Where have all those awesome Xiaomi phone deals (e.g. MiA1) dried up all of a sudden? There used to be a deal almost everyday and I don't see any these days.
Xiaomi Phone Deals
virhlpool on 29/09/2018 - 09:23
Comments
Hopefully they will bring out some new models with a removable battery.
Doubt it. They want you to constantly spend more money and upgrade.
Oh dude, are people still riding the removable battery bandwagon?
Get a power bank like a normal person.
How do you go from 0% charge to 100% in seconds with a power bank?
How do you replace an old battery that isn't holding charge with a power bank in seconds?
You let your phone go down to 0%?
Who hurt you?
I haven't had a phone battery die like that since the Nokia 3310/3315 days, maybe don't let it discharge to 0%?
Redmi 5 2GB RAM 16 GB Global Version is the best I could find for around $170 AUD. I guess since the aussie has fallen, it is now not even worthwhile touching these parallel imports. Without subsidies the phones look lacklustre compared to what is available on the local market. Even those unsubsidised ones seem to beat the newer Xiaomi Note 5 or come close to it.
However, the king of budget is now officially Oppo.
You can find Oppo stores all over China, even in the third tier cities, never saw a Xiaomi bricks and mortar store at all in my previous trips. I mean, every city with a marketplace of some sort had a store had the Oppo sign next to it, never saw the Mi symbol unless it was a certain place and no other advertising outside of that specific store's location.
Oppo have started to take over with the Realme brand in India. Took me a while to figure out it was Oppo's sister brand like Vivo. I thought it was a homebrand from India. Sadly I was mistaken.
I am not surprised Oppo partnered with Optus and JB Hifi and others to sell their phones. Even the A73 is pretty good I would say for it's price. The alternative is to get a phone that is ad supported which is a major turn off in this new age of technology. I would say it is borderline embarassing to have someone answer your phone and swipe the notifications to see an ad. It makes them think you have something installed to earn money, you know the Unlock Rewards thing that went into administration and partnered with Flybuys. Lots of people shamed each other when they saw you using it. You barely got 2 cents a day for that shame. lol.
That's how much people hate ads now, it never got enough traction because Australian's hate ads. That's a fact. You only see it take traction overseas in other countries like the USA where they can get budget phones for $10-20 androids to run what are technically ad fraud programs that leech money from big businesses marketing budget and make products more expensive for the rest of us. You won't ever see that down under in the land of Oz; and I'm glad.
Oppo phones seem to have great VoLTE support out of the box from what I've seen reading on Whirlpool. I can't say the same about Xiaomi which has a whole thread in Whirlpool about the warnings of a lack of support. Some got it to work by editing a few things here and there, but it's hard to confirm it is actually turned on and not just an icon in the menu as there is no actual HD voice button in the dialer unlike when Indian's use JIO.
The worst thing about Xiaomi products is if you bought the non-Global version and use the internal updater, it will now brick your phone and tell you that it is not allowed to run the global rom, prompting you to use EDL and install the Chinese rom again. You'll then need to unlock the bootloader after waiting and then put an unofficial rom on it.
That's another reason to steer clear of Xiaomi's landmines. All of those budget phones you saw on sale at $140 would have been the chinese version of the phone with a frankenstein global rom build. The global version is anywhere from $30+ more expensive to a lot more on the flagships.
Sadly, almost all Xiaomi phones don't support 3G HD voice either. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 4/4X you mentioned didn't support this and if you call any friend's with a phone as such, you'll experience very poor audio quality. Which is a poor deal since Telstra to Vodafone calls are now HD voice compatible on 3G provided you have a device that allows for it (Only happened this month or last month!!! YAY!). Ironically the one phone that people were advising against, the Xiaomi Note 4 MTK version does support HD voice. So, there you go. lol. (You would have also missed out since Voda-Voda or Optus-Optus calls were HD voice compatible with the right handsets on both ends) You do get what you pay for. Take a quick watch at some youtube videos about 3G HD voice, and you'll definitely hear the difference.
Will we ever see another cheap Xiaomi phone? Probably not, they shot themselves in the foot and have lost a lot of traction in the Chinese market. Talk to almost everyone on the street and they have an Oppo, Vivo, or other premium brand. *cough Apple or rebirthed iPhone (still technically an Apple product) No one has a xiaomi phone; sure a lot of people have a xiaomi vacuum cleaner, but that's all I can say that they make is good. They are a dying brand, they know it; they can't provide any good value added services, so they force ads on users. You can't sell ads on a vacuum cleaner. That's why it's happening, the 5% growth target they set is going to fail. If it wasn't so hard to short their stock, I would. At the same time I worry about other stocks I am invested in like Tencent which might be impacted by a sudden stock crash.
My favourite budget phone is still Xiaomi MiA1. There's simply no match for Android One for several reasons. Not sure if any Oppo phone compares to this phone at the similar budget.
Secondly, there are not many Oppo deals going around (at least on this website) either.
Who cares about 3G HD Voice and VoLTE?
Skype, WhatsApp and FB Messenger call everyone. Regular phone calls, pttttffff
Regular phone calls still clear enough IMO
I thought I might need to clarify this:
I'm pretty sure most serious investors have already picked up on this but Xiaomi's market share in China is no where near 25% as stated by some estimates.
In those estimates they use sales numbers of phones within China, but we already know a majority of phones sold to the global market were in fact the chinese version and inflate the chinese market share figures.
