Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: Best Midrange Dual-Camera

Xiaomi continues the tradition of making affordable spin-offs of its flagship handset with the Xiaomi Mi 5x. It comes with a slightly under-powered chipset compared to the Mi 5; however, the 5x gets much attention due to its dual-rear camera which has been teased by the company's head honchos even before the 5x was released.

Xiaomi Mi 5X Review

Xiaomi Mi 5X Review

With the decent feature set and a killer design, the handset wanted to be the mid-range king. Join us in this review and see if the Xiaomi Mi 5x deserves such crown.

Design

The Xiaomi Mi 5X has a striking similarities to the OnePlus 5. The corners are subtle and even rounded corners gave us the impression that it feels good in the hands. One the back, it highlights the dual-camera setup encased in a visor hump just like OnePlus' flagship handset. Antenna lines are also discreet joining the circular back-mounted fingerprint sensor. I love how unimposing the MI branding is, especially with the black variant of the phone.

Xiaomi Mi 5X Review

The facade of the handset looks Redmi Note 4-ish with the LED settling beside the front camera, earpiece and other sensors above the display. On the lower front, the capacitive key are lit. The ports and buttons are also placed in a no non-sense configuration in the sides of the Xiaomi Mi 5X.

Xiaomi Mi 5X Review: Design

The Power button is found below the volume rocker on the right side; while the hybrid SIM tray is located on the left. The bottom side houses the 3.5-mm audio jack, the USB Type C and the speaker grills. The IR blaster and Noice-cancelling mic are placed on the top.

Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: Best Midrange Dual-Camera

The Xiaomi Mi 5X's design feels very premium considering that it only comes with a very affordable price. It's definitely a well-balanced device at 165-grams. It's 7.3mm-thick body tapers gently from the sides giving you a better grip while using the handset.

Display

Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: Display

The display is a 5.5-inch Full HD FTPS LCD. For a regular user, the display could deliver good color saturation, clear images and text, great contrast and good color reproduction. I also love the fact that the handset is usable outdoors, even in direct sunlight.

There's nothing special about the display. However, having a solid handset at this price standpoint with a display that's densely packed with pixels is already a good marketing pitch.

Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: Display

Though, I must say, the display is one of its strongest points with its big screen real estate and effective viewing angles. However, it does not play with contrast very well. When viewed in oblique angles, the screen becomes washed out.

Performance

When it comes to the performance, the handset is not shabby with its Snapdragon 625 SoC. The chipset features an octa-core processor which is also coupled by 4GB of RAM. It's no slouch when in comes to handling daily tasks and computations. It could be one of the fastest handsets we've used in this smartphone segment.

Pulling up apps in the Xiaomi Mi 5X is also a walk in the park. Opening multiple apps at the same time could hardly give a dent in the handset's performance.

Playing popular titles like Lineage2 Revolution, Asphalt 8 are graphics intensive tasks but the Xiaomi Mi 5x handles it with ease. Its graphics processor delivers; and there was never a time that it drops a frame while I played Lineage2. Likewise, it's also good in keeping things cool while running these apps.

Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: AnTuTu Score
Xiaomi Mi 5x Antutu Score: 55463

Battery, Software

The Xiaomi Mi 5x is also efficient in using its battery pack. It seems like Xiaomi has been hard at work in optimizing the 3080 mAh battery of the Mi 5x with the MIUI 8.0.

It's easy for the handset to last one full working day. The fact that it comes with a USB Type C also gave it a faster capability in charging the battery pack.

In one full day, our test include 2 hours of music streaming over WiFi, 2 hours of Movie streaming, occasional emails, five-minute calls, three dozens of photo capturing, 30-minute video recording, and one hour of playing Lineage2 Revolution. Our day ended with 8 percent of juice left in the device.

The MIUI 8.0 is also the best Android skins I've used due to its minimalist feel and straightforward implementation of Android OS.

Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: Software

Camera

The Xiaomi Mi 5x dual-lens camera system is obviously it's marquee feature. Technically, there's a 12MP primary rear camera with f/2.2 aperture. The telephoto lens also comes with 12MP sensor which highlights its capability to flag its 2x optical zoom feature.

Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: Camera

Yes you can shoot in portrait mode with the Xiaomi Mi 5x. In fact, creamy portraits coming from this handset is even better than the OnePlus 5's edges of portrait shots.

Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: Camera

In good lighting condition, the Mi 5x captures great images. Outputs register good colour saturation and come with great detail. In a low light environment, the quality suffers. Of course, having this kind of camera for a Php 13,500 handset is already a good catch. In fact, it's once of the best cameras I used in this price standpoint. Check out the sample pictures below:

Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: Camera Sample Photos

Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: Camera Sample Photos
Zoom x1 Shot

Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: Camera Sample Photos
2x Optical Zoom

Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: Camera Sample Photos

Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: Camera Sample Photos

Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: Camera Sample Photos

Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: Camera Sample Photos

Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: Camera Sample Photos
Portrait Implementation

Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: Camera Sample Photos
Portrait Implementation

Xiaomi Mi 5x Review: Camera Sample Photos

Video, Audio, Call Quality

The handset is capable of video recording. However, it struggles with its outputs due to the lack of OIS. You can shoot 4K videos, time lapse and slow motion (720p at 120fps).

The Xiaomi Mi 5x comes with a 10v amplifier audio which shoots great audios. The mono speaker registers crisp, loud and clear sounds which is also pretty impressive considering its price. It could also record clear sounds which is apparently obvious in making calls.

Conclusion

The Xiaomi flags the thought on how to make the ideal Android midrange smartphone with the Xiaomi Mi 5X. For one, the handset comes with a beautiful hardware. It could easily be one of the best designed Xiaomi phones I’ve used aside from the Mi Mix line. Its dual-camera setup captures great photos and the portrait mode is definitely implemented in the right way.

More that anything else, the handset performs well in different pressing points – good battery life, decent display, above average sound output and faster computing. Other midrange smartphones could definitely take some notes from the Xiaomi Mi 5x.

The Xiaomi Mi 5x is now available in the Philippines via Widget City. You can check their listing here.

Xiaomi Mi 5X Specs

  • 155.4 x 75.8 x 7.3 mm at 160 grams
  • 5.5-inch FHD IPS LCD Display, 1080 x 1920 pixels at 401 ppi
  • 2.5D Glass
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 SoC
  • 2GHz octa-core Cortex-A53 CPU
  • Adreno 506 GPU
  • 4GB of RAM + 64GB ROM
  • Expandable via microSD card
  • 12MP and 12MP Rear Camera, PDAF, 2x optical zoom, LED Flash
  • 5MP Selfie Camera at f/2.0 aperture
  • 4G LTE, 3G, 2G
  • Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth
  • USB Type C
  • 3.5mm Audio Jack
  • Fingerprint Sensor
  • Gyroscope, Proximity, Compass, Accelerometer Sensors
  • Android 7.0 Nougat with MIUI
  • 3080 mAh Li-Ion Non-Removable Battery
  • Php 13,500 in Widget City
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