has been supplemented with a full-featured NFC module. The wired interface complies with the USB 2.0 standard with a Type-C connector.

Battery and autonomy

The battery capacity was slightly increased from 3000 to 3200 mAh, this was probably done with an eye to the overclocked processor. Supports Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging technology, the package includes a power adapter with output currents: 5 V / 2.5 A, 9 V / 2 A and 12 V / 1.5 A. With it, the smartphone is charged from 0% to 100% in 1 hour 25 minutes (from 0% to 75% in 45 minutes).

Autonomy indicators compared to its predecessor remained at approximately the same level. In mixed operating mode without games, the smartphone will be able to last from early morning until late evening with 4-4.5 hours of screen activity.

Note. Testing is carried out in the appropriate modes according to the following method: – listening to music on headphones at maximum volume with the screen turned off; – viewing 1080p video from the device memory at 50% backlight brightness and maximum sound volume in headphones; – active browsing (constantly opening new tabs, actively scrolling pages, etc.) via Wi-Fi at 50% backlight brightness; – 3D games (Real Racing 3) at 50% backlight brightness.

Cameras, photo and video quality

The main camera is built on a Sony IMX378 sensor, the exact same sensor is installed in Google smartphones – Pixel and Pixel XL. This is a fairly large sensor measuring 1/2.3”, but only 12 million pixels are placed on it (pixel size 1.55 μm), which gives a larger aperture ratio than most smartphone cameras. The sensor is covered by a six-component lens with an F2.0 aperture and an equivalent focal length of approximately 26 mm. There is hybrid autofocus and other goodies, but there is no optical stabilization. The system camera has a fully manual mode, in which any shooting parameters can be adjusted; for the convenience of manual focusing, there is focus peaking.

In natural daylight conditions, the smartphone camera takes excellent photographs in all respects. Unlike the camera in Mi5 (the sample from the review), the pictures are sharp across the entire field of the frame. On the left are pictures from Xiaomi Mi 5s, on the right - from (hereinafter the photographs are clickable):

In HDR mode, tones are compressed only in the middle of the spectrum, with shadows falling into black and highlights into white. Mi 5s has reduced the time it takes to save a photo in this mode; now it is less than a second, which is acceptable by modern standards. On the left are HDR pictures from Xiaomi Mi 5s, on the right are HDR pictures from Apple iPhone 7 Plus:

The smartphone camera copes well with low and artificial lighting conditions. Most of the details are preserved, and the noise reduction works accurately. On the left are pictures from Xiaomi Mi 5s, on the right - from Apple iPhone 7 Plus:

A full-fledged panoramic shooting mode has finally been introduced into the flagship smartphone from Xiaomi. The Mi 5s camera takes well-stitched and sharp photos with a resolution of more than 50 megapixels. Above is a panorama taken on a Xiaomi Xiaomi Mi 5s, below - taken on an Apple iPhone 7 Plus:

The four-megapixel sensor of the front camera is covered by a lens with an F2.0 aperture and an equivalent focal length of less than 24 mm. The camera has a very wide angle of coverage, but the native aspect ratio of the sensor is 16:9 versus the standard 4:3. Photos taken with the front camera turn out gorgeous and are not much inferior to the main module in most respects.

The smartphone records video in a maximum resolution of 3840*2160 pixels at 30 fps with two-channel audio. There is a quadruple slow-motion shooting mode at 30 fps and a timelapse shooting mode; in both modes, sound is not recorded. The quality of the resulting clips is not bad, but it does not reach the quality of footage taken on Galaxy smartphones and iPhones.

Sound quality

The only ringing speaker is located at the bottom end. It produces clear sound with average volume headroom and mediocre tonal balance. But the sound quality in the headphones is excellent; in this parameter, the Mi 5s is not inferior to the current flagships. In addition, the smartphone is very loud, and at maximum volume the sound is practically not distorted. The player has an equalizer and a system for adapting sound to different types of Mi Sound headphones, but there is no FM radio.

Operating system features

The smartphone out of the box runs on the MIUI 8 operating system based on . Unfortunately, at the moment there is no official global firmware for Mi 5s, and the firmware for mainland China does not have Russian language and Google Play Store. Google services are easy to install using a special application, but you will have to tinker with the Russian language. On our resource you can find a detailed one with many screenshots.

During the process of testing and writing the review, I got the impression that the Xiaomi Mi 5s is too perfect. The thought couldn’t leave me that there must be a catch, but I couldn’t find it. The smartphone has many advantages: an excellent screen, one of the most interesting cameras in terms of photo quality, the coolest front camera, a top-end system-on-a-chip, high-quality sound in headphones, reliable battery life, excellent materials and assembly. The disadvantages very loosely include the unconvincing design; the colors with a thermos-like texture look especially terrible. The lack of official international firmware is not a drawback, but rather a temporary inconvenience. Summarizing all of the above, we can definitely say that the continuation of Mi 5 turned out to be excellent. It’s funny, but the Chinese managed to copy from Apple even the fact that the model with the “s” index turned out to be finished and more interesting to purchase than the original.

Xiaomi Mi5s smartphone - review

Xiaomi smartphones are usually very popular - mainly because of the very high quality hardware. With firmware, things are much worse for them: often for some new model the official international firmware is not released for a long time, so users are either content with Chinese firmware with English support, which they tweak with a file, or they install all sorts of custom firmware, which are almost certainly fraught with various glitches. I reviewed the smartphone. That’s exactly how it was: good hardware and the crooked firmware. I jumped around a little and in the end installed some custom MIUI in it, with which it lived quite well. The new Xiaomi Mi5 model, which was highly anticipated, never reached me, but now they sent the latest model from Gearbest Xiaomi Mi5s, which has just appeared. Moreover, on the store’s website it is separately noted that the International Edition MIUI 8 is installed here, that is, the official international firmware MIUI 8, which means that the smartphone should support the Russian interface without any problems and there shouldn’t be any glitches. Well, let’s figure it out , what this model and firmware are, especially since I have not yet seen Russian detailed reviews of this smartphone, there are only preliminary reviews based on the results of presentations.

