Xiaomi Mi Max 2 Review: Does Longevity In a Phablet Matter?

Sometime in mid-June, Xiaomi unveiled the second generation installment of the Mi Max series to the rest of the world – one which boasts a powerful battery life and an enormous display: the Mi Max 2.

Related:

• Xiaomi Mi Max 2 vs ASUS Zenfone 4 Max Comparison, Battery Review
• Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 with “real” Bezel-less design leaks

But the question still remains: is the Mi Max 2 worth the price? And most importantly, is it also for you?

Display

As a phablet, the Mi Max 2 has an enormous 6.44-inch IPS LCD display that sports a beautiful 1920×1080 resolution covered by a Corning Gorilla Glass display. Its large size enables you to see each detail that you can ask for in a phone while being powered by an Adreno 506 graphics card, though I think the colors need to pop up a bit more.

Unfortunately, the Mi Max 2 is not water or dust resistant like a lot of phones in the market today, so that’s one thing you might also need to consider as well.

Design

As a phablet, the Mi Max 2 has a large 6.44-inch Corning Gorilla Glass display, which helps capture each detail that you can ask for in a phone while being powered by an Adreno 506 graphics card.

The humongous Mi Max 2 is also covered in a thin metallic unibody, with its cameras placed at the top half of the phone next to the earpiece, while three backlit non-capacitive keys – namely the Back and the Overview button on each side of the small Home button in the center – are layered at the bottom half of the phone. Its bezels are pretty thin but they’re still visible nonetheless, and if you have the gold Mi Max 2 with the white bezels, you’ll find that the bezels are still pretty distracting.

Found at the back of the Mi Max 2 are its 12MP single camera lens and flash at the top-left corner, with a physical fingerprint scanner at the sunken circular space behind the device. I find this an uncommon location for a fingerprint scanner to unlock your phone, but it may work well for some people who are tired of unlocking their phones through their Home buttons.

Portability-wise, Xiaomi’s phablet is pretty heavy at 211 grams, but it makes up for it with its thinner body, and its density somehow distributed its weight equally, so the Mi Max 2 doesn’t feel heavy for a phablet its size. How Xiaomi also managed to cram a 5300mAh battery inside a thin phablet is something I also find quite impressive.

With a thin body, it feels good to hold and carry around, especially if you have large hands. But despite its sturdy body, I sometimes feel like its large, thin body could accidentally bend at one point, but thankfully it never happened during our time.

Camera

The Mi Max 2 comes with a 12MP single lens rear camera and a 5MP front camera, which are pretty standard compared to most phones nowadays. In terms of loading time, the Mi Max 2 surprisingly loads well, partially thanks to its Snapdragon processor, and for a phablet that only has 12MP, it adjusts well when exposed to outdoor lightings and low-lit environments, which makes it quite versatile to such conditions.

It even comes equipped with a few preinstalled filters of its own, one of which includes a Beautify option that, you’ve guessed it, makes you look better on-cam for better selfies. It even detects the subject’s faces and guesses their genders and ages, in the process, but it isn’t always accurate (e.g. it once guessed my age and gender right but later labeled me as someone ten years older with a man’s face).

However, the Beauty mode acts automatically and you can’t really modify how you look with the filter on.

For group selfies, the Mi Max 2 also has a GroupShot option for you and your friends to take selfies with, which works well with the phablet’s large display.

The Mi Max 2 also supports 4K resolution videos and can take 1080p and 720p videos with up to 30 frames per second. It can also take slow motion videos at 720p for 120 frames per second, which is pretty good.

Performance

The Android-powered Mi Max 2 primarily comes with Xiaomi’s MIUI 8, which, with the Mix Max 2’s powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, makes it a powerful device that doesn’t suffer from lags. I noticed that while playing high-performance games and browsing the internet with the Wifi and Bluetooth on for nine hours.

Various benchmarking tests conducted from different tools gave us the following results:

AnTuTu Benchmark v6.2.7 – 59477
Geekbench – Single-core: 882; Multi-core: 4305
PCMark – 4776

Playing around with the Mi Max 2 with WiFi and Bluetooth on felt seamless, mainly due to its powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor and sleek MIUI 8.0 interface.

Battery Power

The Mi Max 2 is packing with battery power thanks to its non-removable 5300-mAh battery. It’s strange to imagine how Xiaomi managed to fit a large battery in such a thin device, but it works.

Charging the Mi Max 2 took us two hours to get it to 100%, which is a bit of a shame since it doesn’t support Quick Charge, but its powerful battery life makes up for it. Using our Manila Shaker Battery Rating, we can conclude that the Mi Max 2 can last up to 65 hours and 20 minutes, which is pretty impressive for a phablet.

In terms of battery power, we measured the following results from the Mi Max 2 and compared its battery life to other competitors with big battery lives:

• Xiaomi Mi Max 2 – 65 hours and 20 minutes
  
• ASUS Zenfone 4 Max – 63 hours and 12 minutes
• Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra – 31 hours and 12 minutes

From here, we can see how long the Mi Max 2 would last long, and for a device with a powerful battery power, I find it even more impressive that you can even get such a phablet at a medium-sized budget.

Sounds

Xiaomi’s phablet has two speakers, which are pretty loud and obvious when you’re watching videos. The audio clearly resonates from the Mi Max 2, which makes it good for when you need to take calls in the noisiest environments.

Fortunately for music lovers, the Mi Max 2 a 3.5mm headphone jack, so basically, you can plug in any earphones on the go. Listening to the audio with earphones didn’t disappoint either. Our copy didn’t include earphones, but listening to it with non-Xiaomi earphones felt just as great, nonetheless.

Capacity

The Mi Max 2 comes with either 64GB or 128GB worth of internal memory, with 4GB worth of RAM, which you can expand up to 256Gb through a microSD card.

Verdict

For a phablet its size, the Mi Max 2 has potential. It doesn’t have other gimmicky options that make it stand out compared to other phablets, but it works in delivering what people want in a phone, and with a powerful processor and surprisingly smooth interface, Xiaomi’s phablet is pretty good for its price.

The only thing I’m disappointed about is the lack of waterproof or dustproof capabilities, which is a factor that people consider in choosing their phones nowadays, though I do hope Xiaomi would include such features in future phablets.

But if you’re really looking for phablets – or you happen to have large hands or fingers that you can easily carry this phone with – then you’d find the Mi Max 2 a good choice.

Xiaomi Mi Max 2 Full Specs, Philippines Pricing