I bought this from the previous deal and found it quite interesting phone.
The build quality is surprisingly good, look and feel are great.
System runs very quick, apparently quicker than s6.
It doesnt have tempered glass but you can buy an additional tempered glass as the screen protector from gear best cheaply. I bought case and tempered glass with the phone and it cost me around £125.

The only drawbacks that I found so far:
1. youtube apps seems to be modified for xiaomi and it is NOT a good app. It runs very slow upon loading and most of the cases (99%) it crashes when loading the next video (that if you managed to load the first one :smiley:). you can have workaround on this by using the browser to run youtube website. It will run smoothly but of course it lacks integration with other apps
2. menu is in english but there are some areas that still left in chinese.
3. They have very cool theme but very buggy as well. The first theme that I tried looks very pretty but it makes me unable to find the menu (bug). Made me panic for a while until i find the workaround
4. they have a lot of bloatware. most of them can be disabled from the apps manager. However, there are 3 things that cant be disabled fully: app cleaner, DU booster, and the browser. I never expect having the well known app cleaner as built in app (that cant be disabled) is so damn annoying.
5. Ads on the lock screen!! It is bloody annoying but I think I managed to disable it (although it sometimes come up every now and then randomly).

Would I recommend it? Its a bit of hassle but i think its really good value for money.
It is approx 1/3 to 1/4 of the price of the mainstream phone. There are annoying features on this phone but there are ways to go around it.

FYI, the UI is using MIUI6, not the latest MIUI7. The english menu is apparently comes from the reseller, not xiaomi (that's my understanding, CMIIW). So I might not dare to upgrade to MIUI7 until its confirmed that it will come up in English.

Yup. https://www.androidfilehost.com/?w=files&flid=42335

Choose xiaomi.eu_multi_hermes_V7.0.6.0.LHMCNCI_v7-5.0.zip

This is MIUI 7 5.10.22 and is the stable build. Weekly builds are rooted, stable builds are not. There are newer versions out but allegedly no obvious improvements and frankly, for me, it ain't broke so I'm not fixing it (or flashing it!)

great phone but surely for all these deals from China we should include the extra 20%?

Great spec.

EU warehouse for white, 118

Just noticed that the link on the deal takes you to the less discounted version, please see here for the price I've listed

Good review 8/10
http://www.trustedreviews.com/xiaomi-redmi-note-2-review

How does this compare to the ultra 6, specs look similar

It appears the EU warehouse for 32GB white has sold out. No EU stock in black either. The 16GB 'standard' model is still available at the EU warehouse at $149 delivered (about £100). I'd have paid a tenner extra for the 32GB version, would make a massive difference if you're an app junkie.

Ah well, better luck next time. This is a flagship phone at 25% of the price of the other flagships, according to TechRadar the performance benchmarks rival that of the Galaxy S6 and it has an almost equally good camera!

Bloody hell. Ordered a Meizu M2 Note for about the same price as this. Stonking deal.

Bargain, Xiaomi are awesome.

Gone up to £115

looks great. heat added. all that spec for the price seems amazing, never tried a chinese phine but tempted at this price! just a badge.

will it work with ee/tmobile?

is thismcimpany ok to deal with ?

Any discount codes? current at $165 is that the cheapest price??

http://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_229216.html?wid=3

The 16gb version is £98.30 from the EU warehouse. Note, the processor is still the X10 but only runs to 2.0Ghz rather than 2.2Ghz.

watch network does this operate on ee.?

elephone is a better phone in my opinion :http://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_188822.html

yes less storage space but extra RAM etc
The only thing is no EU shipping on the ones i can see

Specs say that it takes a micro SD, so 16Gb isn't too much of a problem.

Got one. It's superb. Really, I don't think you can beat it at the price. MIUI 7 is fabulous too.

anyone own one and installed miui 7 on it?

the one i have came with all kinds of bloatware and it seems to be installing stuff without permission lately. im getting popup ads now and its messing the phone up

What is the benefit of Eu warehouse over china warehouse? Quicker and no import duty risk?