So what kind of firmware is installed here? Some kind of custom: either from multirom, or from xiaomi.eu, which make firmware based on MIUI. And the unpleasant thing is that this firmware persistently works under MIUI Global Stable 8.0 (as it is written in the MIUI version of the smartphone), but such firmware does not yet exist in nature, as the developer himself claims. However, in the abbreviation MAGCNDH in brackets next to the version number, the letters CN just mean “China”, that is, this is Chinese stable firmware, modified by craftsmen.

It will appear, of course, because it exists for Mi5, but now it is not there. The question arises: why worry about the fact that this is custom and not the official international one, if everything is in order with the firmware and everything works stably with it? So the problem is that there are some minor problems with stability, and I will write about this in detail below. Main desktop.

Second desktop.

Applications in the Tools folder.

Lock window.

It also comes with an audio playback widget.

Quick switches scroll only horizontally - this is not very convenient. However, this is installed by default, and in the notification settings you can separate the notification window and quick toggles - then the quick toggles will be in a separate window.

Talk mode.

The quality of telephone communication is good, noise reduction works quite effectively. Wi-Fi transmission speed is close to maximum.

Mobile Internet reception is even better than expected for these conditions. Transmission is normal speed.

Sennheiser CX 2.00G in-ear headphones are good: the sound is clear, detailed, good highs and even some bass.

Full-size headphones Audio-Technica ATH-M50x - very good: the sound is spacious, clear, detailed, deep bass, clear highs. Determining coordinates It starts very quickly (a couple of seconds), detects GPS and GLONASS satellites. It holds the road well, there were no problems with the navigation programs.

You can adjust the font size, turn on reading mode, and turn on the screen by double-tapping (which, by the way, did not always work the first time).

Themes. By the way, there are a great variety of free themes available - for every taste.

You can create a separate data space for a second user.

Of the 64 GB, almost 58 GB are free for the user.

Child mode is a useful feature for some users.

Setting up the indicator.

There is an equalizer adjustment for different types of headphones, but I would not say that this leads to a good effect: for me, the sound is better without an equalizer.

This is what I really love - customizing the location of the navigation keys and various actions when pressed and long pressed.

Adjusting the backlight of the keys.

One-handed operation, and you can “tailor” it to three display sizes.

Enable dual mode for selected applications. This is when two copies of an application are stored with different settings. For example, if you need to work with Facebook with two different accounts, you can enable this here.

You can password protect individual applications.

Setting up a fingerprint.

Shooting modes. The second window shows night mode.

Camera settings called up using the "Menu" button.

Examples of photos. (All are clickable and open in full size.) Daylighting in the room.

Street on a sunny day.
















Example text.




Evening, at sunset. 500 ISO.

In the dark, it resolutely sets ISO 6400 and at the same time blurs out the noise. But the result is not that much pornography.
Here's a 1:1 crop.
And if you turn off the noise reduction mode (there is this in the settings), then it turns out something like this.
Example video.

What can I say about the camera? The camera is decent for the price of the smartphone. Detail and dynamic range are good, white balance is determined more or less accurately and hardly fluctuates, exposure is determined normally, autofocus, although far from being as “tenacious” as competitors’ flagships, there are few defects there. Focusing does not work well in difficult lighting conditions (it happens that it simply cannot focus even on a dimly lit object), the quality of images in poor lighting conditions is much below average, but not terrible. It shoots video well, and when shooting video, the stabilizer clearly works and improves the quality of the video. The camera is noticeably better, but it still costs one and a half times more. So, in general, the camera is normal for a smartphone of this price, in my opinion. System data and performance CPU-Z data.

Performance rating according to AnTuTu. Top ten fastest smartphones. Moreover, it even seems to overtake OnePlus 3, which did not hold the championship of the fastest for long. However, it is clear that now smartphones from the top twenty AnTuTu are all very fast.

Indexes according to Geekbench 3.

Well, the overall score according to PCMark. But OnePlus 3 has 7003!

Regarding heating, because the platform is powerful - even when running heavy 3D games, almost no heating was observed. Literally once I noticed a slight heating in a situation where I was loading a bunch of programs and data for them in a row. We also noticed slight heating when playing high-resolution videos. The fingerprint scanner worked correctly and crashes were rare. By the way, interestingly, the scanner also worked fine on wet fingers. He fooled around with the dirty ones, but worked with the wet ones. Later I read that this is a new type of scanner and water is not a hindrance to it, which is valuable. Using the touch-sensitive Home button, which signals when pressed by vibration, turned out to be quite convenient. You get used to it quickly, and then when you return to the physical button, like, for example, on the Samsung Galaxy S7, it seems that the physical button is less convenient. What is the result? In terms of hardware and characteristics, the smartphone is excellent. The only pity is that there is no official international firmware for it yet, but it will probably appear soon. The existing custom firmware that is installed in Gearbest is very decent (and sometimes they are just wild), but it has some glitches, which, however, are normal they don’t interfere with work. Well, I think that with the official firmware the smartphone will be one of the best in its class. It's very similar, only that one costs $470 on Gearbest, and this one costs $319.

Readers regularly asked us about this device and complained that the review had not been published for a very long time. The reason for this is quite simple: we wanted to test the normal PCT version of the model, and not order it from China. Why? The point, of course, is the firmware, since when we test versions of the Mi 5s with Chinese firmware and find that there is something wrong with it, we often run into negativity from readers who claim that we need to manually install global, fixes, etc. .d.

