Xiaomi or Honor - which company's smartphones are better in 2022?

The great Asian battle is coming! Recently, Honor has separated from the Huawei brand and can now compete with Xiaomi on equal terms. The smartphones of these Chinese companies, which are generally developing in similar directions, are similar in many respects. But there are still differences, even very critical ones in specific situations. Which ones - read in the review.

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Case design

The back panel of most Honor smartphones is made of metal coated with a pleasant-to-touch paint, which makes the surface perfectly smooth. The manufacturer deserves a plus for the phenomenal integration of antenna strips that are completely invisible. They are arranged in a U shape on the top and bottom edges. In the case of Xiaomi, we get less premium materials, since the company makes smartphones from polycarbonate.

The front panel of both models is very similar - a display with rounded corners and a notch, a selfie camera, an ambient light sensor, a speaker for calls and a notification LED. It’s also worth paying attention to one aspect – the frames of Honor smartphones are a little thinner.

Let's sum it up

Both manufacturers are leaders in the modern mobile device market. Huawei (Honor) is a more well-known company, whose name and whose products have long been familiar to users all over the world. Xiaomi is a young and actively developing brand that is still “learning” from its mistakes, but at the same time produces excellent and competitive phones.

Each company has decent models in any price segment. So, for example, we cannot recommend buying an Honor, but we cannot recommend buying a Xiaomi (or vice versa). Make your decision yourself, taking into account all the characteristics of a particular model, reviews and based on what was mentioned above.

But if you still answer the question “which is better: Xiaomi or Honor?”, then the second option is slightly preferable. Huawei has a more powerful camera, slightly more reliable hardware, new firmware is released more often, more developed software, etc. Xiaomi products also have their strengths, but mainly win in terms of price and autonomy, being slightly inferior to their famous rival in other indicators. But perhaps it's only a matter of time.

Build quality

The arrangement of elements on the body is standard for both models - there is a switch on the right side, and above it a volume control strip.

The tray with the hybrid SIM card slot is located on the left side; it does not have any play and fits well into the grooves. The only difference is the location of the 3.5 mm mini-jack connectors, which are located on the bottom edge in Honor smartphones, and on the top edge in Xiaomi smartphones. Regardless of the components from which the body is made, smartphones from both brands are made with high quality.

Xiaomi adds round biometric sensors to its smartphones, which are located on the back wall. They are at the right height, so unlocking your smartphone using this biometric security is not a problem.

Battery

Huawei rarely has a battery capacity of up to 4,000 mAh. And Xiaomi's budget and mid-range smartphones rarely have a battery below 4,000 mAh. Therefore, the choice is obvious.

The price tag for Huawei gadgets starts from 7,470 rubles and ends at 44,990 rubles (according to Yandex.Market data) 19 phones were analyzed. The average price is 25,000 rubles.

The price tag for Xiaomi phones starts from 5,692 rubles and ends at 36,990 rubles (according to Yandex.Market data) 56 phones were analyzed. The average price is 20,000 rubles.

Xiaomi set a course for cheap smartphones on time: their markup is $3 for each phone. For comparison, for Apple it is $256, and for Samsung it is $154.

Huawei, seeing that sales were going up, sharply increased the prices of its devices. Therefore, now they cost more than Xiaomi equipment, and therefore we give the ball to Xiaomi.

operating system

Surprisingly, Xiaomi's first product was not a smartphone. On August 16, 2010, Xiaomi introduced the software to the world, which is currently one of the company's exhibits. I'm talking about MIUI, a proprietary add-on based on the Android operating system that is installed on smartphones from this manufacturer. Critics have often accused the Chinese of "copying" Apple's iOS.

Interestingly, in the case of Xiaomi, the Android version is not so important because the same MIUI overlay can be based on Android 4.4.4 Kit Kat as well as the latest Android 7.0 Nougat.

Xiaomi cares very much about its customers and its devices and regularly releases patches for its overlay, showing other more popular device manufacturers (who forget about their products very, very quickly and offer new models) how it should be. Regarding the accusations of copying Apple Inc., Lay himself (the creator of the company) never denied that Apple was a great source of inspiration for him in terms of the products themselves, as well as marketing policies, including even the conference at which the company's new products were presented .

