This year the rumors related to the Global version of Xiaomi
Mi Band 5 described the arrival of an NFC payment system working in Europe and
support for the Amazon Alexa voice assistant. Unfortunately, none of this has
materialized and in the end the news brought by the smartband are more
"contained" than expected. In short, the hype generated by the rumors
was perhaps a bit excessive.
Once and for all the issue of rumors has been removed, the
time has come to think with a cold mind about Xiaomi Mi Band 5 , a device that
we have had the opportunity to try properly in recent weeks and which is sold
at a price of about 34 euros on Amazon Italy through resellers .
Design and unboxing
Let's start with an important assumption: Xiaomi Mi Band 5
is a product that follows a trail of "continuity" , starting from the
excellent success of Mi Band 4. This is understandable: difficult to upset the
market again with important innovations the year after having placed such a
shot. However, it is wrong to say that the Chinese company has sat on its
laurels, given that already from the sales package there is an interesting
novelty: a renewed charging system. In fact, the magnetic charging cable is
much more comfortable than the previous solution and it is no longer necessary
to removes the Mi Band from the strap, an aspect that was considered a flaw by
many. In short, the watchword is comfort.
For the rest, the packaging goes straight to the point as
always: in addition to the charging cable with magnetic attachment there are
only the Mi Band 5 and the multilingual user manual (including Italian). The
only thing that made us turn up our noses a bit is the length of the charging
cable, equal to only 45 cm (approximately). Probably more could have been done
from this point of view.
As for the design, at first glance it might seem that there
are no particular differences compared to Mi Band 4. In reality, the display is
larger: it is a 1.1-inch AMOLED panel (in the past it was 0 , 95 inches). The
resolution is equal to 126 x 294 pixels, while the maximum brightness is 450
nits. In short, a step forward has been made in terms of resolution and the
brightness is also good for outdoor use.
Of course, in some situations where sunlight is particularly
present it can still be a bit complex to read the small elements, but this is
nothing transcendental and in general we have not had any particular problems.
The weight of just 11.9 grams and the rubber strap give the
smartband a good comfort in practically all contexts. Mi Band 5 is a
lightweight device, built with the way users use it in mind. Of course, the
design has not been revolutionized: at the front we find the classic soft-touch
button and in general the look refers a lot to that of the Mi Band 4, but as
previously illustrated Xiaomi has made several improvements to improve comfort.
It may seems like a minor aspect, but in reality this is
noticeable during the daily use of the smartband. In case you are wondering:
there is water resistance up to 5 ATM(immersion up to 40 meters) and the
dimensions of the smartband are 46.95 x 18.15 x 12.45 mm. There are six colors
available: Yellow, Teal, Navy Blue, Mint Green, Orange and Black. We tried the
latter, which is a little more "classic".
Experience of use with Xiaomi Mi Band 5
Design certainly has its importance for a smartband, but
clearly what is fundamental is its behavior during daily use. From this point
of view, Mi Band 5 works very well and those who have already used Mi Band 4
will find themselves at home. Once the smartband has been pair with the smartphone
through the Mi Fit application , you immediately access the watch face, which
can be customized by downloading themes from the store present right inside the
aforementioned app.
The solutions available are several and cover all tastes a
bit. In addition, there are now also animated themes and you can select a photo
at will. Clearly each theme has its own peculiarities and can also vary the
information that appears on the screen. We have always preferred to opt for a
complete watch face, such as " Pleasurism ", which shows the weather,
remaining charge, day, steps, kilometers and calories in plain sight. However,
just to give you a concrete example, those who love a "cleaner" style
can opt for the range of "Photo Watch Face" themes, which highlight
the time, day and steps and allow you to select the photo you want.
As for live wallpapers, the " Y-Nuts " theme
series is very interesting", which shows cute characters on the screen.
There is also the possibility to select which widgets to set, choosing from the
default ones, accessible via a horizontal swipe from the main screen.
In any case, by swiping from the bottom to the top, you
access the "Status" tab, which presents a report of what happened in
the last week, focusing mainly on the steps taken, but also showing calories
and inactivity reminders. Just make another swipe and you notice something new:
the PAI (Personal Activity Intelligence) functionality. Put simply, we could
define it as a "motivational assistant": by accessing the PAI screen,
the user will find a "rating" from 0 to 100 relating to his physical
performance over the last week.
The statistics used for this value are varied and range from
heart rate to the age entered by the user. To "earn" PAI points and
reach the fateful rating of 100 every week, useful for keeping fit, you need to
do sports, from running to a bike ride.
Small note: to use the PAI system properly, it is necessary
to keep the function that constantly monitors the heart rate active, an aspect
that could affect in terms of autonomy. In any case, it is certainly an
interesting novelty, which in some ways recalls the concept of gamification .
Then we find the heart rate monitoring, the card dedicated
to notifications, which remain non-interactable but can be read, the
functionality to detect stress, a breathing exercise, the card dedicated to
events (to be added via Mi Fit), the page related to the weather and the
inevitable card dedicated to physical activities. Here is an interesting
novelty, as the sports modes go from 6 to 11 . Tracking has always been
accurate, especially for outdoor sports, which also use the GPS of the
connected smartphone.
The same goes for heart rate monitoring, the only aspect
that leaves something to be desired is the stress tracking, which in some cases
doesn't work as well as it should. Note the fact that Xiaomi claims to have
increased the accuracy of PPG biosensors by 50%.
By accessing the "More" tab, which lists all the
other available features, you will also find other possibilities: it is worth
mentioning the alarms, the ability to take pictures remotely via the smartphone
camera, the player to manage the playback of active music on the mobile device,
the functionality to make the smartphone ring when it is lost and the timer.
Finally, there is no shortage of a Do Not Disturb mode and automatic sleep
tracking 24 hours a day.
As for the latter, the data is accessible via the Mi Fit app
and there is also Rapid eye movement (REM) detection, as well as that of naps.
There is also an option for tracking the menstrual cycle. In short, we are
talking about a particularly complete software, which satisfies the needs of
all users. Too bad there is no monitoring of blood oxygen saturation (SpO2),
which has been present for some time on some competitive smartbands.
Coming to autonomy, Xiaomi Mi Band 5 features a 125 mAh
battery. You always get results similar to the past, so often you can't reach
the 14 days described by the manufacturer, but maybe you stop around 10 full
days of use with a single charge. It all depends on the use you make of the
smartband. Charging times are not particularly fast: it can take about two
hours to go from 0 to 100%. The Bluetooth standard used is 5.0 and we have
never had any problems with regards to pairing with smartphones. As for the
supported operating systems, these are Android 5.0 or later and iOS 10.0 and
later. An aspect to be noted at the software level is the absence of the
Italian language. We ran our test with the various options in English. In any
case, the Mi Fit app is in Italian and the settings are not very difficult to
understand. Also, our language will likely be introduced in the future via a
software update.
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