Characteristics

Equipment

• Smartphone
• Charger
• PC cable (also part of the charger)

Appearance, materials, control elements, assembly

When you look at the Mi 5s, you immediately understand that when creating it, the company was inspired by the Samsung Galaxy S7 EDGE; the back of the case has the same beautiful curve, only, unlike the EDGE, it is made of aluminum, not glass.

But the glass on the front panel has only a slight bend, and this is actually great. Owners of the same S7 EDGE regularly complain that the edges of their smartphone dig into their hands and because of this it is not very convenient to use. The Mi 5s does not have this problem; thanks to the curve at the back, the device feels thinner and lighter, and the absence of a strong curvature of the screen allows you to hold it with greater comfort.

The smartphone is sold in four colors: silver, dark gray, gold and pink; we tested the first option.

Above the display there is a front camera, a speaker mesh, light and proximity sensors, and an indicator light.

Below the screen there are three touch buttons: “Recent Apps”, “Home” and “Back”. The central button is integrated into the ultrasonic fingerprint scanner. I like that the scanner was mounted on the front, but its performance was disappointing. Unfortunately, it only successfully unlocks your smartphone half the time. At first I thought that this was an isolated problem, but readers complained that it was also unstable for them. Just for fun, I read the 4PDA thread on the device, they suggest either installing some special version of the firmware, or driving the same finger four times, or very carefully adding all areas of the finger. In any case, the problem exists, keep it in mind before purchasing.

There is a mini-jack at the top end, and a Type C port, an external speaker grille and the main microphone at the bottom. Keep in mind that the speaker here is not stereo, two meshes are made just for beauty, and a microphone is hidden in the left one.

On the right there is a volume rocker and a power button, and on the left there is a tray for two SIM cards; alas, there is no slot for a memory card.

On the back cover you can see the main camera eye, dual LED flash, laser autofocus and plastic inserts for antennas.

The device is well assembled; after a month of use, I had no complaints about its assembly.

Dimensions

In the comments, readers often ask why I call five-inch devices compact. The fact is that smartphones with a smaller diagonal are practically no longer on sale, and most flagships are gradually moving from 5 to 5.5-inch displays. Therefore, even a smartphone with a 5.15-inch screen already looks and feels compact in the hand.

Compared to Apple iPhone 6

Mi 5s feels great in the hand, it is quite thin and light, and the narrowing at the edges of the body visually and tactilely makes it even thinner.

Screen

To be honest, before I looked at the table with the characteristics, I was sure that this device had an AMOLED matrix installed. The fact is that the contrast of the picture is very similar to AMOLED displays. Moreover, you can even notice red halos along the edges of the letters when scrolling! Surprisingly, for some reason I didn’t see any information about this in other reviews.

The problem with ghosting is solved by switching to the “default” mode. Auto-tuning is initially enabled, but I recommend turning it off.

It is problematic to check the behavior of the screen in the sun in the current weather, but on the street the picture is clearly visible at about 60-70% brightness and higher. It is also convenient to read from a smartphone, thanks to the wide range of brightness.

There is also a separate reading mode in the settings; when you turn it on, the entire color scheme turns yellow. There is also a slider that adjusts the intensity of such a transition. I didn’t like the reading mode; I feel like it makes my eyes even more tired. In general, there are a lot of color settings; I was particularly pleased with the ability to turn on the display with a double tap.

The oleophobic coating is excellent, in no way inferior to flagships from other major brands. The finger glides perfectly on the glass, and swiping is convenient.

To summarize: the screen in the model is excellent, using it is a pleasure.

operating system

The device runs Android 6.0 and MIUI 8.0. Once again I promise to tell you about the shell in more detail, I think that the time to do this has come. Below I will list the main features of MIUI, although, in a good way, it deserves a separate review.

Work tables. The launcher in MIUI has not changed much over time; it still uses the display of all applications at once on desktops and oval rims for the icons of some third-party programs. Interestingly, the settings are called up here by pinching with two fingers; a long press does not work. I liked the application sorting mode; when you turn it on, you can add as many icons as you like to the bottom panel, and then scatter them across your desktops. A kind of help in general cleaning on the desktop.

Dialer. The dialer in MIUI has long become a standard for many users; I myself use the exDialer application, made on its basis. The program supports the Russian language, there is a search on T9, setting up actions for left-right swipes, a separate black list and call recording. Unfortunately, in Russian versions of Xiaomi smartphones, for some reason, the search for Russian contacts does not work, I don’t know what this is connected with.

SMS messages. The application is quite simple, but if you are logged into your Mi account, it automatically makes a backup copy of your correspondence.

Browser. I like that the browser's home page has shortcuts to popular pages, making it easy to navigate to the page you want. Of course, you can add your own links, change their places or delete them. But the separate reading mode does not work well; when it is turned on on our website, the pictures are automatically flattened.

Notification curtain. MIUI 8 abandoned the division of the curtain into two parts, and this is the right decision; when you lower it, you immediately see four shortcuts and a brightness adjustment slider. The transition to the next buttons is made using a horizontal swipe, as in TouchWiz. A long press of the button opens the settings of the corresponding interface, this is convenient.

Screenshots. Now, after taking a screenshot, it hangs in the upper right corner for about three seconds; if you click on it, the settings for editing and forwarding it will open. MIUI can also take long screenshots.

Second space. Ability to create an additional user on a smartphone. This is convenient if you want to use different accounts for the same applications at work and at home, for example.

Dual applications. Well, if you just need to have two accounts in some WhatsApp, then for this you can use this function, which creates a copy of it within one account.

Permissions. MIUI has a very detailed application permissions panel, where you can fine-tune which interfaces and functions a particular program will have access to and which ones it will not.

One-handed control mode. To enter this mode, slide your finger from the center to the left touch button, and to exit, tap on the dark area of ​​the screen. In the settings you can specify which diagonal emulation you want to use.

Keys. For the lower buttons, there is fine-tuning of actions for both short and long presses.