Huawei's proprietary operating system should act as a platform connecting different types of devices. It will be present on smartphones, tablets, smart watches, wireless headphones, personal computers, new generation TVs, smart speakers and even systems prepared specifically for cars. The first devices with HarmonyOS were Honor Vision and Vision Pro TVs from a subsidiary of Huawei.

Brand ecosystems

Both companies produce a large range of portable equipment, ranging from smartwatches to laptops. In order not to delve too deeply into this topic, it’s worth focusing only on gadgets that are useful for smartphone owners.

Honor

Honor ecosystem devices are connected to each other using Magic-link 2.0, a proprietary technology that uses Wi-Fi and NFC.

Synchronization of user files is provided, as well as quick interaction between the phone and the MagicBook laptop running Windows 10. You can broadcast from the smartphone screen to the computer display, answer calls through the laptop microphone and type messages using the keyboard.

Among Honor wearable devices, the following are especially popular:

Fitness trackers Band

Inexpensive Band trackers have a standard set of functions for an amateur athlete, including a pedometer and heart rate monitor. The device case is protected from moisture, and the high-quality AMOLED display allows you to read incoming notifications. Detailed setup of the tracker is done through the “Health” application, downloaded to your smartphone.

Smart Watches and Magic Watches

The flagship Watch GS Pro smartwatch has a long battery life and a durable design with a large display. 4 GB of internal memory are needed to store music tracks that can be played on Bluetooth headphones paired with the watch - no smartphone required. The model monitors the owner’s physical indicators (for example, blood oxygen levels) and is also capable of receiving calls.

Wireless headphones Magic Earbuds

The affordable Magic Earbuds are considered one of the best among budget models. The main advantage of the device is active noise cancellation, which is very rare in this price category. The headphones can withstand 3.5 hours of operation without ANC enabled. The sound quality is at a decent level for this class, but is inferior to more expensive models.

All the reviewed gadgets are in the same price category as their analogues from Xiaomi, so users with a very limited budget can consider models from any of the companies.

Xiaomi

The brand’s capabilities in terms of organizing an ecosystem are wider than those of Honor, since Xiaomi produces not only smartphones and accessories for them, but also various household appliances, as well as other electronics. However, for now, Xiaomi phone owners are offered the same set of gadgets as Honor.

Mi Band 6 bracelet

An affordable tracker that tracks a person's physical activity level will appeal to athletes. The slightly elongated display of the device is protected from water by tempered glass. The bracelet supports 30 training modes and can withstand 2 weeks of battery life without recharging.

Smartwatch Mi Watch

The large and bright AMOLED display is convenient for viewing notifications and monitoring physical indicators. The water-resistant case protects the electronics from moisture, so the device is no problem for exercising in the pool or in the rain.

Redmi AirDots headphones

They are among the most affordable wireless models on the market. They do not have active noise cancellation, are stored in a simple and not very reliable case, and their sound quality is inferior to high-end headphones. Nevertheless, this is one of the best options under 3,000 rubles, which has earned great popularity among users due to its capacious battery, nice design and low price.

Winner: Slight advantage for Honor.

Processors

According to tests, the Snapdragon 875 installed on Xiaomi smartphones scored 333.269 points in the benchmark. Huawei's Kirin 9000 reached 275,862 points. It is worth adding that both processors are eight-core and manufactured using a 5 nm process technology.

The Snapdragon 875 wins probably because it uses a Cortex-X1 processor as its main core. In comparison, the Kirin 9000 uses Cortex-A77, which only offers 70% of the maximum performance of Cortex-X1. The main core of the Snapdragon 875 runs at 2.84 GHz.

The Qualcomm chip features an Adreno 660 GPU and the Kirin 9000 Mali G78 is 10 percent more power efficient than its predecessor. Huawei also boasted that the Kirin 9000's graphics performance is twice that of the Snapdragon 865.

Performance

Despite the fact that prices for Honor and Xiaomi smartphones generally do not exceed 35,000 rubles, they are equipped with powerful processors that provide high performance. Honor uses its own Kirin processors in its products, the distinctive features of which are technical characteristics, including high performance, as well as low cost. Using Kirin in devices speeds up the wait for updates and optimization of the software platform. Xiaomi, unlike its competitor, mainly uses Snapdragon processors, which means higher performance and lower power consumption, resulting in significantly longer device life. Thus, Xiaomi smartphones are in the lead at this point.

