Software
The Xiaomi company began as a MIUI design group,
a heavily-customized Android ROM, to cater for a variety of high-end devices,
so obviously the core part of the company's phone series is in the software. In
fact, when we first wrote about the Xiaomi Phone, many readers accused it of
stealing Xiaomi’s MIUI, when in fact they are the ROM creator. In short, MIUI brings
the experience of iOS home screen to Android home screen, in the sense of that
all applications are spread throughout the home screen instead of Android’s
normal app drawer. At the same time, the OS also allows extremely flexible personalization.
It may not be everyone's taste, but a good way to bring people out of the
comfort zone of their iOS. Also, MIUI has retained most elements of Android natural
UX for Ice Cream Sandwich. Furthermore, users are promised with weekly OTA updates.
The
Xiaomi company began as a MIUI design group.
The Xiaomi Phone 2 comes with Jelly
Bean-based MIUI so the same rules still apply here, but like many Android
phones in China, it does not come with any Google service by local regulations.
Fortunately, you can still have Play Store app from Xiaomi’s app market, and
from then on you can retrieve Gmail, Google Maps (the phone comes with Baidu
Map), Google Search (which includes Google Now), YouTube and many other
applications from Mountain View. Obviously, the lack of app drawer means you
cannot turn Google Now on or off by tapping the non-existent app drawer
button, but if you want to re-create the same experience, you can hold down the
menu and set it as the default way to turn Google Now on or off.
The
Xiaomi Phone 2 comes with Jelly Bean-based MIUI so the same rules still apply
here.
As before, MIUI’s latest version still
allows you to keep a quick switch group (quick toggle, such as rotating the
screen, Wi-Fi, flashlight, data connection and protected mode) on the Android
notification tray, and best of all, the default layout is the page mode instead
of compact mode. In page mode, the notification tray is divided into two tabbed
pages, one of which is only for notifications and the other for the switch.
While in compact mode, you have everything in one page, but it is only natural
that you do not see many switches when only glance – you have to scroll
horizontally to see more. Users are free to rearrange the switches to their
taste. Such flexibility is what makes us like MIUI right from the start. I must
say that Xiaomi has abandoned the switch to Wi-Fi tethering, but it will not be
too hard to add it back.
The
MIUI fans are familiar with its modern theme library.
The MIUI fans are familiar with its modern theme
library. They are not only the background images that you place on your home
screen and icons, but also many topics switches that provide other convenient
and unique lock screens. You like the lock screen, but like another group of
icons, fonts, and other ringtones? No problem: with each theme, you can choose
one of the special features that you want to apply.
What is the new thing here is called the free
launcher, an interactive interface for common functions described by vivid
graphics objects. Since this article, only two themes come with the free
launcher theme: the default theme and Angry Birds Space theme. They are quite
clear – you have a panoramic study room in 2D (do you remember Microsoft Bob?)
or a level in Angry Birds Space game as the image below. For us, this is quite
funny at first, but the novelty quickly disappears when we must usually scroll
to find what you want. It is not easy to immediately identify a number of Angry
Birds free launcher icons. Another problem with the theme is that one of them
conflicts with text colors and thus makes the text invisible in specific
applications, so users may have to experiment with elements from other themes
when they see this. After careful considerations, this feature is great for
showing off, but not so good for daily use.
The
Angry Birds Space theme
MIUI has many other useful stuffs, mostly for
privacy (SMS filters and blacklists of callers), security (antivirus and tracking
application license), and network monitoring (reminding of monthly bandwidth
and large file download prompts on). They are especially important for users in
China, where spam, phishing calls and malicious applications are common. In
addition, the network is not very generous with the use of 3G data - you'll see
$140/month for 3GB quota in China Unicom. Even $46/month just gives you 950MB
and $25/month gives you 500MB. No wonder Xiaomi Phone 2 is pre-loaded with
strict settings, such as one prompt for every download file or any application
that exceeds 10MB. We only succeeded when disabling the prompts for the
download of files under Tools Downloads, so hopefully Xiaomi can also add an
option like Play Store for downloading.