Headphones. MIUI can also customize actions for the buttons on the headset. This is convenient if you want to skip to the previous/next track instead of changing the volume.

In general, the entire MIUI is made in such a way that you can customize anything, and that’s why geeks love it.

Performance

I received several requests from our regular readers regarding testing the performance of devices, in particular, they asked to add results from GeekBench, measure the write speed of a card, and also check the performance of the device in WoT Blitz. I think the Mi 5s review is a great reason to start doing all this.

The smartphone runs on a top-end chipset from Qualcomm and has good internal memory speed, this is felt in all operating scenarios: desktops and the browser are scrolled quickly, all games run at maximum settings. Now about WoT: Blitz, it also runs at maximum settings, there are no stutters or delays, the picture in the toy is simply amazing.

After 15 minutes of playing, the smartphone gets very hot, the body temperature rises to 45 degrees. The back cover gets hot, it's noticeable.

In everyday use there are no such problems; the body of the smartphone is only a little warm.

Autonomous operation

I also changed the battery life section a little. Now, instead of testing the operating time when watching HD video and reading mode, I will measure the operating time when watching an FHD YouTube video and while playing WoT. And, of course, my daily use regimen has not gone away either.

When using Mi 5s, you can safely count on one day of work, there are no super impressive results here.

The smartphone supports Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0 technology; in half an hour the device is charged by 41%, in an hour by 83%, the total charging time is approximately 100 minutes. Unfortunately, you will need a separate charger to use this mode.

Camera

I asked Roman Belykh to evaluate the shooting quality of the Mi 5s, below is his detailed comment:

The camera takes excellent pictures during the day, there are practically no complaints, the only thing I would like is a little higher detail. Focus is instant and precise.

Updated top-series model on the latest Snapdragon 821 platform

We continue to get acquainted with the update of the top Xiaomi Mi line, which the manufacturer of popular Chinese smartphones presented at the end of September 2016 in two new modifications: Xiaomi Mi 5s and Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus. As it turned out when considering Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus, the manufacturer has made noticeable changes to the new products compared to the previous model in the series (Mi 5), and the new models are quite different from each other. The Mi 5s and Mi 5s Plus smartphones are aimed at different target audiences and both are quite worthy of separate reviews, so today, following the Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus, we will study the regular Mi 5s model.

Main characteristics of Xiaomi Mi 5s

• SoC Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 (MSM8996pro), 4 Kryo cores @2.0/2.15 GHz
• GPU Adreno 530 @624 MHz
• Operating system Android 6.0.1
• Touch display IPS 5.15″, 1920×1080, 427 ppi
• Random access memory (RAM) 3/4 GB, internal memory 32/64/128 GB
• Nano-SIM support (2 pcs.)
• No microSD support
• GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
• WCDMA/HSPA+ networks (850/900/1900/2100 MHz)
• LTE FDD Band 1/3/7 networks
• Networks TD LTE Band 38—41, TD-SCDMA, CDMA1X/EVDO (BC0)
• Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 and 5 GHz)
• Bluetooth
• GPS, A-GPS, Glonass, BDS
• USB Type-C, USB OTG
• Camera 12 MP (Sony IMX378), autofocus, f/2.0, 4K video
• Front camera 4 MP, f/2.0, fixed. focus
• Proximity sensor, light sensor, pressure sensor, magnetic field sensor, fingerprint sensor, accelerometer, gyroscope, step counter
• Battery 3200 mAh, Quick Charge 3.0
• Dimensions 146×70×8.3 mm
• Weight 145 g

Contents of delivery

Xiaomi Mi 5s is sold in a box made of hard matte cardboard, laconically and minimalistically designed. The box is quite large in size, but its limited contents fit into a small additional internal compartment, and most of the box is empty.

The kit includes only a USB Type-C connecting cable, a network adapter with variable output current and voltage (5/9/12 V at 1.5/2/2.5 A) and a key for removing cards.

Appearance and ease of use

Xiaomi Mi 5s looks nice, but is not as impressively designed as Mi 5s Plus. There is no texture like brushed metal, there is no such gloss. The body has a uniform matte surface, looks more modest and is more reminiscent of the latest products from a cheaper family, like Redmi Note 4.

And yet, Xiaomi Mi 5s remains quite attractive: its body is made of a single piece of metal (unibody), there are no plastic end inserts, and all antennas are placed in external grooves covered with composite material. The metal is matte, pleasant to the touch, although, of course, quite slippery.

The smartphone is small in size, and by modern standards it can even be called compact, especially considering the fact that among top-end mobile devices there are almost no smartphones with a small screen size. If you can still find them anywhere, it’s only in the budget segment, but that’s a completely different story. Due to its small width and weight, as well as the sloping edges of the rear wall, the device lies comfortably in the hand. Brushed metal surfaces can sometimes be quite slippery, but certainly not easily soiled.

Based on a two-week acquaintance, there were no complaints about the device regarding the assembly and quality of materials. The parts fit neatly together, there are no gaps or inconsistencies. During testing, neither the metal back nor the front glass had any scratches.

The glass is made in a modern 2.5D version, where the edges are slightly sloping, and this creates the feeling of a more streamlined body. However, Xiaomi smartphones have a clearly defined transition to flat side edges.

On the front panel there is a full set of necessary sensors, as well as an event indicator, touch buttons and even a fingerprint scanner. Moreover, the scanner here is located under a common glass: the developers installed a newfangled ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, which does not have a dedicated area as such, and the place for placing a finger is indicated only by a regular notch.

As experience has shown, the ultrasonic fingerprint scanner installed here recognizes wet and dirty fingers no better than a conventional scanner installed, for example, in Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus. That is, it does not always recognize them, and the speed of recognition (or response to recognition) is not so great; We've come across smartphones that do all this faster and better. In general, acquaintance with the new technology did not cause much enthusiasm.