Camera

The main camera in most Honor smartphones is 16MP, and the lens has F/2.2 brightness.

The secondary lens is a 2-megapixel sensor with f/2.4 aperture. Using NPU artificial intelligence, Honor identifies 22 categories and analyzes over 500 scenes in real time. The smartphone can recognize and adjust various parts of the body when shooting.

In the case of Xiaomi, we are dealing with a more powerful set. The main sensor is Sony IMX363 with F/1.9 aperture and a single pixel size of 1.4 microns. Dual Pixel AF technology was used to measure focus. The secondary camera has 5 MP, F/2.0 aperture and a single pixel size of 1.12 microns.

While both smartphones take excellent photos in favorable lighting conditions and can produce photos with lots of detail, sharpness and well-crafted colors, the Xiaomi cameras produce more natural photos. Honor programmatically raises the colors, which may not please everyone.

Smartphones from both companies can record video in a maximum resolution of 4K. Of course, it's also possible to record in FHD resolution, although 60fps is only offered by Honor. Not only that, Honor also has better focus metering - autofocus does a good job of enhancing sharpness, which is not so noticeable in the case of Xiaomi smartphones.

Xiaomi or Honor - which company's smartphones are better in 2022?

Chinese smartphones have conquered the world. If you go to a store selling such goods now, you will see a huge number of devices from Xiaomi and Honor on the shelves. And which device to choose? To answer this question a little easier, we decided to compare smartphones from these two manufacturers.

In this material we will evaluate different models in pairs. Each pair of competitors will belong to one or another price segment. Let's start, as expected, with budget devices and end with flagships. As a result, we will understand which of the two Chinese companies copes with its task better.

Content:

Comparison of models

Honor 10 or Xiaomi Mi 8

Due to the smaller screen diagonal, Honor 10 is inferior to Xiaomi Mi 8. When comparing the pixel density of both phones, Honor 10 wins. In terms of maximum memory capacity, Honor 10 is no different from Xiaomi Mi 8. The Honor 10 model is equipped with a matrix with a higher resolution than Xiaomi Mi 8 .

Honor 8x or Xiaomi mi 8

Xiaomi redmi 6a vs Honor 7a

Xiaomi redmi note 7 or Honor 8x

Up to 25 thousand rubles

Xiaomi pocophone f1 (128gb) vs Honor 10 (64gb) are the two most hyped smartphones at the time of their release.

Pocophone f1 has a plastic back cover - this is its biggest disadvantage in comparison with its competitor, since it has a glass one.

Honor 10 has many beautiful and rich colors of the glass cover and it has a thick chin, this is due to the fact that there is an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, and also has a very small “notch”.

Pocophone has a large “unibrow”, as there is an infrared camera that can read your face day and night.

Both of these devices have a screen made using IPS technology, but the diagonal is different. If f1 has 6.26 inches, then Honor 10 has 5.84. The Honor 10's display is better than its competitor's - it's brighter, doesn't distort as much at angles, but otherwise everything is the same.

Advantages and disadvantages of Xiaomi

Xiaomi has low prices and good performance. Xiaomi Redmi 6, Mi 8, MI A1 or Pocophone F1 are popular and highly rated models. There are very few critics of the Xiaomi brand - reviews are almost only positive.

Among the shortcomings, we can only highlight the case materials of some models. Plastic phones are less durable and more prone to scratches.

Forbes published an article outlining very serious allegations against Xiaomi. Cybersecurity expert Gabi Zierlig proved that his Redmi Note 8 was sending information about what he was doing online on the smartphone to remote Alibaba servers allegedly rented by Xiaomi.

Every visit to the website was recorded and sent to remote servers. Moreover, the process continued even when Gabi was using incognito mode. But that's not all. The device also recorded which folders the user used and which screens they switched between.

The data was then packaged and protected with a very simple code - Base64. It took Zirlig a few seconds to crack it. The device sent all recordings to remote servers located in Russia and Singapore, whose sites were registered in Beijing. This is a very serious disadvantage.

Cons of Huawei phones

Like any brand, Honor has several disadvantages. Some of them are especially evident when compared with an opponent.

