I have used almost all kinds of mobile phone brands in the market and my all time favorite of all the phones will be Nokia and LG. I own a few Xiaomi phones as well and recently I purchased a Poco F3 just for the purpose of gaming, the next day I started using it, the regret that I have always felt returned.

Sorry but this is a not personal ranting, but this is a fact everyone must accept. Even with really bad experience with Xiaomi phones previously, I still purchased another one. I had one thing in mind, the specs (for the price point) and the reason for just using it for gaming. Since It was a new purchase, I thought I would use it for some time before moving it as a gaming device. Then started the horrible experience of using a Xiaomi phone.

Here are some of the pain-points of using a Xiaomi phones in 2022:

• Main reason of the horrible experience in Xiaomi phones is the OS used which MIUI. I have never had such bad experience using a Mobile OS as bad as MIUI. Firstly it is a really heavy and non-optimized operating system which is full bugs. Yes no OS runs away from bugs, but what if the OS doesn’t fix those bugs even after years? Xiaomi doesn’t care about reported bugs and keep updating their software without thinking of fixing the bugs. As system updates are given, the bugs just increases and MIUI becomes worst.
• Android Software updates are not frequent, that is fine, but why are the security patches so slowly pushed and almost outdated? Most of us only care about the Android version of the software, but do you know that Security patches should be the latest for avoiding any problem to your phone? Try heading to your Xiaomi phones security patch date.
• Many are saying that Xiaomi latest phones are the most powerful phones with the latest specs of recent times. Rubbish, Xiaomi still uses USB2.0 for its USB port (even on their flagships) when phones years before it already have USB3.x ports which also gives video out. You call this latest specs? I use the video out feature a lot and in 2022, it’s a miracle that Xiaomi still uses USB 2.0 for their specs.
• Advertisement appears here and there even the options not to display it is turned on. Easy said, forced advertisement from their system apps which cant be disabled and causes nuisance.
• Some may argue that all this is due to cheap price of getting the phones for the specs they offer. I used to agree to this in the previous years. Are they still cheap? Take the latest flagship (at the time of writing) Xiaomi 12 series for example. They are not cheap and other better phones with better specs are already out there to choose from (eg. Motorola Edge 30 Pro).

If you were someone like me who used to defend Xiaomi phones, you surely would have been annoyed at least once (or more) using the rubbish MIUI system. It is about time to stop defending and get a better phone instead.

Would I suggest a solution for those like me who are already annoyed with Xiaomi phones? Yes! Flash a Custom Rom that suits you.

• If you care about the MIUI camera, MIUI extra enhancement and features, Widevine, Dolby and others, then go for MIUI.EU Rom. It is a more polished version of MIUI with almost no annoyance or bugs.
• If you just don’t care much about the above, then get a stock based Custom Rom, I would highly recommend Arrow OS or Pixel Experience.

So how am I still using the two current phones in the above pictures? The Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro runs Pixel Experience and my Poco F3 runs MIUI.EU Rom. Enough said, I will never buy a Xiaomi phone again unless they produce something groundbreaking.