On the back side of the case, the camera module with a powerful, bright two-section LED flash does not protrude beyond the surface, so the smartphone lies quite stable on the table and does not wobble when you touch the screen.

The cards are inserted into the side connector, which has two slots for Nano-SIM cards, but, like the older model, there is no space for a memory card; the connector is not a hybrid one. Hot swapping of cards is supported.

The side buttons are located on the opposite side and are made of metal. The keys seemed much harder to us than those of the Mi 5s Plus; pressing them is not as pleasant, especially when you press them at the same time to take a screenshot.

At the bottom end there is a USB Type-C connector that supports connecting external devices, including flash drives, in USB OTG mode. Two symmetrical rows of holes are cut out next to the connector, but the sound from the speaker comes out only through one of them. (Behind the other, apparently, there is a conversational microphone.) The speaker does not sound as loud and not as rich as in the larger Mi 5s Plus model, which apparently has a more powerful speaker. But in general, the device is not bad in terms of sound capabilities, although not better than average.

The entire top end is given over to a 3.5 mm headphone jack - there is no infrared transmitter for emulating a remote control, as in the Mi 5s Plus model. It is curious that a remote control emulation program for controlling equipment is pre-installed in this smartphone, but it immediately reports the absence of an infrared port and suggests searching in a single Wi-Fi network for equipment to control it.

Xiaomi Mi 5s is sold in the same four colors as Mi 5s Plus: light silver, dark gray, gold and pink. The smartphone body did not receive protection from moisture and dust.

Screen

Xiaomi Mi 5s is equipped with an IPS display with 2.5D glass with sloping edges. The screen is significantly smaller than that of the 5.7-inch Mi 5s Plus model, its physical dimensions here are 65x115 mm with a diagonal of 5.15 inches, and the resolution is 1920x1080 pixels, so the pixel density is approximately 386 ppi. The body is not much wider than the screen, about 3 mm on the sides, of which about 2 mm is the notorious black frame around the display, which stands out strongly on light-colored Xiaomi devices and is therefore so unloved by users. Without this frame, the screen would be only 1 mm away from the edges of the case, but, apparently, this is not so easy to implement technologically. In any case, even with a frame, the screen still occupies a very significant part of the front panel area; the developers have integrated the display into a truly compact and elegant body.

The display brightness can be adjusted manually or set to automatic settings based on the ambient light sensor. The AnTuTu test diagnoses support for 10 simultaneous multi-touch touches. It is possible to manually adjust the color tone and contrast; you can also use the reading mode, in which the brightness is reduced and the colors fade into warm yellowish shades. The screen can be activated by double tapping.

A detailed examination using measuring instruments was carried out by the editor of the “Monitors” and “Projectors and TV” sections Alexey Kudryavtsev. Here is his expert opinion on the screen of the sample under study.

The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface that is scratch-resistant. Judging by the reflection of objects, the anti-glare properties of the screen are better than those of the Google Nexus 7 (2013) screen (hereinafter simply Nexus 7). For clarity, here is a photo in which a white surface is reflected in the switched off screens (on the left - Nexus 7, on the right - Xiaomi Mi 5s, then they can be distinguished by size):

The screen of the Xiaomi Mi 5s is noticeably darker (brightness according to photographs is 103 versus 116 for the Nexus 7). The ghosting of reflected objects in the Xiaomi Mi 5s screen is very weak, this indicates that there is no air gap between the layers of the screen (more specifically, between the outer glass and the surface of the LCD matrix) (OGS - One Glass Solution type screen). Due to the smaller number of boundaries (glass/air type) with very different refractive indices, such screens look better in conditions of intense external illumination, but their repair in the case of cracked external glass is much more expensive, since the entire screen has to be replaced. There is a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating on the outer surface of the screen (noticeably better in efficiency than the Nexus 7), so fingerprints are removed more easily and appear at a slower rate than with regular glass.

When manually controlling the brightness and displaying the white field in full screen, the maximum brightness value was about 640 cd/m², the minimum was 1 cd/m². The maximum brightness is very high, which means, given the excellent anti-glare properties, readability even on a sunny day outdoors should be at a good level. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable value. There is automatic brightness adjustment based on the light sensor (it is located to the left of the front speaker slot). In automatic mode, when external lighting conditions change, the screen brightness both increases and decreases. The operation of this function depends on the position of the brightness adjustment slider. If it is 100%, then in complete darkness the auto-brightness function reduces the brightness to 160 cd/m² (too much), in an office illuminated by artificial light (about 550 lux) it sets it to 425 cd/m² (it could have been lower), in very bright environment (corresponds to lighting on a clear day outdoors, but without direct sunlight - 20,000 lux or a little more), the brightness increases to 640 cd/m² (to the maximum - this is how it should be); if the adjustment is approximately 50%, then the values ​​are as follows: 7, 180 and 640 cd/m² (the first value is slightly lower than we would like when using the device in complete darkness), the regulator at 0% is 1, 150 and 610 cd/m² (the first value is underestimated, the other two are normal). We were more satisfied with the option with a slider at about 60% of the scale - 13, 220 and 640 cd/m². It turns out that the auto-brightness function works absolutely adequately and, to some extent, allows the user to customize their work to individual requirements. Only at very low brightness levels does significant backlight modulation appear, but its frequency is high, about 2.3 kHz, so there is no visible flicker of the screen (but perhaps it can be detected in a test for the presence of a stroboscopic effect - we, however, were not able to do this ).

This smartphone uses an IPS matrix. The microphotographs show a typical IPS subpixel structure:

For comparison, you can see the gallery of microphotographs of screens used in mobile technology.

The screen has good viewing angles without significant color shift even with large viewing deviations from perpendicular to the screen and without inverting shades. For comparison, here are photographs in which identical images are displayed on the screens of Xiaomi Mi 5s and Nexus 7, while the brightness of the screens was initially set to approximately 200 cd/m², and the color balance on the camera was forcibly switched to 6500 K.

