Compare Xiaomi Deals

Xiaomi is a Chinese tech giant with a particular focus on smartphones and the internet of things. In June 2021 is became the number one smartphone brand in the world when it comes to sales volume, displacing Samsung and Apple for the first time.

The brand's enormous growth since its founding in 2010 has occurred mostly in its huge home market, as well as India. In recent years, however, it has started to make a concerted push into Western markets.

Its flagship range is the Xiaomi Mi series, but it also owns the popular Redmi budget sub-brand and the increasingly popular Poco mid-range sub-brand.

Xiaomi was an early 5G adopter, announcing the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 5G in February 2019, and all of the mainline Mi range currently being sold in the UK offer 5G connectivity. However, none of its budget Redmi phones come with 5G, and only one of its recent mid-range Poco phones.

Across its three main smartphone brands, Xiaomi offers several choices for every budget. It has assembled a genuinely rich and varied roster.

You can roughly divide Xiaomi's smartphone offering into three main sub-brands: Mi (premium), Poco (mid-range), and Redmi (budget), though there's a fair amount of overlap.

Xiaomi's top-of-the-line flagship phone is the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, which offers cutting edge components across the board, including a stunning 6.81-inch QHD 120Hz AMOLED display and a Snapdragon 888 CPU. Its headline feature is a huge 108MP camera sensor and an equally impressive 48MP 5x periscope telephoto lens, as well as a rear-mounted display for taking superior quality selfies.

However, most people's pick for the best Xiaomi phone would likely be the more mainstream and manageable Xiaomi Mi 11. It's just as powerful as the Ultra, with a similarly impressive display and a decent 108MP camera, but it's more compact and costs hundreds of pounds less.

The cheapest Xiaomi phone on the market right now is the Redmi 9A, which costs just £99 SIM-free at the time of writing. It features a 6.5-inch HD+ LCD display, a MediaTek Helio G25 processor, and a single 13MP camera.

However,  you may be able to get the Redmi 9 for a similar price due to discounts, which features a sharper FHD+ display, a faster Mediatek Helio G80 processor, and a full quad camera system.

Xiaomi has a number of great-value smartphones, regardless of budget - the aforementioned Xiaomi Mi 11 is significantly cheaper than most of its flagship rivals, for example. However, we'd highlight the Poco F3 as our top value pick.

For around £320 SIM-free it features a near-flagship-level Snapdragon 870 processor, an excellent 6.67-inch 120Hz AMOLED display, fast 33W charging, and a competent 48MP main camera. We should also highlight the Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite, which gives you a classier design for around £80 more.

It's genuinely tough to keep track of recent Xiaomi phone releases, as it launches so many variants across so many different territories. Unlike Samsung and Apple, it doesn't have a single line-up that it launches globally.

At an August 10 event held in its native China, Xiaomi announced the Xiaomi Mi Mix 4, a premium smartphone that seeks to minimise the display bezel by using an under-display selfie camera. We have no news on a global launch as yet.

Xiaomi has earned its place among the smartphone elite with a dizzyingly vast roster of phones that compete at all budgets. The latest Xiaomi Mi 11 family provides a top quality flagship experience, the Poco sub-brand punches well above its weight in the middle of the market, and the Redmi sub-brand turns out some of the most solid cheap phones money can buy.

It can be difficult to get a complete overview of Xiaomi's smartphone offering, as it's rather fractured and region-specific. But make no mistake, Xiaomi is now a major player on the global stage, with an established UK roster. You can buy into this brand with confidence.