Xiaomi Mi 5 vs iPhone 6S comparison: apples to apples
How does Xiaomi, the 'Apple of China,' match up against Apple? Xiaomi could be poised to take a bite out Apple in the smartphone market with the release of the Mi 5. But for now, we'll take a preliminary look to see how they match up. Should Apple be worried? We think so. Find out why in our Xiaomi Mi 5 vs iPhone 6S comparison.
Xiaomi Mi 5 vs iPhone 6S comparison: design
With past Xiaomi devices, there was uproar over the design being too derivative of iPhones, which I always considered to be unwarranted. There is nothing for iPhone diehards to complain about with the Mi 5. The design of the device looks far different to the iPhone 6S. Put simply, the Mi 5's design is more stylish.
The Mi 5 has a sleek, clean design and the body is ergonomic with a comfortable feel. Its metal frame and glass panels meet seamlessly and achieve a creative balance that you can admire.
The design of the Mi 5 is different from the iPhone 6S. If anything, the Mi 5's is better
The iPhone 6S is no doubt an attractive phone, but it has a bulky feel. Apple went too far in curving the edges and corners. Xiaomi decided to make the Mi 5 more edgy and this gives it a better look and feel.
The Mi 5 is one of the lightest flagship phones on the market at just 129 g. That's a whole 14 g lighter than the iPhone 6S. The lower weight contributes to the superiority of the Mi 5 feel.
The Mi 5 camera sits inside of the frame and that makes it easy to set down flat on surfaces. The iPhone 6S has a camera that sticks out of the back of the phone; a design flaw that takes away from its functionality and aesthetic quality.
The home button and fingerprint scanner of the Mi 5 is oval and fits with the overall design of the phone. The round home button on the iPhone 6S may fit with the overall rounded build of the phone but is bulky and unnecessarily large.
The only design area where the iPhone 6S outshines the Xiaomi Mi 5 is the interface. The Mi 5's icons don't have any depth and look cartoonish while the 6S's have more of a shaded look and seem more three-dimensional.
Xiaomi Mi 5 vs iPhone 6S comparison: display
The Xiaomi Mi 5 comes with a crisp and bright 5.15-inch 1080p (427 ppi) HD LCD display. The screen takes up around 73 percent of the phone's front. It features a sunlight display feature that optimizes the display in bright outdoor conditions.
The iPhone 6S's display does not match up against the Mi 5's at all. The LCD screen is 750 x 1,337 pixels (326 ppi), far lower than the Mi 5. The screen is smaller, 4.7 inches, and takes up only 66 percent of the front of the body.
Xiaomi Mi 5 vs iPhone 6S comparison: camera
We already discussed how the camera design of the Mi 5 is superior. The Mi 5 camera is housed inside of the device and allows it to lie flat on a surface while the iPhone 6S camera sticks out of the body. But it doesn't stop with the design; the entire camera system on the Mi 5 is better than on the iPhone 6S.
The Mi 5 houses a Sony-designed 16 MP IMX 298 main camera. The iPhone 6S, on the other hand, comes with a 12 MP main camera. The Xiaomi Mi 5's camera system comes with a 4-axis camera system that makes focusing so much better than the iPhone 6S.
Xiaomi Mi 5 vs iPhone 6S comparison: battery
The Mi 5's battery is about twice the size of the iPhone 6S battery. The Xiaomi Mi 5 has a non-removable 3,000 mAh battery and the iPhone 6S has a 1,715-mAh battery. The 3000 mAh battery seems to be a 2016 Android flagship standard.
This complete superiority cannot be overlooked. It underlines the problems Apple has with battery life and how Android is making better and longer lasting devices in general. Something else that is noteworthy is with the Mi 5 you get greater battery capacity but still have a lighter device than the iPhone 6S.
Xiaomi Mi 5 vs iPhone 6S comparison: software
The Xiaomi Mi 5 came running Android 6.0 Marshmallow right out of the box. The newest version of Android OS is a small step up from Lollipop, but it does have one new interesting feature: Doze. Doze increases the standard battery performance of the device, something smartphones on Lollipop struggle with.
The iPhone 6S comes with iOS 9, a small upgrade from iOS 8. iOS 9 has a simplistic, minimalist and accessible feel, but if you want something with more customization possibilities Marshmallow is obviously the better choice.
Xiaomi Mi 5 vs iPhone 6S comparison: performance
The Xiaomi Mi 5 comes with the powerful Snapdragon 820 processor running at 2.1 GHz. This is backed up by 3 GB of RAM and 32 or 64 GB of internal storage (depending on the model). The performance of the device is fast and reliable with only a few bugs.
The Apple A9 processor runs at 1.84 GHz, a lower speed than the Mi 5. It's also supported by only 2 GB of RAM, 1 GB less than the Mi 5. While the iPhone 6S comes with a choice of 16, 64 or 128 GB internal memory, the Xiaomi Mi 5 Pro (a small upgrade in terms of price) also has 128 GB of memory.
Xiaomi Mi 5 vs iPhone 6S comparison: price and conclusion
The most affordable version of the Xiaomi Mi 5 (32 GB) can be purchased for around $499. The iPhone 6S currently runs for about $649. That's pretty obnoxious when you consider we are comparing apples to apples here.
The incredible price disparity underlines a big problem for Apple. The Xiaomi Mi 5 beats the iPhone 6S on almost all fronts. An argument could be made that a higher Mi 5 price would be justified, comparatively.
