Which brand is the best, Xiaomi or RealMe?

Xiaomi for the win, it isn’t a copycat brand, at least! Yes, I wouldn’t deny that some mid-2017–2018 designs of Xiaomi are inspired by iPhones, but think about it- Xiaomi doesn’t copy every bit of Apple. On the contrary, realme is just a copycat brand with no originality.

The statements told by their key people in their product launches are full of irony. Madhav Seth (CEO, realme) once quoted “We sell phones, we don’t sell ads”, taking a jab at Xiaomi for displaying advertisements in MIUI. But now, at present, realme too has plans and is reportedly rolling out “ReComMEnDaTiOns” which is just slang for advertisements.

When Madhav Seth was asked about why did they add advertisements, he had the same generic answer “to sustain a profitable business model”. The issue here isn’t at all that they introduced ads, but it is that they originally took a jab at Xiaomi for following the approach, only for realme to shamelessly follow it in the future. Enough of talks about their irony, now let's jump to technical details.

Xiaomi

               

• Pros:

1. Has the industry-leading custom ROM support for almost all of its devices.
2. Has the best in class UI design, and has even won awards. MIUI is beautiful.
3. Has regular updates, doesn’t eventually forget it’s older devices in terms of updates that easy when compared to rival realme.
4. Takes all of its devices seriously. It does not release devices with really minor changes, unlike rival realme.
5. UI features aren’t overly copied and/or inspired, realmeUI on the opposite has many features just picked from MIUI and renamed.
6. Has best tweaking support, kinda similar to #1, but since tweaking doesn’t always mean custom ROM, here’s a separate point.
7. Xiaomi has a better ecosystem than that of realme
8. Xiaomi devices don’t affect fingerprint sensor or OS upgrades reception when their bootloader is unlocked, unlike ColorOS and realmeUI

• Cons:

1. Xiaomi has optional advertisements in its UI which can be disabled, and that’s it.
2. Has data mining services, which can be deleted and fully disabled too.
3. Come with a lot of bloatware (that can be uninstalled).

realme

               

• Pros:

1. realme has good devices within the best possible price, gives tough competition to Xiaomi resulting in consumer benefit.
2. It does have good software upgrades but phones start to get ignored more when they’re even over 10 months old.
3. Previously was also known as the clean Xiaomi in the tech community, for their practices of completely copying every approach they make but removing advertising stuff. That stuff is now irrelevant since ads are coming to realmeUI soon.

• Cons:

1. Very little to no custom ROM and custom tweaks, mods support.
2. Their heat management system is bad.
3. Many devices ship with MediaTek processors which is trash.
4. Software isn’t as optimized as MIUI.
5. They will start to get data mining services and advertisements in the future.
6. On a moral side, realme takes a lot of jibes on Xiaomi, while at the same time shamelessly following their approach.

Links: Pretty hilarious proofs of what copycat a brand realme is