Model Confusion

The disadvantage is that the same Huawei phone has several variants, both under the main brand and under the Honor sub-brand. It depends on the country in which they are sold.

For example, the Honor 5C model sold in China has a fingerprint scanner. But this same model, which is distributed in Russia, does not have a scanner. There are 5 such examples.

This confuses potential users and makes it difficult to determine whether a person is buying an original product or a fake. An additional disadvantage here is that some Russian residents order smartphones from China, and the expected characteristics may turn out to be different.

Buttons on the screen

On-screen buttons are not a drawback. But the fact that a permanent, “non-working” area is allocated for these buttons reduces the usable space on the front side of the device. Also, these phones have a lot of space taken up by thick bezels on the front, located at the top and bottom. For comparison, Xiaomi has thin frames in almost all models and on-screen buttons take up less space.

The buttons on the screen of Huawei models reduce the “usable area”.

No oleophobic coating

Junior Honor models do not have an oleophobic coating, which is a layer that protects against fat and moisture.

Because of this, fingerprints and other contaminants remain on most smartphones.

The Honor 8, 9, 10 and 20 series received an oleophobic coating, but of low quality.

High price

Over time, the prices of Huawei gadgets are rising. Already, the most expensive devices from Chinese manufacturers are from this corporation. The price is justified by the quality and features, but it is strange that some flagships are priced on par with the giant of the smartphone industry - Samsung.

Advantages and disadvantages of Honor

Honor is a sub-brand of Huawei, characterized by lower prices while maintaining good parameters. Good price and appropriate parameters make them the best devices for everyday use. The main drawback of the new Honor smartphones is the lack of Google services. Yes, yes, you won’t find the usual PlayMarket or YouTube in the company’s new flagships. Theoretically, you will be able to watch videos on a popular video hosting site, but only in browser mode, which, of course, is less convenient.

About companies

Honor, being a subsidiary of Huawei, is one of the fastest growing brands. The young company fully follows the current requirements of the current young generation, which is considered to be the main target audience for Honor products. When creating smartphones, manufacturers focus on modern technologies for creating high-quality photographs and unique design, which is confirmed by the flagship version - Honor 10.

The creators of Honor were immediately ahead of their competitors and did everything to make it rise a notch higher. Not stopping there, Honor Play was launched and took performance to new heights with its GPU Turbo technology. All these products are among the top selling smartphones on online platforms. Honor's latest designs build on the excellence of previous series, delivering superior performance and design to its devices.

A worthy competitor to Honor is the Chinese brand Xiaomi, which is gaining popularity all over the world due to its phenomenal price-quality ratio and the variety of its products. Xiaomi has chosen the best marketing strategy that plays an important role in the success of the brand, and the name of this strategy is the company's low "net" profit. Selling only on an online platform also allows you to reduce the cost of the product to a competitive price. Thanks to the popular innovative advertising strategy, which is carried out through digital marketing and social advertising, Xiaomi's popularity is growing non-stop.

Owner reviews

Buyers respond well to Xiaomi smartphones, this is due to excellent technical characteristics at a low price. Here's what one buyer says:

“Very good phone at a very good price. I've had the Xiaomi Mi 9 for six months now and it's been a really good purchase. The phone has never lagged so far, and it is quick and convenient to use. Before purchasing, I was worried about the low battery, which everyone writes about. In my opinion, the battery is sufficient for everyday use. The phone works for about 1.5/2 days. Fast charging is a definite plus"

Honor has slightly less positive reviews, but still, buyers are satisfied with the smartphones.

Price policy

Xiaomi has no rivals in terms of price/functionality ratio. If only LeEco and Meizu can find a “state employee” with similar characteristics and a similar price. But the cheapest flagship is definitely only from Xiaomi. Who else will offer a top-end gadget for $200-300 (take the same Xiaomi Mi 8 SE, which debuted this year, or the 2022 flagship Xiaomi Mi 6)?

Huawei and Honor will definitely be more expensive. And in any segment. But as we have already found out above, the products of this brand outperform Xiaomi according to some criteria. In addition, Huawei has long been one of the best smartphone manufacturers. In this connection, the higher cost, in our opinion, is justified. Although many are still surprised why Chinese gadgets cost the same as phones from the Korean and much more famous Samsung brands.