Xiaomi MI 5X hands-on impressions

Xiomi’s latest mid-range smartphone is an iteration to last year’s Mi 5 — the Xiaomi Mi 5X. There are actually quite a number of Mi 5 variants — the original Mi 5, the Mi 5S, Mi 5S Plus, and the Mi 5X that we have right now.

The Xiaomi Mi 5X took quite a lot of design inspiration from the flagship Xiaomi Mi 6 although there are a few noticeable differences in the exterior and interior components between the two. There’s also an uncanny resemblance to the iPhone 7 Plus here as well. Perhaps, that’s what Xiaomi was really aiming for.

That all-glass front panel and metal unibody design with matte finish is becoming all too common these days. The 5.5-inch display has an LTPS panel with full HD resolution. The Mi 5X is bigger than the Mi6 which is only at 5.15 inches. Nothing spectacular with the display — just the right pixel density, good colors and contrast, and bright even in the outdoors.

The top and bottom bezels are quite wide and leave a lot of empty space with the capacitive buttons at the bottom end that are backlit.

The power button and volume controls are on the right and SIM card tray on the left; the IR blaster and noise-canceling mic ar up top while the 3.5mm audio port, primary mic, USB Type-C charging port and speaker grills are at the bottom.

At the back are the fingerprint sensor right in the center, the dual-rear cameras flushed to the upper left corner together with the dual-tone, dual-LED flash and the Xiaomi logo just at the bottom end. There are antenna bands at the top and bottom edges of the device but they’re inconspicuously laid out so it’s not noticeable unless you take a closer look.

Just like the Mi6, the Mi 5X comes with a dual rear camera with the second camera capable of 2x zoom. The optics of the Mi 5X isn’t as good (27mm, f/1.8, 4-axis OIS; and 52mm, f/2.6 vs. 6mm, f/2.2; portrait 50mm, f/2.6) as the one used in the Mi6, but the images we took looked really nice.

Photos are pretty in daylight — clear and crisp, more on the warm side although don’t expect much on low-light performance due to the smaller f2.2 aperture opening.

The secondary camera offers 2x zoom to the primary one and while the optics are not the same, the quality is comparable.

There’s a noticeable difference in dynamic range between the two. This is apparent with the darker skies on the zoom lens compared to the brighter one on the primary lens.

Details are somewhat degraded in the zoom lens but overall it’s still very usable. As for video recording, we can up to 2160p at 30fps and the slow-mo mode captures 720p at 120fps.

There’s no optical image stabilization here so the camera tends to refocus a lot and gives that jello-effect. The zoom lens can also record video. Here’s some sample clips we got:

In terms of performance, the Snapdragon 625 is a decent workhorse. We got pretty good results in most of our benchmarks.

Antutu Benchmark: 61,243
Geekbench 4.0: 816 (single core), 3,358 (multi-core)
PC Mark: 4,948 (Work 2.0), (Work 1.0)
3D Mark: 455 (Sling Shot Extreme)
PCMark Storage: 4,503

While a bulk of Xiaomi’s phones are yet to receive Android Nougat, the Mi 5X ships with Android 7.1.2 with the new MIUI 9. It’s the most up-to-date version of Android, pre-Oreo release.

More on this in our full review of the Xiaomi Mi 5X.

Xiaomi Mi 5X specs:
5.5-inch LTPS Full HD display (403ppi)
Snapdragon 625 2.0GHz octa-core processor
Adreno 506 GPU
4GB LPDDR3 RAM
64GB internal storage
Dual 12MP (wide angle 26mm, f/2.2; portrait 50mm, f/2.6) PDAF rear cameras w/ dual-tone LED flash
5MP front-facing camera
Dual-SIM (Nano)
4G LTE
WiFi 802.11a / b / g / n / ac
Bluetooth 4.2
GPS w/ A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
USB Type-C
Fingerprint Scanner
IR Blaster
Gyroscope
3,080mAh non-removable Li-Ion battery
Android 7.1.2 Nougat with MI UI9
155.4 x 75.8 x 7.3 mm (dimensions)
165 grams (weight)

Announced just last month with an MSRP of just CNY 1,499 (around Php11,300 when converted to Philippine Peso), the Xiaomi MI 5X found its way to the Philippines thru online stores at Php13,500 (see listing here).

What’s interesting is that the older Mi5 (SD820, 3GB/32GB) and the Mi 4S (SD808, 3GB/64GB) are also selling for Php13,500.