Gadgetory

this is the me note from Xiaomi don't worry if you haven't heard of these guys before you're going to this Chinese company has grown from nothing to one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world in under five years Xiaomi has a bit of Google a bit of Apple a bit of Amazon but that combination is completely they're gonna be launching in the US later this year not with smartphones but with some smaller accessories like headphones and fitness bands in the meantime Xiaomi is on a u.s. media tour with its 2015 flagship phone the me note I've been using it for a few days well maybe not using it per se because it doesn't support us LTE band so I haven't been using it as a phone but I have been using it as a tiny tablet not to say that a phone with a 5.7 inch display is tiny but you know what I mean speaking of the display the me notes 1080p screen is absolutely gorgeous don't be fooled into thinking this is an anonymous mid-range phone designed to sell in bargain bins it's not the screen is laminated just like you'd expect from a flagship phone from Apple or Samsung meaning there's no gap between the glass and the pixels you can hold the phone at an angle and it looks like the display is quite literally on the surface its vibrating enough so that it almost has an OLED quality to it even though it's an LCD oh and here's something the iPhone doesn't have a glove mode so you can use the capacitive touchscreen without taking your mittens off it's great but it's not just about the screen the me note is exquisitely constructed it's weird to be using a phone from a brand that didn't exist five years ago and have it feel basically a salad as the best smartphones on the market I might argue that the volume rocker is a tad fidgety but otherwise it's smooth glass married perfectly to chamfered metal edges yeah I said it chamfered that old buzzword launched by the iPhone 5 a couple years ago and yes it's true xiaomi gets accused for mimicking apple on a fairly regular basis but i wouldn't call the me note an iphone knockoff it might borrow a q or two from the iphone 5 but the curved portions of the back make it look and feel notably different if anything it's a dash of iPhone 5 a dash of galaxy note 4 and some Xiaomi originality all mixed together in the end you get a big phone that legitimately looks and feels like a flagship device if the galaxy s6 being announced in a few days look anything like this honestly Samsung would be doing all right for itself if I have a problem with aminos design those that is a little too sterile the Meno combines so many tasteful understated design elements that there's just very very little room for character it kind of screams generic flagship smartphone that's fine I guess but if you're looking for something quirky you're not going to find it here and Xiaomi might have trouble finding its calling card if it keeps this up unless your Apple I'm not sure you can hang an entire brand on something that looks this simple basically I'm saying that I don't think I'd be able to pick a Shami phone out of a lineup now take basically all of my sentiments about the hardware and carry them over to the software it's beautiful understated and simple maybe to a fault this is heavily skinned Android that's changed in all the right ways for a change of pace the Meno uses Xiaomi is well known me UI environment which looks almost nothing like stock Android everything's changed from the fonts to the icons to the status bar to the launcher it somehow feels simpler than the typical Android phone maybe it's the color scheme which leans heavily on whites and grays or maybe it's the fact that there's no app menu app icons just appear in the homescreen like they would on iOS seriously this phone feels like a contender it's really good and I can imagine Xiaomi making even better stuff over the next few years but I still think they're smart and steering clear of the US market look at Sony and Nokia which started with way more name recognition made awesome phones and still a failed to capture big market share here could that change over time sure the big players in the u.s. phone market today are completely different than they were a decade ago who knows in 2020 maybe I'll be riding around in my Apple car and talking on a me note 6