Gadgetory

hey what's up guys this is Bailey Stein with Android authority it appears that Xiaomi has taken the expression go big or go home quite literally with a six point four four inch me max but how well does the me mags perform day-to-day is an affordable mid-range smartphone let's find out in our video review of the Xiaomi there's nothing particularly shocking about the me Max's design that's not necessarily a bad thing as the phone's aluminum construction gives it a premium look and feel some design aspects make the device easier to use like the side tapers on the rear and the perfectly positioned power button and fingerprint reader the top and bottom plastic caps which presumably how's the phone's antennas are fairly continuous with the rest of the design in both color and feel they do seem to be the culprit of some creaking noises while holding the phone however and maybe a major cause of the phone's weak structure it bends with just a bit of pressure which is disconcerting to say the least the me max is poor build quality shocked us as Xiaomi has generally done an excellent job in the past at this end even lower price points the me max has three illuminated capacitive keys sit on a very slightly curved 2.5 D glass and follow Xiaomi standard layout the displays side bezels are notably small although we do wish that Xiaomi would reconsider the use of a black border around the display the me Max's standout feature is definitely its large display and at 6.44 inches this phone is undeniably huge the size definitely requires a few changes in how you use your smart phone but in exchange for a superior media consumption experience well it would have been nice to see quad HD here instead of 1080p the display on the Mac still looks great with good viewing angles and accurate color reproduction sunlight readability is a tad below average however and the sunlight mode decreases the displays contrast significantly on a positive note the glass is coated in Corning Gorilla Glass 4 which we don't see very often at this price point as has been the case with other qualcomm snapdragon 650 two devices the me Max's day-to-day performance seemed comparable to phones with higher-end chips like this now Dragon 808 Xiaomi is custom software me--why runs very smoothly on the me max the base models 3 gigabytes of RAM is generally enough for multitasking there are different models available as well although we do not imagine the real-world performance differences to be significant unless you're importing the me max you can expect 4G LTE speeds and great call quality if you're in the US the me Mex will still work on AT&T and t-mobile but it will be limited to receiving HSPA+ speeds it is unlocked and dual SIM however and you can expand the phone storage up to an additional 256 gigabytes with one of the SIM card slots the fingerprint reader on the back of the me max is accurate and in our experience just a hair faster than the one found on the Nexus 6p Xiaomi does seem to have taken a step backwards with the me max with the return of micro USB the decision to not use USB type-c is a bit puzzling at this point but it may be appealing to those who are still using the older standard and do not want to purchase brand new cables the me Max's single speaker can be found just to the right of the charging port it sounds pretty good only slightly distorted at higher volumes it would have been nice to see front-facing speakers as they generally offer a more immersive media consumption experience but side firing is still better than rear firing with that aside the B max did very well on our battery life testing thanks to its very large 48 50 million power battery although screen on time vary quite a bit depending on whether the phone was primarily connected to Wi-Fi or cellular data even the heaviest users should have no trouble getting the me max to last a full day it also supports quick charge 3.0 although it does not ship with a quick charge 3.0 charger so you'll need to purchase one yourself if you want to avoid several hour long charges the 16 megapixel F 2.0 rear camera with dual LED flash proved to be a very capable package in our test it's one of the best we've seen at this price point the me max captures detail remarkably well its color reproduction is visually pleasing without being too unnatural in dynamic range is quite good it's not perfect however as we found the phone's autofocus to be too slow and finicky for a considerable number of situations even when holding the device and subject still the me max would slightly miss focus more than we would normally expect it also tended to over sharpen images to the point of recognition in certain images low-light performance was about average for the price meaning that you won't be able to reliably count on the me max for a good image in darker environments we've covered video eyes camera app quite extensively at this point but I will mention that it's pretty easy to use while also offering manual control for those who wish to take advantage of it and that brings us to Xiaomi is also well covered custom version of Android UI 7 thankfully it is shipping with Android 6.0 marshmallow and users can look forward to many UI and functional improvements with the me UI 8 update which should be released within the coming weeks and actually automatically found its way onto our unit in beta form Mui has received many mixed reviews from western media as some have criticized it for being too similar to iOS while others have praised it for the amount of Polish and coherency it offers after using a day-to-day myself I think it's a great alternative to stock Android especially for users who wish to customise and tweak the stack hats are well designed the UI is remarkably responsive and the ability to do things like restrict data for specific apps is invaluable to top it off new UI receives weekly updates so you'll be getting bug fixes and new features very often with all of that said the software experience for those importing the device is far from perfect reseller loaded bloatware a hellish bootloader unlocking process and missing Google Apps are all major hurdles that importers will face even if you do get Google Apps up and running from with the Installer app from the me App Store there are still issues to be had random google app crashes Google now issues failure to place calls with voice and the inability to do things like consume DRM protected content can make the experience less than ideal for Western users the show mean Emacs is now available in China in a number of different models starting at $14.99 UN or about 228 dollars each model is available in either silver gold or dark grey while the me max may not be the best fit for the average smartphone user it's a great option for those looking for a very large device on the cheap well we were disappointed with the devices build quality found the imported device software experience to be annoying in some ways in which that the phone would come to the US the me max sale has quite a lot to offer for its price its impressive camera excellent battery life and smooth performance are all great reasons to buy this phone the mere size of the me max does feel like unchartered territory for Xiaomi that's clearly reflected in areas like build quality if you can get past those quirks however the Xiaomi me max is likely the best extra-large option in its price range thank you for watching our video review of the Xiaomi me max please be sure to give this video a thumbs up if you liked it and don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already finally be sure to visit the Android Authority website for additional coverage as you are your source for all things Android