Just shows how the mainstream mobile companies in the UK shaft us so royally, doesn't it? I bought my first Chinese phone approx 7 months ago (elephone P6000) and will be buying ALL my phones from China in the future. They are so cheap I plan on buying myself a new phone every 12 months with a limit of £100. Amazing what that sort of money can get you (as this great deal proves). Heat added.

Looks like you have to switch between the dual sims. Does anyone know a similar phone with dual active sims? I fancy a punt on a Chinese phone to get a dual sim option.

Does this have Google Play installed on it? The description was a little ambiguous.

How much of an upgrade is this in comparison to a Note3?

Great thing about importing a Xiaomi is the ease of buying excellent quality accessories like cases/screen protectors etc as they are a huge seller in China/India. There is an excellent looking bumper case for this on Gearbest's site for less than £2!

Edit: here you go:

The MENTAL case :smile:

http://www.gearbest.com/other-cases-covers/pp_240708.html

Makes the MEIZU MX5 look expensive...

Have ordered the 32gb from China

Its a nap i will get the customs charge i am one of those people lol

I bought this from the previous deal and found it quite interesting phone.
The build quality is surprisingly good, look and feel are great.
System runs very quick, apparently quicker than s6.
It doesnt have tempered glass but you can buy an additional tempered glass as the screen protector from gear best cheaply. I bought case and tempered glass with the phone and it cost me around £125.

The only drawbacks that I found so far:
1. youtube apps seems to be modified for xiaomi and it is NOT a good app. It runs very slow upon loading and most of the cases (99%) it crashes when loading the next video (that if you managed to load the first one :smiley:). you can have workaround on this by using the browser to run youtube website. It will run smoothly but of course it lacks integration with other apps
2. menu is in english but there are some areas that still left in chinese.
3. They have very cool theme but very buggy as well. The first theme that I tried looks very pretty but it makes me unable to find the menu (bug). Made me panic for a while until i find the workaround
4. they have a lot of bloatware. most of them can be disabled from the apps manager. However, there are 3 things that cant be disabled fully: app cleaner, DU booster, and the browser. I never expect having the well known app cleaner as built in app (that cant be disabled) is so damn annoying.
5. Ads on the lock screen!! It is bloody annoying but I think I managed to disable it (although it sometimes come up every now and then randomly).

Would I recommend it? Its a bit of hassle but i think its really good value for money.
It is approx 1/3 to 1/4 of the price of the mainstream phone. There are annoying features on this phone but there are ways to go around it.

FYI, the UI is using MIUI6, not the latest MIUI7. The english menu is apparently comes from the reseller, not xiaomi (that's my understanding, CMIIW). So I might not dare to upgrade to MIUI7 until its confirmed that it will come up in English.

The problem with Xiaomi is they try to subsidize the prices of their phones via integration of 3rd party apps and adverts into their ROM. Does any one know if there is a decent CM ROM, or bloatware-free one, that can be flashed without issues? I did try Google but couldn't find a definitive answer.

How does this compare to the Elephone P8000?

Price seems to jump up to £115 once you click through to the cart. Is this the same for everyone?

Go to the xioami EU web site try out the modified ROMs there, bloatware gone etc. http://xiaomi.eu/community

Thank you, very useful.

Surely in any phone you have to software switch between the SIMS? How can both be active concurrently?

Agreed; I have a K3 Note and it seems that part of the app still resides in the phone memory while part (data, etc) is on the SD card. This was a bit like the "Link2SD" app which I used on the previous phone. Marshmallow, apparantly, gives the option to integrate the 2 memories into a single one.

Mine runs MIUI 7 and there is NO bloatware, no Chinese text, nothing.

The phone has a built in installer so if you don't want to wait until OTA updates, go to Xiamoi.eu, d/l the rom, put it on your phone, press the button and you're done.

Significantly more crap in a Samsung or LG phone. Even all the Google crap you usually can't uninstall (Play, Books, Games yadda yadda) are absent...

Dual processors. One for each sim.

Dual modems more like. There's a dual sim version of the Moto G apparently. Dual active is different from dual standby. Learnt something new today!

Mate, get MIUI 7 installed - there are none of those problems and it's an English language specific ROM.