Xiaomi's availability issues in the US have hindered its prospects of capturing an easy market opening. When Xiaomi does get its smartphones onto the US market, we could well see a sea-change happen, with customers flocking to its superior, and significantly cheaper, phones.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments.
Despite Apple's emphasis on design, the camera still juts out from the back. Xiaomi hasn't missed this fact since the Mi 4.
Even Sony have avoided pokey camera for many revisions, unlike Apple/Samsung.
Preference is very personal thing.
Although I didn't understand that in the beginning, Apple choice to leave the camera jtting out is actually smart. This allow the Iphones to be thinner, and thus adding a cover just ad a little bit to the size. However on most phones, the camera is now in the phone, which means that when you put a case around the phone, the camera will receive less light because of the cover around it. And I guess Apple realized very few people would risk using their 1000$ phone without a cover. It's very smart from them
If Xiaomi comes to US, Apple will be ready with a big lawsuit.
Yes Kunal, it certainly seems like it. https://www.androidpit.com/samsung-vs-apple-supreme-court
I prefer Iphone
Prefer iPHone 6S
My wife's iPhone battery is much smaller than my Galaxy S6 battery, yet her phone will last all day while I'm constantly charging mine; and that's on stand by, not even counting on screen time. Not sure how you can say Android is making longer lasting devices, since the overwhelming theme I've seen from Android owners is that the batteries in their phones don't last long.
Maybe that's because she doesn't use her phone at all and buries it in her purse ? I have to admit the author is a bit biased, and he didn't actually perform performance tests, I would definitely say the Mi 5 is better.In fact,all new android flagships are.Oh,and one more thing, what iPhone does your wife have?😼amdtrod
One thing to add is that this "Xiaomi Mi 5" will probably be better than the next iPhone too because Apple evolves its products slowly so these specs will still be over-rated next to Apple's 2016 flagship product.
Specsheet is not a comparison. Every geek knows it. What is your personal touch in it. ?
Beautiful comparison, Cory!
waiting for in depth review-comparison... the score of performance... the length of battery usage...
im curious about the ceramic ones... as we know ceramic in our daily-use stuff are fragile things, they broke when fallen down... want to know what kind of ceramic xiaomi used in Mi5 Pro version. waiting for durability test also
love this articles, cos OTHER author from androidpit always mention about copycatting curved back glass panel from samsung which actually untrue, cos it was used in xiaomi mi note earlier than samsung flagships.
Hi erwin, thanks for your input. I am also really excited about the Xiaomi Mi 5 Pro, especially the ceramic back. Hopefully we can get it soon!
Well, i am not very carefull with my stuff, but i would said, that xiaomi is far to be perfect. It look very nice, and the inside is also look very nice, but xiaomi phone are not very solid. (as too many other chinese product; it just look nice but you cannot use it for long...)
2 years ago, i was big fan of xiaomi, but after breaking three xiaomi phone, i changed my option about xiaomi quality. I belive now is that iphone are way stonger, i have seen many broken iphone and still working. My xiaomi doesnt, Mi-3 got broken screen stop working (i fix it, but it got stolen), Mi-4 got broken screen, (fix it, but after it start to bug). Hong-Mi, one day just stop working, battery not charging anymore.
I never had other smartphone appart from xiaomi one, but form what i remember, nokia and other phone i used before, were much much more solid. That can be generalized, i have seen many similiar product in China. recent Chinese products, improved a lot in design and performance, but are still very very poor quality.
Hi Claude,
Thank you for your comment. Does the ceramic back of the Mi 5 Pro entice you? Xiaomi really sold that during their presentation at MWC and I was wondering if that would persuade you.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what brand i am holding in my hand, if it's working fine. And to say that xiaomi just works fine would be an insult to the great products they offer at such an amazing prices. Just forget the brand name and try to think as a neutral, xiaomi is juat class apart. Whenever we see the comparisons over sites we would always get some biased reviews, just look at the damn price, xiaomi costs less than half these big brands, but people would try hard to stir this fact against xiaomi. When they lower the price they lower the standards, no sir, no, if you have actually used xiaomi, you would never say that. proud owner of mi pad (better than apple i pad mini), mi4 and soon mi5 as well.
Ya ur 110% ri8....ive used Xiaomi products too n neva found any issues...infact their bulid quality is far superior to dat of Samsung budget segment phones
Now this is one article that is not biased and true on reality. I have always seen iphone comparison reviews to be very biased toward the iphone so much so that it looks the reviewers are being paid for that.
I've always doubted the performance figures of iphones to those of super-class, high potential and the super customisable android league phones. Iphone 6s is so heavy, its display so out of class in comparison of any league android phone and its battery sucks.
I have seen my friends keeping the iphone display light always to a minimum to cope with the battery shortage, which clearly shows this is a stupid phone which can't even provide a good battery backup just to keep the display lighted up, and that also at an insane sale price.
I have been a fan of Xiaomi, have got mi4 as well as mi4i, and will be having mi5 as soon as its available.
Thanks for the review and for putting to light the hidden crap that iphone has got.
How can you speak of not being biased when u use Xiaomi's test as a reference? While the result fits your bill? What's strange that the 6s and 6 perform about the same while the S has optical stabilization. That's a bit strange to say the least. I hope to see an independent comparison soon.
Thanks for your input here Roy but I must disagree with you. The iPhone 6 is not featured in the video at all. It is the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.