There is a white field perpendicular to the screens:

The uniformity of brightness and color tone of the white field is good.

And a test picture:

The colors on the Xiaomi Mi 5s screen are oversaturated (note the tomatoes, bananas and napkin) and the color balance is slightly off. Recall that photography can not serve as a reliable source of information about color rendering quality and are provided for illustrative purposes only. In this case, apparently, due to the peculiarities of the emission spectrum of the screen, the color balance in the photographs is somewhat different from what is visible to the eye and determined by a spectrophotometer.

Now at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the plane and to the side of the screen:

It can be seen that the colors have not changed much on both screens, but on the Xiaomi Mi 5s the contrast has decreased to a greater extent due to the strong brightening of black.

And a white field:

The brightness at an angle of the screens has greatly decreased, but the Xiaomi Mi 5s screen is still brighter. When deviated diagonally, the black field brightens greatly and acquires a yellowish tint. The photographs below demonstrate this (the brightness of the white areas in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the screens is the same!):

And from another angle:

When viewed perpendicularly, the uniformity of the black field is average:

The contrast (approximately in the center of the screen) is high - about 1060:1. The response time for the black-white-black transition is 27 ms (14 ms on + 13 ms off). The transition between halftones of gray 25% and 75% (based on the numerical value of the color) and back takes a total of 44 ms. The gamma curve, constructed using 32 points with equal intervals based on the numerical value of the shade of gray, did not reveal any blockage in either the highlights or the shadows. The exponent of the approximating power function is 2.15, which is slightly lower than the standard value of 2.2. In this case, the real gamma curve slightly deviates from the power law:

In this case, we did not find any dynamic adjustment of the backlight brightness in accordance with the nature of the displayed image, which is very good.

The color gamut is noticeably wider than sRGB:

Let's look at the spectra:

Such spectra are (unfortunately) found in top mobile devices from Sony and other manufacturers. Apparently, this screen uses LEDs with a blue emitter and green and red phosphor (usually a blue emitter and a yellow phosphor), which, in combination with special matrix filters, allows for a wide color gamut. Yes, and the red phosphor apparently uses so-called quantum dots. For a consumer device, a wide color gamut is not an advantage, but a significant disadvantage, since as a result, the colors of images - drawings, photographs and films - oriented to the sRGB space (and the vast majority of them) have an unnatural saturation. This is especially noticeable on recognizable shades, such as skin tones. The result is shown in the photo above.

This device has the ability to adjust the color balance by adjusting the hue warmer or cooler (there are only three values ​​to choose from, despite the slider), as well as select one of three profiles (in the bottom two, the color balance switch is inactive).

The profile is of interest Default(which is not selected by default at all), since it is the only one that attempts to correct the terrible colors by adjusting the color gamut:

The result is average, but the attempt counts. We hope that someday software developers for Xiaomi smartphones will master the simplest operations of matrix algebra and they will get an sRGB triangle without kinks on the sides. For now we have the following result:

Everything is better. In case of profile Increase contrast The screen brightness is maximum, but the balance is also the worst, since the color temperature is too high and the ΔE value is high. For the default profile ( Auto Contrast), the balance of shades on the gray scale is acceptable, since the color temperature is not much higher than the standard 6500 K, and the deviation from the blackbody spectrum (ΔE) is below 10, which is considered a good indicator for a consumer device. At the same time, color temperature and ΔE change little from hue to hue - this has a positive effect on the visual assessment of color balance. When selecting a profile Default color temperature approaches 6500 K, but ΔE increases significantly. However, in this case, it is more important to reduce the saturation to normal. (The darkest areas of the gray scale can be ignored, since color balance there is not very important, and the error in measuring color characteristics at low brightness is large.)

To summarize: the screen has a very high maximum brightness and has excellent anti-glare properties, so the device can be used outdoors without any problems, even on a sunny summer day. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable level. It is also possible to use a mode with automatic brightness adjustment, which works adequately. Also, the advantages of the screen include the presence of an effective oleophobic coating, the absence of an air gap in the layers of the screen and flicker, high contrast, as well as not the worst color balance and approximation to the sRGB color gamut when choosing a profile Default. Significant disadvantages include the low stability of black to gaze deviation from perpendicular to the screen plane. Nevertheless, taking into account the importance of characteristics for this particular class of devices, the quality of the screen can be considered high.

Camera

The front module here is apparently the same as that of the Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus, the camera has a 4 megapixel sensor with a pixel size of 2 microns and a wide-angle lens (80°) with a maximum aperture of f/2.0, with a fixed focus and without its own flashes. As usual for Xiaomi smartphones, there is a function to automatically detect the gender and age of the subject. There are also photo decoration modes. The shooting quality is average.

The main camera here is not dual, like the Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus, but a regular one. It uses a Sony IMX378 sensor (12 MP) and a six-component lens with a maximum aperture of f/2.0. Phase detection (PDAF) autofocus pleases with its performance both during the day and in low light conditions. The dual multi-colored flash is bright.

The control menu is the same as in all Xiaomi smartphones, there are no noticeable differences here, with the possible exception of the appearance of more and more additional special modes, such as GroupShot, tilt-shift, etc. The dual camera in the Mi 5s Plus modification had two more unusual modes - stereo and monochrome, but for obvious reasons they are not here. There is a special night mode, and even if you do not turn it on manually, it turns on itself when shooting in low light conditions without a flash.

As usual, in the settings there is no choice of resolution in specific numbers; you can only set high, medium or low quality, and also adjust clarity, saturation and contrast - again, by choosing presets. In manual mode, settings for ISO (up to 3200), shutter speed, and white balance are added. Using the Camera2 API, you cannot transfer camera control to third-party applications, and there is also no option to save pictures in RAW.

