Xiaomi Tops the World's Second Largest Smartphone Market For Eighth Straight Quarter (techcrunch.com) 16
Xiaomi has now been India's top smartphone seller for eight straight quarters, becoming a constant headache for Samsung in the world's second largest smartphone market as sales have slowed pretty much everywhere else in the world. From a report: The Chinese electronics giant shipped 10.4 million handsets in the quarter that ended in June, commanding 28.3% of the market, research firm IDC reported Tuesday. Its closest rival, Samsung -- which once held the top spot in India -- shipped 9.3 million handsets in the nation during the same period, settling for a 25.3% market share. Overall, 36.9 million handsets were shipped in India during the second quarter of this year, up 9.9% from the same period last year, IDC reported. This was the highest volume of handsets ever shipped in India for Q2, the research firm said. As smartphone shipments slow or decline in most of the world, India has emerged as an outlier that continues to show strong momentum as tens of millions of people purchase their first handset in the country each quarter.
Shit Android skins (Score:4, Interesting)
I almost went for a Xiaomi, as the build quality was actually very good. I just could not move past the MIUI Android skin.
Same reason I will never again buy a Huawei, due to the complete shit EMUI. (The spying stuff is obvious bullshit).
My Nexus 6p was a fantastic phone with super fast updates.
Same deal with Samsung.
When will companies understand that people in the "west" do not want an Android skin. They wan't actual Android and updates as Google releases them.
Other than from Google, it is nearly impossible buy a non-skinned phone nowadays and the phones are all the shittier for it.
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most have locked bootloader. Not easy.
Not to mention, someone needs to make a customer ROM. It's not like you can just uninstall the skin. It is fully baked into the ROM release and the modem.
I had the p20 pro for a couple months, but then Huawei stopped unlocking bootloaders and the Dev scene died. Sold that phone and got a pixel 3 xl. Wish it had a better camera, but good enough I guess.
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Actually, pretty easy, Xiaomi provides official way to unlock it, however you must wait 1 week since you bought phone, and linked it to your account
Re:Shit Android skins (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly for you, Xiaomi has, for the last two years, the "Android One" series, with 100% pure Android without any of their shit. Their first phone in this series, the A1, was absolutely fantastic, and later came A2 and very recently - A3.
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By "absolutely fantastic" does that include continue to operate if I sweat on it, or happen to have it in my pocket when it rains? I'd prefer that it survive if I fall in the pool with it in my pocket. In fact, I demand that before I spend money on a phone.
I won't consider ANY phone to be fantastic unless it can live with me.
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IPXX ratings are a crock anyway. I bought an IP68 phone because I fish and boat and wanted to be able to keep my phone in my pocket. Sure, water doesn't intrude into the circuit board, but if its even humid out the phone would go beserk because it thought there was moisture in the USB-C port. It makes more sense to get a smallish phone and put it into a waterproof case.
The thing is a good small phone is hard to find these days; a "compact" phone in 2019 is as large as a flagship was in 2015. It's almost
Re: Shit Android skins (Score:2)
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When I was looking at getting a new phone last year I simply narrowed my search to phones that are part of the 'Android One' program; more or less stock Android with monthly security patches guaranteed to keep rolling in for a minimum of 3 years (from hardware release date). The wikipedia entry even has a nice list of all the phones released as part of the program, broken down by year of release. Unfortunately few have actually been marketed here in the west, but most hardware released in 2018 and so far in
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It is not that bad, if you compare it to other android skins.. Literally every manufacturer makes their own skin. Search for Poco launcher, it's intended for Pocophone to look more like clean android, but works on other xiaomi phones very well.
Additionally, Xiaomi has one of best software updates, even few years old phones are getting regular updates.
Re: Shit Android skins (Score:2)
I have been looking at them.. but no warranty (Score:2)
I need a new phone, and have been looking at the Redmi Note 7 vs the Umidigi F1 Play. Similar enough specs for me. But Xiaomi doesn't offer any warranty in the US (that I can tell, just looking on Amazon) but Umidigi has a 1yr warranty. So I am leaning towards Umidigi for that reason.
I have resigned myself to the fact that I don't mind buying from "other" brands than Samsung, Moto, etc. I have a BLU Life One X now, but I could use an upgrade. I really only want something that doesn't have a ton of cust
Xiaomi downside (Score:2)
The only downside I see to Xiaomi is that they don't make their whole lineup easily available in Europe.
For the price I'm extremely happy with my Mi Max 3. If they were more widely available I'm sure there would be more official ROM support too. I had to install a generic treble ROM. It works but there was always the chance it wouldn't.
This way I get affordable but quite good hardware with a clean OS.
Re: Xiaomi downside (Score:1)
I am happy with mi max 2 was looking to upgrade this time... But the max line has been cut. Looks like a redmi note maybe
China Marketing (Score:1)