Compare smartphones Asus and Xiaomi

According to market research for the first quarter of 2019, two of the top three smartphone manufacturers are located in China. And this is not surprising. Chinese smartphone manufacturers manage to produce simultaneously multifunctional, reliable and inexpensive devices that are more than «affordable» for most people.

And one of the leading places in the «people’s rating» of smartphone manufacturers is occupied by Xiaomi. Its Redmi line is inexpensive, but not disgusting, and the Mi series embodies all the most modern technological solutions on the market.

However, now Asus is on its heels. This manufacturer has long settled on the European market and is therefore much more familiar to the domestic user. And the prices for Asus smartphones are also attractive — even for flagship devices.

As a result, a person who decides to “update the technopark” may have a fair question: which smartphone is better to take — Asus or Xiaomi? Let’s take a look at this material.

Asus smartphones

Asus is far from new to the smartphone market. True, there was a rather tragic moment in her story when she had to restart the mobile business. It happened in 2017.

Until 2017, Asus actively experimented with smartphones. So, once she released the ZenFone Selfie, which was equipped with a 16-megapixel front camera. And her ZenFone Laser featured a camera with a laser focusing system, a first on the market.

However, not all experiments were so successful. For example, she once released several devices on the Intel Atom processor. This chip was completely unsuitable for use with the Android operating system, so the devices «slowed down», «buggy», heated up and did not meet their price at all. And she regularly «scored» on the support of released smartphones, without offering firmware or security updates for them.

As a result, these controversial experiments «buried» Asus’ phone business, and the company was forced to restart it. After the “restart”, the smartphones of this brand have become completely standard and even boring. There is nothing “catchy” in the new devices, they only meet current trends in the mobile device market.

On the other hand, Asus has corrected itself, and its new smartphones deserve to be called at least good. High-performance energy-efficient Snapdragon chips are used as a processor even in budget options, screens have excellent pixel density and color reproduction for 2018-2019, and cameras shoot at a fairly high level. Not Google Pixel, of course, but also very good.

The main advantage of Asus smartphones in comparison with Xiaomi can be attributed to the operating system. Their firmware differs little from stock Android, but is complemented by several nice features. A built-in quick note tool, the ability to install a variety of themes, pleasant pastel colors of the interface — all this makes Asus smartphones «comfortable» to use.

The reliability of the devices is also at a very high level. The company uses high-end manufacturing facilities and assembly technologies, thanks to which the devices are durable, and the rejection rate is reduced to zero.

But the design of smartphones is quite controversial. While other manufacturers are actively experimenting with color gradients, shades of the northern lights and glass backs, Asus remains true to the same style. Her smartphones are equipped with a metal back panel with circular polishing and, accordingly, a characteristic sheen. Such a design decision can both “fall in love with you at first sight” and cause hostility.

But Asus never fixed one mistake. Her smartphones still receive little to no updates. Of course, it has already embarked on a fix — for example, Asus ZenFone 5Z entered the beta testing program for the Android 10.0 Q operating system — but the steps are tentative. So, smartphones of the 2017 model have not yet received Android 9.0 Pie.

So, let’s sum up.

Design is a rather subjective concept, so for some, a metal back with circular polishing may seem very beautiful, but for others, they will not like it at all.

Xiaomi smartphones

Xiaomi has gained fame primarily due to the low price of its smartphones. Even in 2016-2017, when $300 was the average cost of a device from the «budget» segment, this manufacturer actively «stamped» devices with a price tag of 150-200 US currency units. And these ultra-cheap smartphones turned out to be quite good in practice!

Take, for example, Xiaomi Redmi 3. This budget smartphone cost $150-200 and at the same time offered excellent autonomy thanks to a 4000 mAh battery, good performance due to an optimized MediaTek processor and 3 GB of RAM, as well as support for LTE. Something from Samsung with similar characteristics would cost twice as much at best.

In 2015-2017, Xiaomi literally floods the market with its budget smartphones. It turns out 2-3 new devices per month, which differ little from each other. But the low price makes them very attractive to customers.