The camera can shoot video in a maximum resolution of 4K, for slow motion Slow Motion the resolution is limited to 720p, and there is switchable stabilization for video. It's not perfect, but it still successfully compensates for minor hand tremors when shooting on the go. And in general, the camera copes well with video shooting: sharpness, color rendition and detail are normal, as is the recorded audio. The sound is clear, there is no echo effect, the noise reduction system copes with its responsibilities adequately.

• Video No. 1 (95 MB, 3840×2160@30 fps, H.264, AAC)
• Video No. 2 (57 MB, 1280×720, slo-mo)

We also tested the camera on a laboratory bench using our method.

The camera turned out to be nice. It is not without its drawbacks in the form of areas of blur that periodically appear at the edges of the frame, but otherwise everything is quite good. The program works neatly and almost imperceptibly. Overall, the camera performs well in a variety of scenarios.

Telephone and communications

The communication capabilities of the review hero are rich: the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 SoC provided the smartphone with the X12 LTE Cat.12/13 modem, and Xiaomi took care of supporting multiple frequency bands, including 3 FDD LTE bands (Band 1, 3, 7). Unfortunately, the LTE 800 MHz frequency (Band 20), which best meets the requirements for indoor communications and in sparsely populated areas, is not supported. For residents of some regions, this may become a certain problem in terms of using the 4G network, but in the urban areas of the Moscow region the device behaved more or less confidently. The quality of signal reception does not cause any particular complaints, although it was not possible to achieve maximum speeds in LTE in the usual testing places.

In addition, the wireless interfaces support Bluetooth 4.2, both Wi-Fi bands (2.4 and 5 GHz) MU-MIMO, WiDi, and even NFC with support for Mifare Classic. There are no complaints about the sensitivity of the Wi-Fi module. You can organize a wireless access point via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth channels. The USB Type-C connector supports connecting external devices in USB OTG mode.

The navigation module works with both GPS (with A-GPS) and the domestic Glonass, and sees the device and satellites of the Chinese Beidou network. The first satellites during a cold start in the absence of a wireless network for data transmission are detected within the first tens of seconds. The smartphone is equipped with a magnetic field sensor, on the basis of which the digital compass of navigation programs usually operates.

The phone application supports Smart Dial, that is, while dialing a phone number, a search is immediately carried out by the first letters in contacts. There is a built-in blacklist for unwanted contacts. The standard keyboard supports Swype-type stroke input by default. There is pluggable support for VoLTE. In conversational dynamics, the voice of a familiar interlocutor remains recognizable, there is no extraneous noise. The main speaker has good volume, the sound is of average quality, but quite clear. The volume level will be sufficient for any environment. The vibration alert can be adjusted, and at maximum power it is quite noticeable.

The smartphone supports dual SIM cards. The standard interface allows you to select a specific card for each function in advance or directly during the connection. Work with two SIM cards is organized according to the usual Dual SIM Dual Standby standard, when both cards can be in active standby mode, but cannot work at the same time - there is only one radio module.

Software and multimedia

As a software platform, Xiaomi Mi 5s uses Android OS version 6.0.1 and its own proprietary MIUI 8 shell, which we have already become familiar with more than once on the example of both the older model Mi 5s Plus and Redmi Note 4 from a simpler line. As in the case of Mi 5s Plus, we received a model for testing with the international firmware MIUI Global 8.0 already installed, so we did not have to resort to installing the Play Store and Google Apps ourselves. This need may sometimes arise among those who like to order Chinese smartphones from online stores, but usually these users know what they are getting into and are ready to do a little magic with the firmware. However, it is worth noting that online stores most often supply Xiaomi smartphones with modified firmware, and in this case the device has a customized global version that is not updated over the air. In the real global version, the index is different, camera2api works there and there is the ability to save in RAW.

Performance

The Xiaomi Mi 5s hardware platform is based on the same SoC as the Mi 5s Plus - Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 (MSM8996pro). Basically, this is a slightly improved version of the Snapdragon 820, Qualcomm's top and most expensive platform for mobile devices. It’s just that the maximum core frequency of the Xiaomi Mi 5s was reduced to such an extent that the platform in this parameter is not much different from the regular Snapdragon 820. Obviously, this was done in order to artificially lower the performance of the Mi 5s model in relation to the Mi 5s Plus and justify thereby increasing the cost of the latter.

Be that as it may, the chip configuration here includes four Kryo processor cores in two clusters, the maximum frequency of the older cores reaches 2.15 GHz (versus 2.34 GHz for the Mi 5s Plus). The Adreno 530 video accelerator is responsible for graphics processing; the frequency of its cores has also been reduced to 624 MHz (versus 652 MHz for the Mi 5s Plus). The amount of RAM is 3 or 4 GB, and the internal memory is 32, 64 or 128 GB, depending on the configuration. About 57 GB remains free on the 64 GB flash model, and about 1.4 of the 3 GB of RAM is usually free after a fresh reboot and memory wipe.

There is no possibility of expanding memory by installing microSD cards, but you can connect an external flash drive in USB OTG mode. The simultaneous connection of a USB flash drive and an SD card using an OTG hub also works well (Transcend Smart Reader RDC2 was used for testing).

Qualcomm claims that the Snapdragon 821 is about 10% faster than its predecessor. Here, the performance of the SoC, slightly reduced in frequency of the CPU and GPU cores, clearly demonstrates the opposite picture: the results of all tests without exception (complex, graphics, and even browser tests) are slightly lower than those of the Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus. In AnTuTu, for example, this difference was about 11K (141K versus 152K), in other tests the gap is within the same limits. But both Xiaomi models, of course, have such high performance that most modern smartphones cannot even dream of such results. The hero of the review is one of the most powerful modern smartphones; today only a few can compare with it in terms of performance.

