Xiaomi Mi 5 and LG G5 are two smartphones announced during this year’s Mobile World Congress show in Spain.
While there is still no word of when the former will be available in the U.S. and Europe for that matter, the company’s VP Hugo Barra has constantly been promising that their devices will soon hit Europe.
LG, on the other hand, is expected to officially avail the G5 beginning this April, but there is no specific date as of yet. Both coming from Asia, the two smartphones have a lot of rivalry between them as each looks towards earning the tag of the best smartphone in 2016. As usual, there is always a winner in any battle. Keep reading to know who wins this battle between LG G5 and Xiaomi Mi 5.
Design and display quality
Xiaomi rocks when it comes to design. Its premium-looking handsets have led to the company being constantly compared to Apple’s iPhone. The Xiaomi Mi 5 features three variants – Standard, High and Special Editions. The Standard Edition comes with a vibrant display that features a very small bezel, which might make you mistake the screen for an edge-to-edge display. The phone has a fingerprint scanner hidden under the physical home button. This is basically the same look that the second variant, Xiaomi Mi 5 High Edition, comes with.
The Mi 5’s rear snapper rests in the same position as in Apple’s iPhone 6, something the company’s VP says is was deliberate. The entire rear, however, looks almost identical to Samsung Galaxy S7’s, but this is to ensure that the phone feels great when holding in one hand. When compared to the LG G5 which weighs about 159g, Xiaomi Mi 5 only weighs 129g.
Speaking of the G5, it retains the basics of the LG G series; however, you will definitely notice some changes in the new phone. The phone has a metallic unibody that makes it feel more premium than the LG G4. The base of the phone – including the battery – can be removed. Other than revealing the battery unit, you’ll also see a Magic Slot where you can hook quite a number of accessories, for instance, VR headset, speakers, cameras and so on. This will with no doubt be a USP for the LG G5.
Just like the Mi 5, LG installed a fingerprint scanner, but the Korean company put it at the back.
As far as the display is concerned, Xiaomi’s three models have the same screen size – a 5.15-inch Full HD display. The resolution stands at 1920 by 1080 pixels, managing a pixel density of 427ppi. The G5, on the other hand, comes with a slightly larger 5.3-inch LED IPS display screen with 2560 by 1440 QHD resolution. With this resolution, it means users of the G5 will enjoy clearer and sharper views. The G5 also comes with Always On feature that allows you to quickly check things like date and time without the need of waking the phone from sleep mode.
Processing power and storage
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 is the 2016 flagship chipset and this is just what Xiaomi has gone for in all of its three models. The least costly variant features 32GB of onboard storage whereas the High Edition has 64GB. In addition, the former’s chipset is clocked at 1.8GHz while the latter’s clocks 2.15GHz. Both Standard and High Editions have a RAM of 3GB.
LG G5 uses the same Snapdragon 820 chipset but has a better RAM of 4GB to match the Special Edition of the Xiaomi Mi 5. The G5 has a storage capacity of 32GB and it can be expanded using a microSD card of up to 200GB.
Both devices come with Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box, with each running a customized user interface.
Camera and battery
In addition to the smart removable bottom of the LG G5 that makes it unique, the phone also adds to this with a one-of-a-kind rear camera. Actually, it has two cameras on the rear – a 16MP main snapper and another 8MP wide-angle snapper. The camera is equipped with lots of current technologies, among them support for RAW formats, granular manual mode and so on. The front has another superior 8MP snapper.
LG has retained the removable battery among this year’s flagships. In fact, the company has made it even smarter, but at 2,800mAh, the Mi 5 may still prove to be a longer lasting.
Xiaomi Mi 5went after Sony’s IMX298 camera with a 16MP lens and is equipped with 4-axis OIS technology to ensure you capture sharper images all round. However, the front is a bit let-down as the company only managed a 4MP camera. Still, this f/2.0 aperture lens offers some of the best wide-angle views. To power the Xiaomi Mi 5 is a 3,000mAh unit, which will, of course, be aided by Marshmallow’s battery saving feature – Doze. There is also support for Quick Charge 3.0 to ensure 20% faster charging as compared to Quick Charge 2.0.