MIUI 13 Review: Extreme Privacy Updates, New Experience

Xiaomi held the launch of the Xiaomi Mi 12 series flagship new product. In addition to the much-anticipated Xiaomi 12 series mobile phones, the new MIUI 13 operating system was also officially released at this conference.

MIUI has been the leader among the major Android mobile operating systems since its inception, and its feature richness and detailed experience have always far surpassed other Android competing systems. But in the past year, the MIUI 12 system has encountered many bad reviews due to various bugs and regressions inexperience.

Now, the new MIUI 13 has been released. Can it reverse the decline of MIUI 12 and restore the excellent quality of the MIUI system? Today we will take a deeper look through the actual hands-on experience.

The Xiaomi 12 Pro mobile phone is equipped with the MIUI 13 stable version (version 13.0.12.0.SLBCNXM) for the experience test. Without further ado, let’s start directly.

Basic experience

Regarding the problems of MIUI 12, Xiaomi said that they have been paying attention to and solving them. In the past year, they disassembled more than 6,000 videos of network feedback, sorted out 425 problems, and continued to repair and clear them. Up to the Enhanced Update this November. MIUI stability has returned to previous years.

On this basis, the general idea of ​​this year’s new MIUI 13 system is to be faster and more stable. The MIUI team has abandoned optional updates, focusing instead on features with real meaning and strong perceptions to users. On mobile phones, the first point is basic optimization.

The smoothness of the Xiaomi Mi 12 Pro MIUI 13 system through the “metaphysical curve” and the frame rate of the mobile phone system. The editor observed the smoothness of Mi 12 Pro’s sliding on the main screen, using the negative one-screen function, switching in the background, and opening the system’s applications such as “Weather”.

As can be seen from the above screen recording, in these most commonly used scene tests, the system fluency of MIUI is indeed very stable, the frame rate fluctuation of the system is maintained at about 3 frames, and the basic interfaces such as the main screen and settings are all With a frame rate of 120fps, the actual feeling is even smoother. Some built-in apps such as “Weather” and “Music” are limited to 90fps or 60fps, but the general use is still smooth and stable.

Then there’s the smoothness of opening third-party apps. The editor selected the most commonly used apps such as “IT Home”, “Bilibili”, “Weibo”, “QQ”, and “WeChat” for testing, and the results are also in line with the editor’s expectations. The fluency of these apps is very good. During use, the fluctuation of the number of frames is very low, and the blue vertical tone of the metaphysics curve is below the red line, which is very stable. In inexperience, there is no frame drop.

Combined with the daily experience of Xiaobian on the Xiaomi Mi 12 Pro, the stability and fluency of MIUI 13 are indeed at a relatively high level, and the daily use and operation can be done like flying. The refreshing feeling of using MIUI is back.

Another embodiment of the basic optimization of MIUI 13 is the resident ability of background applications. To verify this feature, IT Home tested the background residency capability. During the test, the editor first cleared the background applications of Xiaomi Mi 12 Pro and then selected 20 mainstream applications and opened them one by one. After all 20 apps have been launched, go back to the first app and reopen it.

Judging from the following screen recording process, after 20 apps are opened, only 4 apps have their backends killed. This kind of backend app’s performance is still very satisfying. In the past, I used my mobile phone to switch applications a little bit, and then I restarted when I came back.

In addition, MIUI 13 also supports liquid storage technology. The official said that after 36 months of continuous use, the read and write performance will degrade less than 5%, and it will be as new for a long time. The Mi 12 Pro has not been released for a long time, so related tests cannot be carried out immediately, and long-term observation is required.

In general, the basic core experience of MIUI 13 has returned to the level it should be, and daily use is stable and smooth enough. Of course, occasional frame drop also exists, but it is rare. It can be said that MIUI 13’s efforts in basic optimization are worthy of recognition.

Privacy experience

The optimization of the basic experience is the focus of MIUI 13, but not all. In addition to the basic experience, MIUI 13 has also upgraded other aspects of the user experience. Their first concern is privacy.

MIUI 12 has done more comprehensive privacy protection before. This time, MIUI 13 focuses on adding three privacy protection capabilities.

