The Xiaomi Mi MIX 2S Review: Fantastic Overall Value
by Andrei Frumusanu on June 29, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- Xiaomi
- MI MIX 2S
Battery Life
The Mi MIX 2S comes with a 3400mAh battery – a relatively average size given that now we’re starting to see competitor devices with similar form-factors employ 4000mAh units, such as the Huawei P20 Pro. The larger concern for me was how the increased performance characteristics of the Snapdragon 845 as well as the JDI panel will fare in terms of overall device efficiency.
In the web browsing battery life test, the Mi MIX 2S lands with an average 9.86h runtime. This is slightly lower than the Galaxy S9+ - although the MIX 2S also shows slightly better performance. It’s interesting to see that although the MIS 2S only has a 1080p screen, it actually doesn’t really pull in any advantage in efficiency. I’m wondering if it’s in part due to the fact that this is a video-mode screen, or as I’ve simply strongly suspected over the last couple of years – the difference in screen resolution makes for very little difference in battery life, especially if you’re comparing it to a higher resolution OLED screen which doesn’t suffer from decreased light transmissivity at higher resolutions like LCDs do.
In the PCMark battery test we see a more interactive workload with varying picture levels and workload types. Here the MIX 2S also lands square in the middle of current devices; beating the Galaxy S9+ by a few minutes.
Overall the MIX 2S has very good battery life. It doesn’t quite compete with Huawei’s recent devices which are in a league of their own right now, but it more than matches anything else in the market. The only negative thing I’d say is that it’s a pity that it doesn’t really seem to distance itself from the Galaxy S9+ ; both devices have similar form-factors, the same SoC, and almost equal battery capacities. Yet the Mi MIX 2S’s has a lower resolution LCD screen, but that doesn’t really help it in terms of battery life. I’m sure that Xiaomi could have optimised the battery life through a better selection of display panel, as it seems that it’s one of the MIX 2S’s weak points.
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nathanddrews - Friday, June 29, 2018 - link
Definitely seems like a great value, but I know I couldn't buy it without an OLED screen. How close to a stock experience does MIUI 9 provide? It doesn't look very intrusive at all, I like it.Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, June 29, 2018 - link
I'll be adding a software section in a short while - I've had zero issues with MIUI 9.5. Xiaomi also offers quite a novel gesture navigation method that works really well and gets rid of the navigation bar creating more screen real estate.Flunk - Friday, June 29, 2018 - link
It's not that novel, OnePlus offers a similar feature.close - Saturday, June 30, 2018 - link
Yeah, BlackBerry really used gestures a lot since the beginning of this decade, Apple took them and made them famous with the iPhone X, but now they are no longer novel because OnePlus/Android also copied them in 2018? :)arashi - Sunday, July 1, 2018 - link
You mean Nokia? With the N9?arashi - Sunday, July 1, 2018 - link
*that pioneered extensive gesture navigationSamus - Sunday, July 1, 2018 - link
Palm beat virtually everyone by a number of years to the gesture game. Give credit where credit is due. WebOS revolutionized mobile OS navigation and virtually every OS since had borrowed almost everything from multitasking cards to an information "hub" from WebOS.On top of all that, Palm beat Apple to wireless charging by an entire DECADE (unless you consider the Apple Watch, which by that means Palm beat them by 'just' 7 years.) Palm's wireless charging implementation was also significantly better than Qi from more efficient charging current (excluding Qualcomm high voltage fast charging) to magnetic alignment.
Lord of the Bored - Sunday, July 1, 2018 - link
But if we give credit where it is due, we can't give credit to Apple instead!piroroadkill - Monday, July 2, 2018 - link
It's actually kind of depressing to anyone who owned a Palm device with wireless charging how shoddy current wireless technologies are, and how few devices actually support it. The Pre and the Touchpad charged without any hassle whatsoever.hbsource - Monday, July 2, 2018 - link
Well, kind of.The little stand for the Pre was great but my screen always remained powered up while charging. The screen would be dark and blank but that was still more than enough to illuminate a dark bedroom.
The OS was very good but the hardware was definitely shonky. My keyboard rubber literally wore through to the metal below and I had a couple of incidents where I lost all the stored data and photos.
Could have been great but wasn't quite.