Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Specs at a glance: Xiaomi Mi Note Screen 1920×1080 5.7"(386 ppi) IPS LCD OS Android KitKat 4.4.4 with MIUI 6 CPU 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 RAM 3GB GPU Adreno 330 Storage 16GB or 64GB, not expandable Networking Dual Band 802.11b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS Ports Micro USB 2.0, headphones Camera 13MP rear camera with OIS, 4MP front camera, Size 155.1mm x 77.6mm x 6.95mm Weight 161g Battery 3000 mAh, not removable Starting price ~$370 for 16GB, ~$449 for 64GB Other perks RBG notification LED, Dual SIM, NFC, Quick Charging

Xiaomi (roughly pronounced "Shiao-Me") is probably the most important company in the smartphone industry right now. The upstart OEM is the number one vendor in the world's biggest smartphone market—China—where it makes five of the top eight models. Xiaomi saw 227 percent growth last year, and, despite only doing business in about six countries, it's currently battling for third place in worldwide share behind Samsung and Apple.

The company caught our attention last year, and when we reviewed its flagship, the Mi 4, we were expecting a cheap iPhone knockoff. However, we came away extremely impressed by the device—especially the build quality. That was a 5-inch device, but now Xiaomi is targeting the iPhone 6 Pluses and Galaxy Notes of the world with a high-end phablet, the Mi Note.

Like the Mi 4, the Mi Note is hard to beat if you want bang for your buck. You get a 5.7-inch, 1080p LCD atop a 2.3GHz Snapdragon 801 with 3GB of RAM—nearly top of the line specs—for $370.

In its press materials, Xiaomi goes all out in comparing the Mi Note to the iPhone 6 Plus, where it seems determined to match or beat Apple's spec sheet. The Mi Note fits a bigger screen (5.7-inch versus 5.5-inches) into a smaller, lighter, thinner body (155.1mm × 77.6mm × 6.95mm versus 158.1mm × 77.8mm × 7.1mm). And while you would expect a competitive product like this from devices in the same price bracket, Xiaomi is doing it for half that. A 16GB iPhone 6 Plus is $749; similar Android phones from Samsung or Motorola cost about the same thing.

After spending some time with the Mi Note, Xiaomi has again blown us away with its ability to make a better product for less money. The Mi Note is impeccably well built with premium materials and construction all around. The frame is an aluminum alloy with polished chamfered edges and matching aluminum buttons. The front and back of the device are coated in Gorilla Glass 3, meaning—other than a few tiny strips for insulation—there is no plastic on the exterior of this $370 device.

At just under 7mm, with no bulges of any kind, the Mi Note feels absurdly, unnecessarily thin—we would have preferred a thicker device with more battery, to be honest. But coupled with the all-glass exterior and great build quality, it really sells this as a premium device. The downsides to the glass back are that, obviously, you don't want to drop it (though no smartphone is really designed to be dropped). And while it's fine to hold, on a table the glass back is a very low-friction surface. When testing the Mi Note, we discovered that some surfaces we thought were level weren't actually level, as the Mi Note would slowly slide off of them.

The Mi Note isn't perfect, though. Our biggest complaint is with the hardware buttons, which are just all-around odd. For starters, they're backwards. The normal order, from left to right, is Back, Home, and Recent Apps—but this has Menu, Home, and Back. And the Menu button isn't really a menu button, despite looking like one. By, default it actually opens Recent Apps. Only if you long-press on the "menu" button will the menu open.

Almost none of the apps on this phone have a menu. Google banished it from the wider Android ecosystem years ago, and MIUI, Xiaomi's Android ROM, has mostly stopped relying on the menu button in the latest version. There's really no point for it now. It's almost like somehow the hardware and software got out of sync—the hardware shows a button that the software doesn't need anymore. But in practice it works fine; it's essentially a mislabeled Recent Apps button. Why is it mislabeled though?

Xiaomi grows up

The most impressive aspect of Xiaomi is how it listens to user feedback and uses it to improve its products. That might sound obvious, but compare this to the way Samsung works. Most of the criticism for the Galaxy S II—released four years ago—could easily be applied today to the Galaxy S5. It's still made of cheap-feeling plastic; TouchWiz is still ugly and full of gimmicks; there's still a ton of carrier and Samsung-made crapware.

Xiaomi, on the other hand, is getting better very quickly. The plastic back of the Mi 4—which was still pretty good, for plastic—felt a little cheap, so the company replaced it with glass. The company's custom Android ROM, MIUI 5, relied on a lot of skeuomorphic elements, but MIUI 6 has a more modern, flat design. Hiding options behind the menu button is a dated, confusing interface feature. So while the Mi Note still has a menu button, by default it works as a recent apps button, and most MIUI apps no longer use a hidden menu.

The company is even improving on its biggest weakness: originality. The Mi 4 looked like an iPhone from the front and a Samsung phone from the back. Differentiating a rectangle can be difficult, but for the Mi Note, there are enough unique design touches now that it's not immediately identifiable as a rip-off of anything.

Sure, there is still a metal band around the outside, but it tapers along the sides of the phone, giving it a more distinct look. The glass back is curved along the sides, making it easier to hold—and a curved glass back adds to the device's uniqueness. The most impressive may be that for all the improvements made since the Mi 4, that device came out in August 2014. All of these changes happened in the last five months.

Xiaomi recently announced it will be tiptoeing into the US market by launching a version of its e-commerce site, Mi.com. Xiaomi gets a lot of guff for copying Apple's designs, but the company is really building itself in the Amazon mold. It wants to make money by building an ecosystem of services.

For now, Xiaomi says US smartphone sales are "not in our plan at this point"—it will start by selling accessories like headphones and external batteries. Still, it's hard to imagine a company opening a store in the US without intending to eventually sell its biggest product.

While Xiaomi won't admit it, the real reason it won't sell phones in the US is that, with its current lineup, it would be vulnerable to trade dress and patent lawsuits from the likes of Apple and Samsung. Xiaomi is starting to play the intellectual property game, though. The company said it applied for 2,000 patents last year, and it hopes to double that number this year. If Xiaomi ever wants to expand to countries with strong IP laws, it will need to audit its software and change any features that could be infringing. In an IP landscape where nearly every smartphone company is suing every other company, lawsuits for Xiaomi currently seem inevitable if it starts selling smartphones in the West.

Listing image by Ron Amadeo