The platform provides the highest numbers in benchmarks, and in real scenarios it confidently copes with any tasks, including the most demanding games. Any games we tested, including Dead Trigger 2, Modern Combat 5, Mortal Kombat X, not to mention less demanding ones like World of Tanks, run without the slightest slowdown at maximum settings and are played with great comfort. The device is very powerful, it has a significant performance reserve for future updates over several generations.

Testing in the latest versions of comprehensive tests AnTuTu and GeekBench:

For convenience, we have compiled all the results we obtained when testing the smartphone in the latest versions of popular benchmarks into tables. The table usually adds several other devices from different segments, also tested on similar latest versions of benchmarks (this is done only for a visual assessment of the obtained dry figures). Unfortunately, within the framework of one comparison it is impossible to present the results from different versions of benchmarks, so many worthy and relevant models remain “behind the scenes” - due to the fact that they once passed the “obstacle course” on previous versions of test programs.

Testing the graphics subsystem in gaming tests 3DMark, GFXBenchmark and Bonsai Benchmark:

When testing in 3DMark, the most powerful smartphones now have the ability to run the application in Unlimited mode, where the rendering resolution is fixed at 720p and VSync is disabled (which can cause the speed to rise above 60 fps).

Browser cross-platform tests:

As for benchmarks for assessing the speed of the javascript engine, you should always make allowance for the fact that their results significantly depend on the browser in which they are launched, so the comparison can only be truly correct on the same OS and browsers, and this is possible during testing not always. For Android OS, we always try to use Google Chrome.

AndroBench memory speed test results:

Thermal photographs

Below is a thermal image of the rear surface obtained after 10 minutes of running the battery test in the GFXBenchmark program:

It can be seen that the heating is more localized in the upper part of the device, which apparently corresponds to the location of the SoC chip. According to the heat chamber, the maximum heating was 37 degrees (at an ambient temperature of 24 degrees), which is relatively little.

Playing video

To test the omnivorous nature of video playback (including support for various codecs, containers and special features, such as subtitles), we used the most common formats, which make up the bulk of the content available on the Internet. Note that for mobile devices it is important to have support for hardware video decoding at the chip level, since it is most often impossible to process modern options using processor cores alone. Also, you shouldn’t expect a mobile device to decode everything, since the leadership in flexibility belongs to the PC, and no one is going to challenge it. All results are summarized in a table.

According to the testing results, the test subject was not equipped with all the necessary decoders that are needed to fully play most of the most common multimedia files on the network, in this case, audio files. To successfully play them, you will have to resort to the help of a third-party player - for example, MX Player. True, it is also necessary to change the settings and manually install additional custom codecs, because now this player does not officially support the AC3 sound format.

Further testing of video playback was performed Alexey Kudryavtsev.

Due to the lack of the necessary adapter, we could not check the hypothetical presence of the MHL interface, as well as Mobility DisplayPort, so we had to limit ourselves to testing the output of video files on the screen of the device itself. To do this, we used a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see “Method for testing video playback and display devices. Version 1 (for mobile devices) Red marks indicate possible problems associated with the playback of the corresponding files.

According to the criterion of frame output, the quality of playback of video files on the screen of the smartphone itself is very good, since frames (or groups of frames) can (but are not required) be output with more or less uniform alternation of intervals and in most cases without skipping frames. When playing video files with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels (1080p) on a smartphone screen, the image of the video file itself is displayed exactly along the border of the screen, one to one in pixels, that is, in the original resolution. The brightness range displayed on the screen corresponds to the standard range of 16-235: in the shadows, only about a couple of shades merge with black, and in the highlights all gradations are displayed.

Battery life

The non-removable battery installed in the Xiaomi Mi 5s has a smaller capacity of 3200 mAh than that of the Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus. By modern standards, this capacity is not impressive, but the smartphone, even with its super-powerful platform, showed not only decent battery life results, but also better than many competitors in the top segment. Particularly pleasing is the long operating time when watching videos and playing games - both new Xiaomi devices function in these scenarios for a very long time, and these are relatively life-long scenarios, in contrast to, for example, a day of continuous reading of e-books.

Of course, in real life the situation is usually more complicated, and even the most durable smartphone may not last until the evening charge, but with normal average use, the hero of the review is quite capable of easily surviving a day or more without recharging. Testing has traditionally been done at normal power consumption levels without using power-saving features.

Continuous reading in the Moon+ Reader program (with a standard, light theme) at a minimum comfortable brightness level (brightness was set to 100 cd/m²) with auto-scrolling lasted about 14.5 hours until the battery was completely discharged, and when continuously watching videos in high quality ( 720p) with the same brightness level via a home Wi-Fi network, the device operates for a little less than 12 hours. In 3D gaming mode, the smartphone can work for up to 7 hours or more, although here, of course, everything will depend on the specific games and their settings.

The device supports the proprietary fast charging function Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0; from the included network adapter it charges in approximately 1 hour 40 minutes with a current of 2.3 A at a voltage of 6 V. The smartphone does not support wireless charging.

Bottom line

Xiaomi Mi 5s turned out to be pleasant to look at, practical and easy to use, small and light. This very attractive smartphone has a high-quality screen and camera, which is very important to justify the considerable price of the device. Excellent communication capabilities and a high level of autonomy complete the rosy picture. In addition, Xiaomi Mi 5s is the most productive smartphone. In short, once again we have to admit that the small Xiaomi Mi series devices are now almost the only worthy alternative to Apple smartphones for lovers of miniature mobile devices with maximum capabilities.

The hero of the review may be inferior to his older brother Mi 5s Plus in some ways, having a smaller display and a “simple” camera, but the regular model is cheaper and is, of course, designed for a more mass consumer. The cheapest option is priced at 1899 yuan, and the older one (4 GB RAM, 128 GB flash memory) is priced at 2299 yuan, which corresponds to approximately 17,500 and 21,500. But these are official prices for China, and online stores, especially domestic ones, will definitely throw something on top.