The first is system-level privacy occlusion for face recognition. There is hot news before. Although the face recognition of many mobile phones can only see their face in the interface, they can be photographed by the camera bust, which may expose privacy.

Now, Xiaomi has achieved system-level privacy occlusion in MIUI 13, which is based on the modification of the bottom layer of the system, so that when the user is performing face recognition, places other than the face will be blocked.

Because this is system-level, the same privacy protection can be achieved regardless of whether the user is doing face recognition in the system or calling face recognition in a third-party application.

The second function is privacy watermarking. Because now there are more and more businesses that can be handled online, and the situation of taking photos and uploading them is more frequent. If these ID photos are not protected, they are likely to be stolen and used elsewhere. Now, MIUI 13 has introduced a one-click addition of the privacy watermark function in the Album app. It can intelligently identify sensitive photos such as ID photos and then add a privacy watermark. After clicking it, just input the watermark text to add a watermark to the picture. This prevents the photo from being used elsewhere.

In addition to the privacy watermark, MIUI 13 has upgraded its anti-telecom fraud features, introducing a system-level full-link anti-fraud function, which runs through the entire telecommunication fraud link. It provides “electrical fraud warning”, “official identification”, and “transfer protection”. “And so on multiple guards, so that telecom fraud is impossible to take advantage of.

When the user receives a fraudulent call or text message, MIUI13 will directly give an early warning prompt on the relevant page so that the fraudulent call and text message is clear at a glance.

At the same time, MIUI13 provides official identifications for the calls and text messages of relevant national departments to prevent users from missing important information; even when transferring money, MIUI13 will also carry out risk transfer warnings to prevent users from being deceived.

System aesthetics, Better appearance

An operating system must provide users with a comfortable experience. In addition to the functional details, the design beauty of the system itself and the interaction details must be excellent enough. So, in terms of aesthetics, how does MIUI 13 do?

First of all, MIUI 13 introduces 9 sets of dynamic wallpapers with the theme of crystallization, which can be selected in the wallpaper settings of the system. The crystal wallpaper is not dynamic on the desktop, but when the screen is locked, you can see the process of crystallization of the element material, which is fresh and beautiful. Moreover, the crystallization animation on the lock screen is continuous when it enters the main interface. When the crystallization is completed, the desktop wallpaper will become static.

In terms of icon style, drop-down control center, and notification center, MIUI 13 has not changed much compared to MIUI 12. The overall aesthetic style continues the previous generation, with soft colors, simple elegance.

However, Xiaomi has changed the system font in MIUI 13 and introduced a brand new MiSans font. The new font form is more concise, straight and powerful, and conducive to screen display. Compared with the previous Lanting font, it looks more refreshing visually.

In addition, MiSans font has richer typesetting features. For example, lowercase characters will automatically sink, and special characters such as mathematical symbols will also have corresponding standard typesetting formats. At the same time, different lines of text can also be adjusted by word spacing and size. Aligned to the ends, it looks more comfortable overall. It is worth mentioning that the new MiSans font is free and open; whether it is a commercial company, free designer, or other practitioners can use this font freely. The other is animation and motion effects, which are important details that affect the comfort of interaction at the design level. On MIUI 13, the overall dynamic effects are relatively rich and uniform. For example, if you use the crystalline wallpaper mentioned above, you can see the beautiful material crystallization process when you light up the screen.

The animation to enter the main interface of the system from the lock screen is simple and fast, with a short rebound: The button clicks in the control center will also have corresponding small animation effects and accompanied by a slight vibration, and it is very comfortable:

When the built-in apps such as settings and photo albums are launched back to the main interface, the icons will have corresponding small animations: Tap the application icon; the icon will shrink and then bounce back:

These detailed animations are not exaggerated to interfere with the smoothness of interaction. Still, they can also allow users to perceive the joy of interaction in the meticulous control of agility and liveliness.

However, when it comes to animation, some editors are not very used to it. Or a place that doesn’t feel very uniform. First, the animations launched by the notification center and the drop-down control center are a bit blunt.

