[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by renny

I'm a phone whore, I switch every few months. The Mi4 was beautifully designed, the hardware was awesome fast. I actually think it boots faster than the OPO. The big failure is that MiUI is horrendous. There are really basic things that work on any other ROM that doesn't work in MiUI. For example, I couldn't for the life of me set maps as my default GPS program. It would always launch it in Chrome. I searched high and low and thee was no solution.

On the note of the GPS, I feel like the GPS antenna on the Mi4 isn't quite up to snuff. I live in San Francisco and my GS5, Nexus 5 and HTC 1 M8 were all awesome even if there was cloud cover or the dreaded SF fog. The Mi4, is very spotty if there's cloud cover, and don't even try to use it if there's fog. That's a major negative for me since I'm a new transplant and I don't really know my way around. I haven't tested the OPO's GPS yet, but I can report back after I get some real world findings.

I had never encountered my following problem before with my devices, but Xiaomi is refusing to release the kernels. So the aftermarket ROM support is very restricted because nobody can really begin developing let alone support an aftermarket ROM.

I did get CM11 installed on the Mi4, however, this was just a port so there were things that just didn't work very well. The auto-brightness didn't work, after listening to music for a while the audio would get jumbled and it would require a reboot etc.

So for me, if you're into the whole MiUI interface the phone would be awesome. I originally declined an OPO invite because I felt that the OPO would be too big for me coming in at 5.5", that's why I opted for the Mi4. The Mi4 fits a lot better my hands and single hand use is definitely a possibility. The OPO on the other hand is a two-hander for sure. If you're into MiUI and it's restrictions, then I would definitely recommend it as it's very premium feeling in the hands. It wasn't for me though, I want the ability to install any ROM I want on the hardware I purchase (hence my preference to Android and not Apple). MiUI really restricted all this and it's really too bad because I loved the size of it in my hands.

Yea this is my experience with MIUI as well. I used to run it on my old SGS and it was great experience aside from the fact that nothing worked on it on my phone because of driver issues. I finally got sick of the port and just gave up. If only Mi4 was open enough to release drivers so people could get other ROMs on there... in the meantime OPO seems to be one of the best custom ROM phone on the market right now. Even if you don't load anything on their the Cyanogen by default makes things way better than AOSP