Thus why I never saw anyone in China with an actual Xiaomi phone, lots of these phones were going to Pakistan, India, Singapore, Colombia and other markets. Most of the countries listed have their own brick and mortar Xiaomi stores, but the Chinese version was still significantly cheaper after DHL delivery than buying locally. Just look around in hardwarezone singapore forum.
I would gather to estimate real market share is below 15%, and even that might be a gross overestimate. If we go to shanghai and ask what phone people have, will 1 in 10 even raise their Xiaomi phone (as opposed to being in one's pocket as a majority of people now hold their phone around as it has gained somewhat of a status symbol - I blame Apple)? That's something for some serious short sellers to look into. We will see real figures now the lockdown of global version and chinese version roms has happened. It helps price discovery, but I think if Xiaomi wanted to keep up the charade, they would have allowed the status-quo to remain. I guess they are honest in this manner.
Anyway, have a great Holiday everyone. Both China and Australia.
Hope no one got caught up in the Xiaomi lemon IPO.
The true value of the brand is starting to exhibit itself.
"Sadly, almost all Xiaomi phones don't support 3G HD voice either."
A gross overkill and unnecessary. Audio quality is fine on both our 4X's contrary to some of our previous overpriced locally sourced junk phones. Sounds like 3D for TVs.. trendy buy not needed."All of those budget phones you saw on sale at $140 would have been the chinese version"
Sorry, but your expert advice on that is wrong… both of ours purchased for around that price were genuine factory global rom units, one thing i made very sure of. It is sad to see this deceptive practice is still being used to trick many people though. Not the fault of Xiaomi, just rogue retailers and they also screw around with many other phone brands." They are a dying brand, they know it; they can't provide any good value added services,"
LOL.. In the real world not so, in your mind maybe.For the money, even at todays higher prices thanks to our au peso and gst, Xiaomi is still the best bang for the buck phone on the market. No doubt.
Your very long post would be more believable if you could post some examples to match your claims… like and example or two of another phone sub $300 (AU incl GST and delivery) that would compete with the specs of a factory global XRN5 4/64G?
No, that offer was in fact a Chinese version of the rom by gearbest. You can confirm it with them…
Maybe I'll go bring it up if it is still available on archive.org
Anyway in reply to whether the brand is dying, well it is… You'd be foolish to think otherwise.
LOL.. In the real world not so, in your mind maybe.
Maybe if we look at some actual statistics and delve into how they got those numbers, you would realise what you wrote it in fact incorrect.
Your very long post would be more believable if you could post some examples to match your claims… like and example or two of another phone sub $300 (AU incl GST and delivery) that would compete with the specs of a factory global XRN5 4/64G?
That wasn't the market we are talking about. You clearly mentioned the $140 price point (EDITed for emphasis), which I guess will stretch to $200 for the purposes of this conversation. I have already provided an example, in fact another one today.
As to competitors, the Realme 2 Pro which is set to come out in India in a few days, will blow the socks off any Xiaomi product you mention like the Note 5… Even if we assume $30 for DHL, you'll still come out ahead.
Xiaomi Note 5 is not available for less than $300 including GST and delivery, unless you want the Gold Version, even then that is bordering not acceptable pricing. As that would bring it to $232 usd which is $323 AUD as of tonight.
Example, Goldway has the Black Xiaomi Note 5 Global version for $250 USD delivered to Australia which is equivalent to $350 AUD… In which case you would probably be better off looking at phones at officeworks or jb hifi with similar specs at this price. I'm not going to to do unless you come back and specifically request it, but it should be fairly easy to find.
In effect what you are arguing is that you pay an extra $23 and get the Gold model of Xiaomi Note 5 instead of getting a local unlocked Oppo A73 for example $299, or the Zte Axon 7 $299 which is sadly not available anymore (Well, not sure to be honest). You'll get slightly better specs, or worse specs if you compare that clearance phone. Your willing to trade off $23 on over $300 to lose warranty. No thanks, for $150 phone, maybe most will do that, but definitely not $300+. I think most of ozbargain will agree.
BTW A73, can be gotten for $199 a few days ago, possibly still available at Woolworths. It can be unlocked for free and 850mhz unlocked via the trick at Whirlpool. So, yeah, it's hard to compare that to a $300+ Xiaomi Note 5. If that's what you wanted to try…
I'll repeat again if you missed my other post, but we have alternatively phones like Nokia 3 which after paying for legal unlock via Vodafone have better features than a comparative Redmi 5 product. Both 2GB RAM 16GB storage.
Edit:
Quick search on Officeworks finds a good comparative phone at about the same price as a Global Version Xiaomi Note 5 delivered and GST paid.OPPO AX5 Unlocked Mobile Smartphone 64GB Diamond Blue $379.00
Comparison, Goldway Global Version Xiaomi Note 5 4GB version. $352 AUD delivered, GST paid.
Did I mention no ads? That's got to have a premium, and local warranty guys.
I rest my case.
GST could also be a factor in why we don't see many Xiaomi Phones being posted on OzBargain anymore.
True, but the alternatives like Nokia 3 for the lower end Redmi 5 competitor are still drastically cheaper because of heavy subsidies I would gather.
It just brings everything back to a level playing field to some extent. Bulk shipping rather than single phones being couriered across can explain why other phones available on the local market are much better priced.
Which subsidies are you referring to, which Nokia enjoys?
Agree. The days of RN4X for $140 delivered… gone, along with all the others.