Xiaomi just recently launched the new Mi Band 5 model in China. And we have been using the smartband for the past few days. While it’s not a huge upgrade as compared to its predecessor, there are still some important features that give it a slight advantage over the Mi Band 4. So if you are planning to buy the Xiaomi Mi Band 5, make sure to read our review first. 

Also, we are giving away the Mi Band 5 to one of our lucky YouTuber subscribers. You can participate in the giveaway from the link at the end of the article or from the review video that you see below. 

What’s the difference between Mi band 5 and the Mi band 4?

There are only a few differences in their hardware and design.

The most remarkable difference is that the Mi Band 5 features a slightly larger AMOLED display, up from 0.95 inches to 1.1 inches. That’s not much of a difference but the screen now has smaller bezels and a larger area to display more information. While the size difference is hard to perceive on a day to day basis, when we directly compare it with Mi Band 4, you can see the additional line of information available due to its larger screen size.

Another upgraded feature is the display brightness, which can reach up to 450 nits and allows you to view the display clearly under direct sunlight. But it still doesn’t have auto-brightness-adjustment, so you’ll have to max up the brightness manually. This could be a pain because the brightness setting is hidden deep inside the settings menu. But in most cases, you’d be happy with a set brightness level. 

There are more than 100 new themed dials to choose from as claimed, including 54 famous IP themes such as Spongebob Squarepants, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Ali the Fox. But so far, some special themes have not been found in the watch face store. It seems that some of them are only available in Chinese version. 

Another wonderful improvement is in its charging method. The Mi band 5 brings an all-new magnetic charging dock. If you had the Mi band 4, you’d how annoying it was to charge it, even if it was once every few weeks. That’s why I’m so grateful for the new charging method, even though we only charge it once every couple of weeks. But pay attention here, Xiaomi did not improve the charging speed, which is understandable as we don’t need to charge it frequently.

So that’s all the design difference between the Mi band 5 and 4. To be honest, they look almost identical. Since the size of the new body is the same as the Mi band 4 (only the bezels were reduced to increase its display size), we were able to replace the original strap with the Mi Band 4’s strap.

You can also check our out Mi Band 5 hands-on for some additional pictures of the device.

Editor’s Pick: Best watchfaces that you should try on Xiaomi Mi Band 4

Mi Band 5 Review: Fitness Tracking Gets New Modes & PAI scores

As one of the best cheap fitness trackers, Mi band series has been doing an excellent job in offering various health tracking features. In addition to Mi band 4’s six sports modes, the Mi band 5 supports several new exercise options, offering a total of 11 sports modes. We haven’t tested all the sport modes, but it should be a step up from what you get with the Mi band 4. And for swimming mode, the Mi band 5 also supports 5ATM waterproof as the Mi band 4 did. So, you can wear it even when taking a shower or while swimming.

Besides the sport modes tracking, the Mi band 5 supports some other important health tracking, including improved sleep tracking, blood oxygen tracking, smarter heart rate monitoring, stress test, PAI scoring system, and menstrual cycle tracking for women’s health.

To see if the sleep tracking is improved on the Mi Band 5, our colleague tracked his sleep wearing the two bands at the same time. Well, there was a slight difference in sleep tracking but it’s hard to say which one is more accurate. One detail worth mentioning is that he said he woke up to take a phone call at around 8:20 am. Only the Mi band 4 recorded it down while we couldn’t see it in the Mi band 5’s timeline. 

And the heart rate monitoring can be activated all day with different frequencies. But it could increase the power consumption of the band. And it also features a heart rate alert. Simply put, it can warn users about abnormal heart rate issues through vibration and notification.

The new stress test and PAI scoring system can help users understand their physical state through tracking. Giving a numerical figure to your physical activity is a good way to see if you are moving towards your goal of becoming fit. The Mi Band 5 showed that I basically stayed at a relaxed state but had a poor fitness. Although it’s hard to say if the PAI score is accurate, at least it’s informational and will motivate users to be fit.

Mi Band 5 Review: New Remote Camera Shutter  

Besides working as an excellent health tracker, the Mi band 5 also reserves a lot of practical features as a helpful assistant. The smart band comes with features such as Idle alert, notification and call reminder, music control, weather reports, phone finder, and so on. We’ve introduced a lot about these features in the Mi Band 4 Review, so there’s nothing really new here. In addition to the above list, the Mi Band 5 has also added a remote camera control feature via Bluetooth. It can act as your phone’s camera shutter, but it’s still not capable of controlling video shooting. It’s nothing really special but for some, it’ll make shooting photos much more convenient, especially when you are traveling alone or need to take group shots.

Mi Band 5 Review: Same Battery Life As Its Predecessor

As for its battery, there is no remarkable improvement. The Mi band 5 can last for around 15 days without turning on some features like all-time heart rate monitoring.

After wearing it for five days, it consumed 36% of power, which is an acceptable result. But as mentioned at the start of this Mi Band 5 review, the magnetic charging makes it way easier to charge the device every couple of weeks.

So that’s everything about the Mi Band 5. It’s an excellent smart wearable with practical and useful features. And more importantly, it’s really hard to find a better choice at such a price tag.

As mentioned at the start of the review, we are giving away one unit of the Mi Band 5 to one of our YouTube subscribers! Just follow the steps in the gleam widget below to participate in it.

Giveaway: Win a Mi Band 5

The Mi Band 5 is also up for grabs via GizTop! You can check out the listing here.   