And since 2018, Xiaomi «takes up the mind.» There are fewer devices, and each of them is somehow different from the other. In addition, the company begins to conquer the segment of «super-cheap flagships». So, price tags of $300-400 are received by top devices Xiaomi Pocophone F1, Xiaomi Mi A2, Xiaomi Redmi K2 Pro — they are all based on powerful processors, equipped with a large amount of RAM and permanent memory, and support the most modern technologies.

In general, at the moment Xiaomi occupies a rather interesting niche — ultra-cheap flagships. Devices with a price tag of up to $ 400 in terms of functionality, performance and technical characteristics may well compete with smartphones from competitors that cost well if twice as much.

Of course, she also had budget devices for $ 100 in her assortment. And they are also head and shoulders above competitors in the same price range.

But not all is well. Xiaomi smartphones have a couple of serious problems.

The first and foremost is the MIUI operating system. This firmware is based on Android, but it has been radically redesigned. And the problem is not only in non-standard user experience, no. MIUI contains many minor bugs, which, moreover, are not reproduced. That is, at some point, the smartphone can “switch off”, and it’s not critical, just an error will occur, but it won’t be possible to repeat it.

In addition, MIUI comes pre-installed with ad-supported apps. Banners are shown even in such standard tools as an activity tracker or a file manager. And getting rid of them will not work, because advertising is sewn at the system level.

Also, pre-installed applications are intrusive. “Accept the user agreement”, “Accept the privacy policy”, “Log in to Mi Account”, “Time to clear temporary data”, “We made a collage of your photos”… every day the user will be distracted by at least 2-3 notifications from pre-installed applications.

The second problem is savings on components. To make smartphones cheap, Xiaomi sometimes installs very low cost modules in them, which, of course, negatively affect the user experience.

For example, Xiaomi Mi A1 has a disgusting screen — dim and with a grid of sensors visible even without glasses. Pocophone F1 also has a problem with the display — the backlight is uneven, the lower right corner is very “highlighted”. On the Redmi 3, the camera is slow, and as a result, the pictures of your favorite cats are too blurry — even if the four-legged friend did not spin. Mi Mix 3 has a quiet speaker, you can not hear the call from your pocket, not to mention your purse.

In general, the problems are small, but unpleasant.

And a few more words about updates. All Xiaomi smartphones regularly receive firmware updates. Even very old ones. Of course, the latest versions of the operating system are not available for them, but minor fixes and security updates are coming out.

Of course, updates are not always exclusively enjoyable. For example, in MIUI 10 there is no mail client from MIUI 9. Probably, it’s a shame for those people who installed the update, and all configured mailboxes disappeared …

It is important to note one more point. There are two versions of Xiaomi smartphone firmware — Chinese and Global. The first is intended exclusively for the domestic Chinese market, that is:

1. 1. It may simply not have the European language;

       

 

1. 1. The smartphone may not catch the network (for example, 4G LTE);

       

 

1. 1. It does not have the Play Market — an application store, without which the phone becomes useless.

       

 

Therefore, when ordering a Xiaomi smartphone on some AliExpress, make sure that it comes in the Global version.

Comparison and which is better to take?

So, Asus smartphones are reliable, durable and comfortable to use — but at the same time they are quite expensive and are updated once in a while (and the product range also has a good dozen models), and Xiaomi are cheap, updated regularly and with good technical characteristics for their price. — but at the same time full of small both software and hardware bugs.

But the difference between the two brands is not limited to this.

 

Characteristic	Asus	Xiaomi
Price policy	Middle and top segments	Budget and middle segments
Current assortment	About a dozen models	Several dozen models
Characteristics	Always on the latest hardware platform	“Mixed”, available both on current platforms and on outdated ones
Firmware	Almost pure Android with a minimum of modifications	MIUI is a deeply redesigned Android with a huge number of changes
Firmware updates	Rare	Frequent but not always good

So what to choose? And here it is better to start from the price:

1. 1. Budget up 150$ — Xiaomi;

       

 

1. 1. From 150 to 200$ — Asus;

       

 

1. 1. From 200 to 350$ — Xiaomi;

       

 

1. 1. More than 350 $ — Asus.

       

 

If you choose in this way, you will get a device with the highest performance and excellent user experience.

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