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by RandomNewGuy 2719 days ago
I'm using a Xiaomi Mi A1 for some time now and so far so good. I was looking for a pure Android experience without all the crapware and custom UI's that come from any major phone brand and this is exactly what I got.

Also, direct updates from Google for 2 years without interference from the brand (Xiaomi in this case). Which means I have security updates every month.

I'm not going to buy anything that's not an AndroidOne from now on, with the exception of a Pixel.

2 comments

> Also, direct updates from Google for 2 years without interference from the brand (Xiaomi in this case). Which means I have security updates every month.

You got exactly NONE updates from google. "Android One" has a requirement for vendors to provide updates. All those updates were from xiaomi.

After doing research in order to buy a new phone, I find it strange that Xaomi products are being suggested as an alternative to vendor anti-privacy and bloat.

MIUI is baked in and you need to register an account with Xaomi if you want to unlock your bootloader and put, say, LineageOS on your phone. Xaomi has a bootloader lockout period on their phones, during which you must wait and use MIUI for a period until your bootloader unlocks. They've increased that period from what was once a couple of weeks, to over a month on new models. That's plenty of time for Xaomi to harvest your data.

Meanwhile, there are other phones that allow you to unlock your bootloader without a data harvesting period.

A couple of months ago, I started getting notifications for random alibaba crap on my Xiaomi phone. Turns out, there's a system app which sends you ads as push notifs. Switched to iphone the next day, privacy is the killer feature.
Mi A1 is Android One phone, i.e. no MIUI, but pure Google experience.