For another example, there is no background blur when opening a folder, which is inconsistent with the blur effect of entering the background and the blur effect of the drop-down menu.

Of course, changes like this, on the other hand, are helping to improve the fluency of the system. Generally speaking, the appearance of the MIUI 13 system is also online, and the overall comfort of interaction is believed to be very satisfying. The needs of some consumers.

Personalization

MIUI13 also contains some functional upgrades, among which the upgrade of widget functions and the upgrade of Xiao Ai are more worth mentioning.

The first is the improvement of widget functions. MIUI 13 has added a new widget system. The types and styles of widgets are very rich. For example, there are Nordic reindeer, abstract composition, dynamic color text, glow tube, and blue color—different kinds of fun styles such as planets and Morse code.

In addition, MIUI 13 has also added personalized widgets that allow you to display personalized signatures on the main screen. These personalized signature cards have different design styles to choose from, which can make your mobile desktop unique.

In addition to personalized signatures, there are also widgets for personalized tools in MIUI 13, such as drinking water measuring cups, hand account collages, rainbow batteries, what to eat today, exercise steps, etc. In short, there are many things to explore.

The widget support for third-party applications is also very rich, such as NetEase Cloud Music, Weibo, iQiyi, map components, Alipay, where to travel, etc., and so on.

And it’s worth mentioning that the widgets in MIUI 13 and the one-screen card of the system are “family”, and the widgets on the main desktop can be moved directly to the one-screen card, which is very good.

The existence of small parts can make the Xiaomi mobile phone in each user’s hand “thousands of machines and thousands of faces”, which greatly increases the personalization ability and playability. When it comes to personalization and playability, MIUI 13 has another important measure: users can customize their Xiao Ai students in all aspects.

You can customize Xiao Ai’s wake-up words, timbre, and avatar on Xiao Ai’s settings page. These three points are enough for everyone to create their own unique Xiao Ai. The customization of wake-up words allows users to use Chinese words composed of 4-6 Chinese characters, such as “Hello Xiaoai”, “Hello Mitu,” and so on.

The customization of Xiao Ai’s tone requires the user to read the text fragments given by the system for recording. After the voice is recorded, it can become the voice of Xiao Ai’s classmate.

When recording, you’d better find a relatively quiet environment. From the actual results, Xiao Ai’s restoration of the recorder’s timbre is relatively accurate, and the sound quality effect is relatively full. It is even better if you have friends who broadcast.

There is also the customization of avatars. You can choose male and female genders in the system, and you can also take photos and upload images. However, IT House tried to take pictures and found that the generated images were not modeled according to the appearance of the photographer, basically just gender, Same as the photographer.

In terms of character details, such as hairstyle, face shape, glasses, nose and lips, body shape, clothing, accessories, etc., all can be customized, and the optional model combination is still very rich.

After the image is customized, MIUI 13 will also give a debut animation of the customized avatar. In this way, when everyone wakes up Xiao Ai in the future, the customized avatar will also jump out. There will be different actions under different instructions, which greatly increases the intimacy of Xiao Ai.

If you often use the voice assistant in your mobile phone, Xiao Ai, which has a new customized image, will greatly increase your pleasure in using the voice assistant. It will be much more frequent than the previous emoji image customization.

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Verdict

After so many years of exploration and upgrades for the operating system of Android phones, the systems of major manufacturers are relatively complete in terms of functions, and continuous additions have brought low editing benefits inexperience. On the contrary, proper subtraction ensures the core experience is where software interaction capabilities are more considered.

The same is true for MIUI. The new MIUI 13 does not have complicated functional updates but focuses on basic fluency, stability, and comfort. This can be understood as a necessary measure after experiencing the twists and turns of MIUI 12. Still, in essence, it is also a step that should be taken after the increase in the size of Xiaomi mobile phones and the expansion of the types of terminals covered by MIUI.

From this point of view, MIUI 13 has also achieved the purpose of restoring its vitality and rectifying it. Its basic experience and core interaction have returned to the level that MIUI should have. Maintaining this foundation and continuously optimizing it is also the cornerstone for MIUI to meet the era of the Internet of Everything.