 My first Xiaomi phone was the Mi Mix 2, a cutting-edge, nearly full display phone that GearBest.com helped me get my hands on last year, and that I abandoned reviewing after spending four hours fighting with bootloader unlocking crap in an attempt to load the English ROM on it, only to find out that Xiaomi had a bloody English version coming a couple weeks later. Anyway, the Mi Mix 2S, so called for its speedier Snapdragon 845 processor, presumably, is better across the board anyway, including the out-of-the-box support for English. Yes! But I still can't figure out why anybody in this hemisphere is buying premium phones from brands like Xiaomi. Is there something on the surface that I am missing here? Like, for example, a sponsor for this video, like Madrinas Coffee. Madrinas Coffee blends specialty cold brew coffees into 16-ounce grab-and-go cans for everyone's convenience. Check them out and use offer code LINUS to save 40% at the link below. It's really easy to fall in love with the Mi Mix 2S. It manages to have the sex appeal of a nearly bezel-less design coming just 1% shy of the screen ratio of the iPhone X, and that's without resorting to an unsightly notch, and the work that they've put into their ceramic-coated back has paid off in spades. Glass-backed phones are back in vogue now to enable wireless charging, but as hard as you might try, a glass-backed will never feel as premium nor be as durable as this. And after a similar amount of time in my pocket, my OnePlus 6 is noticeably more scuffed up. And it's packed full of all the right hardware, sporting the latest generation Snapdragon 845 processor, up to 8 gigs of RAM, up to 256 gigs of non-expandable storage, blah blah blah blah blah. So it's super fast, like you guys get the point, and the price is right too, lining up right across the OnePlus 6 as a flagship grade phone for hundreds of dollars less than you would pay a tier one like Apple or Samsung. And it's got lightning-fast fingerprint unlocking, the ability to choose between button-based or gesture-based navigation, and even wireless charging, which as we outlined in our video recently, has the potential, when used properly, to improve the lifespan of your non-removable, but respectably sized, 3400 mAh battery. So, uh, wait, why was I so down on this thing a couple of minutes ago? I still can't figure out why anybody in this hemisphere is buying premium phones from brands like Xiaomi. That seems kind of unfair, doesn't it? I mean, even the dual rear camera absolutely blows away previous generation efforts from Chinese phone makers. Like, this low light shot here does have more noise than any other camera that I tested, but it avoids the over-sharpening of the Mate 10 Pro and the undesirable flaring of the Galaxy S9. So, I mean, at least Xiaomi isn't actively processing the image to make it worse. And then in this challenging situation, the Mi Mix 2S ends up noisier than Samsung, and with less true-to-life colors than the OnePlus 6, but it looks better than both the iPhone X and the Pixel 2 XL. And under ideal conditions, you can get some really nice images out of it. So, let's talk about some of the weaknesses of the Mi Mix 2S. The earpiece speaker isn't amplified for stereo sound, there's no water resistance, at least nothing officially IP rated, 1080p slow-mo only goes to 120 FPS rather than 240, the display is IPS rather than OLED, which means almost no potential for burn-in, but at the cost of ambient or always-on technology, and there is no headphone jack, so you will need to pull out an adapter every time you want to watch My Little Pony at the back of the bus without anybody finding out. So all that is kind of a drag, but again, it's hundreds of dollars less for top-spec hardware, and it's got no display notch, so I can accept that stuff even if I don't like all of it. The part that is unforgivable is the software. MIUI is like going back in time to when Samsung still thought that having a bunch of bloat in the... Okay, well, hold on, Samsung still has a lot of bloat in there, so... Um... Okay, whatever. In Xiaomi's defense, some of the stuff that they include is legitimately useful, like a screen recorder app and a quick link to my downloads, but there were just so many annoying things that I ran into that ground my gears from having in my pocket for two weeks. Let's take Google Hangouts. If I got a message an hour ago, but left it unread because I wanted to deal with it later, every new message that I get, or even opening up another conversation sometimes, will make it pop up again. Why? When I create a folder on the home screen, it doesn't pull up the keyboard automatically for me to start typing. Why? The included weather app wants access to my phone for some reason, when all it should need is my location, not to mention that it cannot be removed or even hidden, so you have to create a useless crap folder iOS style. There's no obvious way to expand a notification from the lock screen and reply to it, which is good for security, but I would like to at least have the option for my convenience. I can't install Netflix off the App Store, the workaround seems to be to track down the APK and install it manually. It wakes the screen for notifications, which is nice, but not when you lift the phone, something that I've come to take for granted these days, and there is no hardware button to launch the camera. Yuck. Now taken individually, every one of those things would seem like a pretty insignificant little gripe, and there are things that their software does reasonably well, so their screenshot management, something that I use a lot, blows OnePlus's out of the water, and a separate account for another user is super handy if I want to give the phone to my kids, but I don't want them accessing all my stuff. The bottom line though is that this device was annoying to use for me, and not just compared to a flagship one like the S9+, compared to other devices that cost the same. Xiaomi would do well to take a page out of OnePlus's book on the software side of things. There isn't really such a thing as stock Android anymore, I mean even Google's own Pixel lineup customizes stock Android, but they would do well to try to get a lot closer, because the hardware and the design are already really impressive, so I'm looking forward to seeing continued improvement. Speaking of improvement, the only thing that could improve this video is this message from our sponsor, Corsair. Corsair's unplug and play series will get rid of the wires in your life. The Dark Core RGB SE mouse is quick featuring 1 millisecond 2.4 gigahertz and low latency Bluetooth connectivity, and if you opt for the wireless charging model, you can actually charge it with Corsair's MM1000 or any compatible Qi wireless charging pad. Their K63 wireless gaming keyboard features the same low latency connection options and Cherry MX Red switches with a blue LED backlight, and you can check out their entire lineup at the link below. So thanks for watching guys, if this video sucked, you know what to do. But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description. Also down there is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one, and our community forum which you should totally join.