Cleaner still built in - not tried to remove it. No ads.DU booster - don't know what that is, don't see it in 7. Browser is of course there (it's quite good actually) but again, have not tried to uninstall.

Described as a phablet but is it actually a phone like some other 5.5"ers?
Matters because a 3 pay as you go SIM for occasional, non expiring use can work if the network identifies a phone rather then a phablet.

can you use the updater that comes already installed to install the roms or do you need to root?

I use the weekly build which is already rooted, just go to security and permissions then root which App needs it. I download ROMs to PC then to SD card, then use updater App, press 3 dots top right hand and you get option to choose update package....

How do you guys think this compares to a doogee f5 or the elephone p8000?

Agreed, I've got Miui 7 running on my Mi3 from here and its 1000x better. It's been noted it's highly likely Xiaomi are going to drop the mi5 very soon so if you're looking for a flagship destroyer I'd hold out a little longer as its probably going to be epic. I know i'll be getting it on launch!

Yup. https://www.androidfilehost.com/?w=files&flid=42335

Choose xiaomi.eu_multi_hermes_V7.0.6.0.LHMCNCI_v7-5.0.zip

This is MIUI 7 5.10.22 and is the stable build. Weekly builds are rooted, stable builds are not. There are newer versions out but allegedly no obvious improvements and frankly, for me, it ain't broke so I'm not fixing it (or flashing it!)

Yes, my daughter wants to switch from Blackberry, so I'm waiting for the Mi5 but also looking at the OnePlusX (she does not want a 5.5 inch).

would i need to back up? does it wipe everything and clean install the new rom

An interesting read of the comments, and from what I can gather buying a chinese phone is more hassle than its worth.

Thanks. I'd like to gold out for the Mi5 but not sure what price point they will be pitching at. Budget is £100 ish.

Had you given me a better argument for being " wrong ", I would of listed the reasons why its more hassle than its worth, so on this occassion I will leave you to your chinese phones, and I will wait for a Note 4 in the Black Friday sale.

Terrible grammar. Pleb.

Well I bought mine from an eBay seller already loaded with MIUI 7 latest version English ROM. So there was no customs, I got it the next day and didn't have to do a thing to it. Yes I paid £145 (with a 15% discount voucher kindly donated by eBay) not £110 or whatever. But it was absolutely no hassle whatsoever. And boy oh by after two years of TouchWiz on a Note 2 (good hardware, **** skin / OS) I wouldn't buy another Samsung(at least without flashing the ROM).

Better answer for you?

I understand that for the money you're getting a lot of phone, but like I said from reading the comments it seems a lot easier to wait for Black Friday, talk of custom roms, not 4g no band this and that, sending the wrong screen protectors, no gorilla glass, bloatware, ADs on the homescreen, flashing needed, import tax and custom duties, dead pixels on the screen, up to 60 days to arrive to name but a few, and I dont have the right to say its more hassle than its worth?, lol come on...

The problem is that you sit neatly in two similar camps: what businessmen term a 'laggard' and what technologists refer to as a 'Luddite'. Custom ROMs, flashing, 'band this and thats' scare you as you either won't know or can't be bothered to know. So, you like to pay over the odds and keep it safe.

and conveniently he ignores that you can buy one, get it the next day and not need to do a damn thing to it. All for 1/4 of the price of an S6 or iPhone 6S or
.

The thing is £100 to some is a lot of money, and buying a new phone is an investment, playing it safe means I dont have to worry about buying a product that may require me to invest time and money into that I could of easily used to buy an S6 and been safe in the knowledge I'm 1) buying a product that works out of the box and 2) I can return with ease should something go wrong, so while you may enjoy tinkering with your OS I prefer not to, that doesn't make you wrong or me right, it's just the way it is.

I didn't ignore anything, and if it was that easy and there was no risk why is there 100's of comments throughout this site related to chinese phones that indicate otherwise, are they all making these problems up?.

Absolutely. You are the majority, average consumer: your post reflects it.

