Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 review

Gallery

The Mi Mix 2 comes with the Mi Gallery app that shows the camera row by default, but the second tab includes all images and videos on the phone. You can set up a photo backup with your Mi Cloud account. Just be advised that the latter is not the most intuitive, or well translated cloud storage option out there.

The Gallery app remains unchanged

The integrated editor offers various effects, filters, and enhancements, plus fun stuff like stickers and doodling.

Editing an image

Music player

The international MIUI ROM on our Mi Mix 2 review unit does come with Google Play Services and a rich pack of Google apps. That includes Google Music, but Xiaomi decided to leave its solution in place as well.

Pre-installed Google app package

The MIUI music player is a custom app with a well laid out, easy to navigate interface. The player has cool effects, transitions, and transparent elements, especially on the expandable Now Playing section. Lyrics are supported, too.

Xiaomi Music app

Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 offers customizable equalizers within the phone's Settings menu - there are a few default presets already available for use. You can also try Xiaomi's MiSound enhancer, which comes into play when you use headphones, and especially, a Xiaomi-branded headset. Xiaomi is definitely trying to play an Apple-style ecosystem game. But, we can't really get a proper feel for it in Western markets with limited availability of the product lineup and selection.

Video Player

Videos are launched from the gallery. There's no subtitle support here, but DLNA is on board. Also, Xiaomi did take the new aspect ratio into consideration, including a toggle for what is essentially a cropped-out full-screen view mode.

The simple video player

A simple setup, but it is serviceable enough. If you want anything more advanced, just hit up the Play Store.

Audio output is impressively loud

The Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 did splendidly when attached to an active external amplifier, delivering output that was both crystal clear and among the loudest out there.

Volume remained just as impressive with headphones, while quality degradation consisted of a well contained stereo crosstalk hike and some intermodulation distortion. Neither reading went too bad though, so a very solid showing overall.

Test	Frequency response	Noise level	Dynamic range	THD	IMD + Noise	Stereo crosstalk
Xiaomi Mi Mix 2	+0.02, -0.02	-94.3	94.3	0.0038	0.0072	-93.5
Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 (headphones)	+0.31, -0.01	-93.3	93.3	0.016	0.243	-63.8
Samsung Galaxy S8+	+0.01, -0.03	-92.1	92.1	0.0020	0.0086	-92.5
Samsung Galaxy S8+ (headphones)	+0.03, -0.03	-92.5	92.5	0.0024	0.046	-77.3
LG V30	+0.02, -0.01	-93.2	93.1	0.0008	0.0069	-94.2
LG V30 (headphones)	+0.03, -0.02	-92.9	92.9	0.0057	0.051	-68.1
OnePlus 5	+0.03, -0.01	-94.1	94.1	0.0010	0.0070	-94.2
OnePlus 5 (headphones)	+0.15, -0.08	-94.0	94.0	0.0033	0.139	-59.9
HTC U11	+0.05, -0.11	-94.1	94.1	0.0017	0.0067	-94.5
HTC U11 (headphones)	+0.05, -0.02	-93.7	93.8	0.0018	0.105	-53.7
Sony Xperia XZ Premium	+0.01, -0.03	-90.6	90.4	0.018	0.027	-92.6
Sony Xperia XZ Premium (headphones)	+0.30, -0.20	-90.5	90.0	0.0018	0.145	-65.7

Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 frequency response

You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.