UP NEXT: Xiaomi backed Haylou Solar Smartwatch Review: The Best Budget Smartwatch

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Xiaomi’s best selling Mi Band lineup has got a new update today: the Mi Band 5. The new wearable brings significant upgrades to the company’s smart band family, including a new magnetic charging design, a larger dynamic OLED display, and new sports modes. The band also comes with a brighter display that goes up to 450 nits, improving its visibility outdoors.

Larger Display with 100+ Animated Watchfaces

The new Mi Band 5 retains the same pill-shaped design of the Mi Band 4 and has a variety of wristband colors. You can choose the TPU wristband in eight different colors which include – graphite black, deep space blue, dynamic orange, bronze purple, vibrant yellow, light green, dark cyan, and ivory.

The Xiaomi Mi Band 5 comes with a large 1.2-inch dynamic color AMOLED display, protected by a scratch-resistant 2.5D glass on top. This marks a significant increase in its screen size (more than 20%), allowing more information to be displayed at a glance. Another highlight of the new display is the support for new dynamic animated watchfaces. You get over 100 new animated watchfaces and there are some special ones based on characters from popular series’ like Neon Genesis Evangelion (EVA), Hatsune Miku, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Case Closed.

As mentioned above, Xiaomi has also increased the peak brightness of the Mi Band 5’s AMOLED panel, increasing it to 450 nits from 400 nits on its predecessor. You also get five levels of brightness adjustment.

Better Health Tracking

New Indoor Sports Modes

Considering the current situation across the globe where indoor / home exercises are gaining popularity, Xiaomi has added five new indoor modes for the newly launched Mi Band 5. This includes indoor machine and floor exercises like rowing machine, elliptical machine, skipping rope, yoga, and indoor cycling /spinning. This combined with the already available six exercise modes like swimming, walking, cycling, etc gives you a total of 11 specific tailor-made sports modes on the new wearable.

 More Accurate Heart Rate and Sleep Tracking

The Mi Band 5 comes with a photoplethysmogram (PPG) biosensor for accurate 24 x 7 heart rate monitoring. Xiaomi claims that the new wearable increases the accuracy of irregular heart rate monitoring by up to 50%. Sleep tracking also gets an upgrade and its accuracy has gone up by 40%. It can also show you how many hours of REM sleep you’ve had every night, in addition to deep and light sleep.

Xiaomi Mi Band 5, for the first time, will also calculate your Personal Activity Intelligence (PAI) score. PAI is calculated by monitoring your heart rate and gives you a fair idea of your physical activity every week. A PAI score of 100 or more in a week indicates that you have an active lifestyle.

 Magnetic Charging solves the biggest Pain Point of its Predecessors

Each generation of the Mi Band has had at least 2 weeks of battery life. But charging the device was a painful process – you had to manually remove the device from the wristband and place it in the charging cradle. Plus, there were a lot of complaints regarding the charger’s design.

The Xiaomi Mi Band 5 finally solves this pain point by using a magnetic charger. The charger easily connects to the two charging pins on the device, so you no longer have to remove it from the wristband.

The new Mi Band comes with 14-day battery life, so you just have to do it once every two weeks. It’s also waterproof up to 50 meters – just like its predecessor.

Xiaomi Mi Band 5 Pricing & Availability

The Mi Band 5 comes in two variants – NFC and non-NFC. The NFC variant is slightly more expensive at 229 yuan (~$32) but the non-NFC variant is priced at just 189 yuan (~$27).

The Mi Band 5 will go on sale on June 18 at 10 AM in China.

Honestly, the new Mi Band 5 raises the bar for smartbands this year. With a larger display and better health tracking, you get a lot of features for its sub-$30 pricing!

Love the new Mi Band 5? Don’t forget to participate in our Mi Band 5 giveaway for a chance to win it!

The post Xiaomi Mi Band 5 launched with a Larger OLED Display, Better HR monitoring & Magnetic Charging appeared first on Gizmochina.

Xiaomi will officially take the wraps off the Mi Band 5 in China tomorrow (June 11). Ahead of the launch, the smart band was earlier listed on Jingdong for pe-sale but the page didn’t show the price tag. However, a blogger has revealed a screenshot purportedly grabbed from Xiaomi’s self-operated store on Jingdong which shows the Mi Band 5 will retail for 189 yuan (~$27). If true, that is an amazing offer considering the upgraded design and features that have been revealed to feature on the smart band. For the avoidance of doubt, the store listing now shows ¥9999.

A good deal of the features that would ship with the Mi Band 5 have already been officially outed. The smart band is said to feature seven major upgrades compared to the previous generation model. The upgrades include Dynamic Color Screen, a new magnetic charging, NFC UnionPay flash payment, remote control camera, professional sensor upgrade, 11 professional sports modes and a new Women Health mode. The fitness tracker will also come with more comprehensive heart rate sleep monitoring, built-in high-precision sensors, and can also process heart rate changes during exercise, providing more accurate data support for the wearer.

In terms of the design, the Xiaomi Band 5 official renders are already in the open, confirming its 20 per cent larger display. The next-gen Mi Band is said to pack a 1.2-inch display which is bigger than the 0.95-inch one on the Mi Band 4.

In addition, the smart wearable will also feature support for Google Pay along with Amazon Alexa smart voice assistant on the global variant. The Chinese variant will have the company’s own XiaoAI Smart Voice Assistant. Expect to see the Mi Band 5 in four watch strap colours; Black, Green, Yellow, and Red.

P.S. The Mi Band 5 is already available to pre-order on Giztop for just $32.99. If indeed the smart band will retail for $27 in China, then this is an amazing price, coupled with the fact that you get to be among the first persons to own the wearable.

UP NEXT: Xiaomi Mi Band 5 Has Gone Up For Pre-Order For A Lowered Price Of $32.99 on Giztop

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