However, your incompetence at doing what I would consider are a few basic tasks does not give you the 'right' (whatever that may be-I suspect you are just abusing the term) to say it is 'more hassle than it is worth buying a Chinese phone' .

No, they're not making it up at all. They chose to save 30 odd quid by buying direct from China. Xiaomi is the 3rd or 4th largest handset manufacturer in the world (it's a lot bigger than Dogee or Elephone) and has EU specific phones. It is that easy if you buy one that's already in the UK (so no customs) already running MIUI7 English ROM. I have no reason to make this up!

I get your point mate, but you're still talking about £100 vs £5-700. And there's plenty of bugs in iOS, TouchWiz (which is pretty poor, let's face it) etc. It's not like you're saving 10% here. You're getting all the spec, power etc you could need for a fraction of the price.

If £100 is a lot to some, then your alternative is simply unaffordable.

I've had mobiles since 1995, had the first, second and third iPhones, had a Note 2. Now, I can't see me ever buying one of these overpriced, locked down, bloatwear ridden devices ever again. Honestly. They're that good these "Chinese phones" - not that there's many handsets manufactured anywhere else anyway...

I have a Note 2 atm, and I've been looking to upgrade, funnily enough to a chinese phone, the Xaiomi Mi5 which I was hoping was going to be released today in the big unveiling, disappointed I came on here saw this thread to look into this phone and after reading some horror stories voiced my opinion, which has led me to be called incompetent amongst other things, which has now only solidified my opinion as personal attacks are usually a sign they have no real facts to base an argument on.

However if you could point me in the right direction to this phone or one that has similar specs for the same price and does not require me to do anything then I'll gladly buy it, as much as I love my Note 2, it is looking a little outdated, and is time for an upgrade.

Cheers will try a few other phones for comparison also.

I pre-ordered 2 of these a couple a months ago, one from Oppomart, the other from Everbuying. For the money they are astounding phones, very fast, great build quality and software. The phone from Oppomart had quite a bit of malware installed, including the DU rubbish. It was downloading and installing apps by itself, which I wasn't happy about, so after a couple of days I installed the latest weekly ROM from xiaomi.eu and haven't looked back.

If you're having the same issue with malware then simply head over to Xiaomi.eu, grab the weekly and get rid.

Stick with your high-street brands. Srs.

hot.
This was the phone I wanted & read lots of reviews. At the time it was around £157 to import. I hesitated because of the price. But if you can get it from EU warehouse for £110, it's a bargain.

I have one and am really enjoying it! Mine is from Oppomart and also came with bloatware. I used the onboard installer to put a new ROM on it, with some trepidation... and it has worked very well. It now does OTA updates.
The main reason I got it was as a stop-gap, because my Nexus 5 broke and was waiting for the new Nexus. Problem is I am really struggling to justify buying the Nexus now!
There are 2 older posts on here if anyone wants to get some more info on them.

Does it work with talktalk / o2?

Another happy owner here.

At the end of the day, you pays your money and takes your choice. This cost me about the same I paid for my moto g in January, but is in a completely different league.

Go to xiaomi.eu, download the miui 7 ROM and install it with the updated program

Very easy to do. Apologies for the double post, using iOS which is misbehaving lol

is it fairly safe to buy from these overseas? looks like the best phone for the money.

Thanks m8 :smiley:

Got one of these about a month ago, the Prime 32gb 2.2 Ghz version. Came from China direct, took a while but got no customs charge or extra VAT charge either. Came with MIUI 6, which I guess had been put over MIUI 7 by the reseller so he could include all the annoying bloatware. No problem to flash MIUI 7 back on it with Gapps for all the other Google stuff.

Now have a super fast, buttery smooth phone for peanuts.

here you go:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Xiaomi-Redmi-Note-2-Prime-Android-Dual-SIM-Smartphone-Mobile-5-5-Octa-Core-2GB-/301778150485?hash=item4643612455:g:0PcAAOSwo6lWK4cj

Must be down to software then as any 3gb ram phone should outclass any 2gb .....i have had the ec00 04 for some time now and with its 3gb ram completely outclasses many in bench marking

Lag often more to do with processor / gpu than anything to do with RAM. 2GB more than enough if the device is correctly engineered and balanced.

