9
Yuno
5y

I've had a Xiaomi Mi 8 for a few months now. Although I'm impressed by what I got for the amount I paid (a phone that cost about $250 for 6GB RAM, Snapdragon 845, Android 9 and premium build quality is quite a steal), it definitely comes with a consequence.

MIUI (specifically MIUI 11) is godawful. It is single-handedly the worst Android ROM I've ever used since my shitty Android 2.2 phone back around 2010. If you're gonna buy a Xiaomi phone, plan to install Lineage OS on it (but even that's a pain which I'll explain why later).

- Navigation buttons don't hide while watching a video.

Why? God only knows. The ONLY way to bypass without root this is to use its garbage fullscreen mode with gestures, which is annoying as all hell.

- 2 app info pages?

Yeah, the first one you can access just by going to its disaster of a settings app, apps, manage apps and tap on any one.

The 2nd one you can access through the app info button in any 3rd party launcher. Try this: Download Nova launcher, go to the app drawer, hold on any app and tap "app info", and you'll see the 2nd one.

Basically, instead of modifying Android's FOSS source code, they made a shitty overlay. These people are really ahead of their time.

- Can only set lock screen wallpapers using the stock Gallery app

It's not that big an issue, until it is, when whatever wallpaper app you're using only allows you to set the wallpaper and not download them. I think this is both a fuckup on Xiaomi and (insert wallpaper app name here), but why Xiaomi can't include this basic essential feature that every other Android ROM ever made has is beyond me.

- Theming on MIUI 11 is broken

Why do they even bother having a section to customize the boot animation and status bar when there's not one goddamn theme that supports it? At this point you're only changing the wallpaper and icon pack which you can do on any Android phone ever. Why even bother?

They really, REALLY want to be Apple.

Just look at their phones. They're well designed and got good specs, but they don't even care anymore about being original. The notch and lack of a headphone jack aren't features, they're tremendous fuckups by the dead rotting horse known as Apple that died when Steve Jobs did.

Xiaomi tries to build a walled garden around an inherently customizable OS, and the end result is a warzone of an Android ROM that begs for mercy from its creator. Launchers integrate horribly (Does any power user actually use anything that isn't Nova or Microsoft launcher?), 3rd party themes and customization apps need workarounds, some apps don't work at all. People buy from Xiaomi to get a high end budget Android phone at the price of some ads and data collection, not a shitter iOS wannabe.

They really, REALLY want you to have a sim card

If you don't have a sim card and you're using your phone for dev stuff, you're a 2nd class citizen to Xiaomi. Without one, you can't:

- Install adb through adb
- Write to secure settings
- Unlock your bootloader and get away from this trash Android ROM

What's the point? Are they gonna shadow ban you? Does anyone contact them to unlock their bootloader saying "yeah I wanna use a custom rom to pirate lizard porn and buy drugs"? They made this 1000000000x harder than it needs to be for no reason whatsoever. Oh yeah and you gotta wait like a week or something for them to unlock it. How they fucked up this bad is beyond me.

So yeah. Xiaomi. Great phones, atrocious OS.

Comments
  • 3
    What is that Image?
  • 1
    Amen, super good hardware for the price with an OS that honestly makes me want to kms.
  • 0
    @nitwhiz Something I found on Google search
  • 1
    @Yuno i loled at that indian flag for no reason
  • 1
    That's why i prefer Android one phones. Best of all the worlds : good h/w , best s/w , decent budget.

    @theKarlisK what's wrong with Samsung and nokia?
  • 0
    📌
  • 2
    Just a correction : I think your rant is rather about MiUI, not Xiaomi. And trust me, this is not the same
    I would not have bought a Xiaomi if it was shipped with this awful overlay. Reason why I took an Android One Xiaomi phone, which has a stock Android ROM. You can mod anything you want on that.
    I removed the stock ROM to get AEX, flashed Magisk and a custom recovery. It wasn't that hard, I was just surprised at first with the A/B partition system which makes the install a little different, and at the time wasn't much documented.

    Xiaomi ain't bad: just get a good one. It can't be worse than Huawei anyway.
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    @theKarlisK why not Samsung? Price aside, the hardware description basically matches a Note 9, which can be easily unlocked from the developer settings. You can find them used for just slightly more that the Xiaomi. I'd much rather go with that if I were in @Yuno 's position
  • 2
    "The notch and lack of a headphone jack aren't features, they're tremendous fuckups by the dead rotting horse known as Apple that died when Steve Jobs did"

    omg, I agree so much. Thank you for saying this.

    I don't want a notch, a "hole-punch camera", rounded corners or tapered edges. Just gimme a goddamn rectangular screen and a thin bezel. And a headphone jack, sd card slot and an easily swappable battery. And stop that "customers don't want..." bullshit already, because adapters, power banks and streaming subscriptions are band-aid solutions but still flying off the shelves.
  • 0
    Here lies Huawei: anti-unlocked-bootloader, pro-surveillance, all I have at the moment.

    (also there's CVEs that'd allow me to softroot it and straight replace the bootloader and disable integrity checks. The catch? I can't craft Bluetooth packets.)
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