Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Xiaomi becomes number two smartphone vendor for first time ever in Q2 2021

canalys.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 182 posts

Re: Xiaomi becomes number two smartphone vendor for first time ever in Q2 2021

#81

Post by fauigerzigerk »

stelonix wrote: post #71
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not too happy about anyone spying on me, and I'm also unhappy about corporations vetoing software I want to install. Besides, one person's "targeted by interventionism" is another person's "liberated by democratic forces".

Sure we were liberated by having a military junta take power for 21 years. Civil liberties vanished and people were secretly disappeared. Great democratic liberation!

I certainly don't claim that every intervention is liberation. My point is precisely that it's not that simple. It can be either or both at the same time for different people in different conflicts.

Re: Xiaomi becomes number two smartphone vendor for first time ever in Q2 2021

#82

Post by the_third_wave »

meibo wrote: post #4

They're flooding the market with good, very very cheap smartphones - it's no surprise. Especially for older people that don't need $500+ flagships, a $150 Xiaomi is more than sufficient. I see them a lot nowadays. Makes me wonder if it's sustainable.

> Especially for older people that don't need $500+ flagships, a $150 Xiaomi is more than sufficient

Let me rephrase that for you: Especially for people who realise they don't need $500+ flagships, a $150 Xiaomi is more than sufficient.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with age, my 16yo daughter is more than satisfied with her Redmi Note 5 - she wanted one when she saw mine. Good battery life, good screen, more than fast enough and plenty of memory, 3.5mm jack, can take an SD card. Show me the "flagship" phone which offers this combination.

Phones have been fast enough for years now, screens, memory and storage have been big enough. Add LineageOS and you have a device which can easily last for 6 years, longer when you change the battery. I'm using a Samsung SIIIneo from 2014 with LineageOS 17.1 (Android 10) as a second device, it receives weekly OTA updates (which I generally do not install, but still - they're there). With a new battery it lasts for 2-3 days between charges when used for audio streaming through bluetooth or the speaker.

Re: Xiaomi becomes number two smartphone vendor for first time ever in Q2 2021

#83

Post by jules »

bamboozled wrote: post #58
GordonS wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never mind "older people", some Xiaomi devices have the same performance as flagships costing twice as much. I have a Xiaomi Mi 9 SE (had it almost 2 years now), and it's the best phone I've ever owned. Previously I'd owned flagship Samsungs and an iPhone 6. It's powerful, the display is excellent, the battery lasts 2 days even with plenty use (unusual these days!), the cameras are excellent, and the device itself lo…

How can it really be that much better than a flagship iPhone? This kind of reads like your a person who hates the price of iPhones? Either that or I read like an Apple fan boy; However, I'm a pretty keen Linux / PC user and I don't think I'm that bias?

A big reason why people buy iPhones is the Apple ecosystem and status signalling. A $300 Xiaomi phone also isn't as good as a flagship iPhone, but it's ~90% as good for 1/3 the price. For people who spend several hours per day on their phone, it isn't irrational to buy an iPhone. Americans spend on average 5.4 hours per day on their phone. Over two years, the savings from a Xiaomi phone come out to less than 20 cents per hour use. For these people it may well be worth the 20 cents for an hour of better phone experience. I think Samsung should be way more worried than Apple.

Re: Xiaomi becomes number two smartphone vendor for first time ever in Q2 2021

#84

Post by Synaesthesia »

bamboozled wrote: post #58
GordonS wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never mind "older people", some Xiaomi devices have the same performance as flagships costing twice as much. I have a Xiaomi Mi 9 SE (had it almost 2 years now), and it's the best phone I've ever owned. Previously I'd owned flagship Samsungs and an iPhone 6. It's powerful, the display is excellent, the battery lasts 2 days even with plenty use (unusual these days!), the cameras are excellent, and the device itself lo…

How can it really be that much better than a flagship iPhone? This kind of reads like your a person who hates the price of iPhones? Either that or I read like an Apple fan boy; However, I'm a pretty keen Linux / PC user and I don't think I'm that bias?

Note he compared it to an iPhone 6.

Re: Xiaomi becomes number two smartphone vendor for first time ever in Q2 2021

#86

Post by zamadatix »

timonoko wrote: post #80

I just bought 69€ Xiaomi Redmi 9A and accidentally discovered it has full-fledged USB-OTG. This was not mentioned in specs and cheapest OTG-phone seems to be around 300€. What is going on, maybe NFC and other expensive goodies are just disabled by software? And maybe this OTG just stops working at next update?

OTG isn't rare in low end hardware these days it's just really low on the list of things most low end phones think the users will care about. I wouldn't be surprised if it was simply forgotten about and not listed more often than the hardware+software weren't set up to do it.

E.g. the Pi Zero is $5 and comes with an OTG port, it's really not a matter of cost rather focus.

Re: Xiaomi becomes number two smartphone vendor for first time ever in Q2 2021

#88

Post by zozbot234 »

chronogram wrote: post #43
as1mov wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the Xiaomi phones are supported by LineageOS. If you have an hour to spare, you can easily unlock the bootloader and install it to get a stock Android experience (even skip out Google Services if you want). I have the Poco F1, cost me about $230 for SD845 + 8GB RAM + 4000mAh + 256GB storage. It's a pretty good deal after installing LineageOS on it.

Back when I last looked you had to register an account, use a Windows application and wait a few weeks before being allowed to unlock the phone. Has that been changed then?

That's not required on A series phones, which ship with a mostly stock Android as opposed to the custom MIUI.

Re: Xiaomi becomes number two smartphone vendor for first time ever in Q2 2021

#89

Post by ignoramous »

publicola1990 wrote: post #87

Xiaomi makes a whole gamut of electronic products from robot vacuums to smart rice cookers, and perhaps offers some sort of integration between all their product lines. May be it is one of the reason for their popularity.

They also make pretty good phones for the price. Software is supported by ads, an indicator of how successful ad-supported businesses really are.

Re: Xiaomi becomes number two smartphone vendor for first time ever in Q2 2021

#90

Post by buybackoff »

For me the greatest value is 2+ days battery and the fact that I'm not afraid to loose/break €200 phone vs €600, while Xiaomi is better in many aspects. Went to it 5 years ago after using flagship Samsung models also for c.5 years, could not stand for abysmal battery and their UI.

Ad bloat could be disabled in settings, I did not see too many suspicious logs in Netguard (calls to Facebook APIs were much more frequent, even from apps that have nothing to do with FB). But that's is an EU country, I've read that Xiomi at least tries not to annoy regulators too much there with privacy issues, going for market share.

Also most bloatware (even their browser) could be uninstalled in 10 minutes, just google "Xiaomi debloat", or go directly to https://github.com/Szaki/XiaomiADBFastbootTools

Post reply on HN