Does this work on o2 4G ?

As well yes but RAM does indeed play a big part and will do so more going forward especially on Android for multi tasking ....

http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/how-much-ram-does-a-phone-need

Granted but when you consider that there's only 1GB of RAM in an iPhone 6, you can see what I mean about being properly engineered and balanced. If you run multiple apps at the same time on Android then more RAM will of course help. Personally I shut down anything that isn't needed so it doesn't use resources in the background...

It boils down to the underline OS. Just like argument is with windows vs linux, RAM is utilised far less in latter.

Does this come with english language out the box?

If this is delivered from UK - then will it be full english with play store installed?

Price seems to have jumped up a bit.
Just seen this phone does not work with O2.
What does it work with?

I am using o2 with this phone, it works fine on 2g and 3g. O2 uses 800mhz for 4 g which this phone cannot recieve . for 4g it only uses 1800, 2100 and 2600 mhz.

Linky please

​Link to what?

​All xiaomi phones can be supplied with 2 different roms, the Chinese and the global. The global one has Google services installed, all good with play store etc. The Chinese one doesn't have this as Google services are banned in China and they have been replaced with Chinese equivalents, along with some bloatware etc. If you look at the official miui download page here

http://en.miui.com/extra.php?mod=rom/download&mobile=no

You'll see there are 2 tabs, o e for the global rom and one for the Chinese rom. The global one is a bigger download as it contains the Google apps. Officially, there is no 'EU' version, as xiaomi phones are not officially available outside of Asia and the far east. If your phone has a Chinese rom, it is easy to download the global one and flash it using the updater app within the phones software.

So the developer rom is the eu one?

​I humbly apologise. It seems there is only the Chinese rom available for the redmi note 2 officially. Xiaomi.eu would be the best bet to get rid of all the Chinese stuff

​Nope, it looks like the redmi note 2 is only designed to be used in China and there is no global rom. There is no official 'EU' rom as xiaomi devices aren't meant for sale outside Asia and the far east, although there are custom roms that will remove all the bloat, include Google services and tidy up the language. This is what the link to xiaomi.eu is pointing to. Again, I apologise. The fact that there's no official global rom rules this one out for me.

I'll have a look later but mine seems to have been supplied with google store on it.

But it only has 800mb left of the 2gb so thinking it must have some massive bloatware running

​A lot of suppliers from China open the box and install play store etc before they ship it, but they don't remove all the Chinese stuff while they're at it. I've had it a couple of times. Last time was with with my cube tablet that I got from tinydeal.

Don't really see what the problem is as basically the miui EU ROMs are the Chinese Rom with other languages added to make them compatible with most of Europe...

How you remove the bloatware guys?

Im still trying to figure out what bits I need to install the ones from the eu forum site.

I used one of the weekly ROMs from http://xiaomi.eu/
Look for the latest Hermes (phone model name) ROM. I would suggest reading up on it first...
If you look back onto page 4 ( I think) there are lots of others that have done the same. Download and copy onto the phone, then use the built in update app to update. It keeps the gapps and also gives you OTA updates after that.
No need to root or use trwp

Cheers ears a lot easier then messing with roms.
Downloaded the latest Hermes version no faffing.
Do we know if this has a lot of bloatware, trying to figure out how memory the mui7/6 takes in it's normal operating. Seem to have 1.1/2.0Gb free. I know it would use some of this but 900mb seems a bit steep.

Mines been despatched from Netherlands according to gearbest website. looking forward to receiving it...

I don't think there is any or very little bloatware. Mine is also at about 1gb, depending on what I have been doing. There is a handy trash app that does run in the background, it will notify you to do a clean up every now and then. This related more to cache and temp files though. I am using the Google now launcher on mine, as that's what I prefer, works great!

Mine arrived running MIUI 7 v 5.10.16 Beta on Android 5.0.2.
I've installed two SIMs but if the phone reboots, then it looses the names and reverts back to Sim1 and Sim2. Anyone else had this issue?

Ordered mine last Saturday and was delivered today , all looks good so far ..