The Xiaomi Mi 5s features a 5.15" IPS display of 1080p resolution, similar to the one utilized by the original Mi 5. A density of 428ppi is more than respectable and leaves the Snapdragon 821 chip with power to spare on tasks and productivity, so we don't mind the lack of Quad HD resolution.
Unfortunately, Xiaomi didn't mention any specific glass protection for the screen and we can confirm the Gorilla Glass 4 is gone for good. The Mi 5s acquired lots of big scratches on top of its display just in the week we had it for a review. We suggest that you apply a screen protector on it as soon as you take the phone out of its box.
Other than that, the screen offers great viewing angles and there is hardly any color shift or contrast loss when looking the Mi 5s display at an angle.
Xiaomi claims the screen will provide up to 600 nits of max brightness. Our test results confirmed and even exceeded the claim for maximum brightness as we measured 650nits worth of luminance.
The minimum display brightness is 1.1nits, which is perfectly suitable for late-night reading in a dark room and it's even lower than the Galaxy S7's. The screen's contrast ratio is excellent as well at 1294:1, though slightly less than the promised contrast ratio of 1500:1.
Display test | 100% brightness | ||
Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | ||
0.51 | 660 | 1294 | |
0.51 | 628 | 1227 | |
0.00 | 391 | ∞ | |
0.00 | 563 | ∞ | |
0.35 | 561 | 1603 | |
0.40 | 656 | 1640 | |
0.43 | 513 | 1196 | |
0.00 | 352 | ∞ | |
0.37 | 502 | 1349 | |
0.46 | 608 | 1336 | |
0.01 | 360 | 40000 | |
0.29 | 428 | 1543 |
When it comes to color rendering, the Mi 5s has an excellent color rendering with an average DeltaE of 3.5 and a maximum deviation of 4.5 in the gray color. If all colors stay below 4, the screen is considered to be of perfect calibration level accuracy and the Mi 5s almost achieves that.
Note that we did our color test in Standard (constant) screen mode. If you opt for the Auto one, you will get punchier colors at the expense of color calibration.
Finally, the bright screen of the Xiaomi Mi 5s performed excellently in our sunlight legibility test, too. Posting a very high value for a non-AMOLED panel, the Mi 5s ranks the same as its predecessor.
The Xiaomi Mi 5s is powered by a 3,200mAh battery, which seems more than enough for a 5.15" device. It's also 200mAh beefier than the one inside the original Mi 5.
We ran our battery test, and the Xiaomi Mi 5s scored an 84h rating, which means you can count on the battery to last three and a half days if you do an hour each of calling, web browsing and video playback a day.
While the browser and video playback times are similar to the ones we got from the Mi 5, the call test and the standby performance turned out a bit lesser and thus the reason for the lower final rating.
If you want to use the phone with two SIM cards, you'll end up with an 80h rating.
While the rating is quite good for a flagship, we are a bit disappointed. The Mi 5s should have brought us better battery life thanks to its bigger battery, energy-efficient chipset, and optimized MIUI 8, but apparently - this didn't happen.
The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritties. You can also check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.
The Xiaomi Mi 5s supports 9 LTE bands, quad-band GSM and quad-band 3G connectivity with HSPA support. You can tap to an LTE network on either SIM, but once you do, the second one will be limited to 3G or GSM connectivity. You can even have both registered on 3G networks, when 4G is not available.
The rest of the connectivity features include single-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac support and Wi-Fi Direct. There is also support for Bluetooth 4.2, NFC, GPS with GLONASS and Beidou.
There is no FM radio support.
Xiaomi Mi 5s comes with USB Type-C port. Media transfer mode is supported for accessing the phone's built-in memory over a USB connection. The port also supports USB On-the-go for connecting USB peripherals such as pen drives, keyboards or USB hard drives, but you'll need to buy a proper adapter for that.
Wireless screen mirroring is available via the Miracast protocol.
There is no IR blaster on the Mi 5s. The MiRemote app is on board, but it can only control smart devices connected to the same wireless network.
Tip us
1.7m 126k
RSS
EV
Merch
Log in I forgot my password Sign up