Good news Xiaomi Mi 4 owners: Windows 10 is coming later this week


windows 10

The Xiaomi-Microsoft collaboration is finally starting to bear fruit. After Xiaomi announced that there would also be a Windows-powered version of the new Mi Pad, it has been learnt that another pre-existing Xiaomi device will get support for the Windows 10 operating system.

If you’ve been following Xiaomi’s proceedings from this year closely, you will probably have read at one point that the Mi 4 was going to support Windows. That is finally happening.

Gizchina News of the week


According to Xiaomi, the Mi 4 will get its first Windows 10 ROM later this week, starting December 3rd. The release, as we understand, is going to be public and anyone with an Mi 4 should be able to flash the Windows 10 ROM on their phone.

Xiaomi already invests a large chunk of its finances into development of MIUI — its own version of Android — so it is hard to tell what exactly Xiaomi will be getting out of this partnership. But a problem of plenty that its users will be faced with isn’t something they’re going to complain about, certainly.

Disclaimer: We may be compensated by some of the companies whose products we talk about, but our articles and reviews are always our honest opinions. For more details, you can check out our editorial guidelines and learn about how we use affiliate links.

Previous Gionee Marathon M5 Plus launching December 21st
Next Get a chance to buy a Ulefone Be Touch 3 for $99.99!

27 Comments

  1. justyfier
    December 1, 2015

    i want a dualboot phone

    • inquirercet
      December 1, 2015

      Until you realise that your 16gb rom has only 4gb left out of the box…

      • balcobomber25
        December 1, 2015

        My Mi4 had about 12.5 GB left out of the box.

        • inquirercet
          December 1, 2015

          Does it come with dual boot out of the box? Because I was just replying to the hypothetical dual boot stated by the original post of this thread.

          • balcobomber25
            December 1, 2015

            Ahh gotcha.

          • MaxPower
            December 1, 2015

            the MI4 comes with dual boot somehow.

            it has 2 boot partitions and both runs MIUI out of the box.

            I’m not sure if each partition has the whole / (root) or just the data folder (i haven’t checked yet)
            but I would guess yes since once i deleted a system file that caused a bootloop, so i had to boot from the second partition (through the recovery tool) and the file was there.

            MI4 has a Fastboot feature (power button + volume down) to pick the OS (which can be two different version of MIUI)

            for the recovery tool you use the power button + volume up.

            that’s why it takes so much space.
            So to answer to your question…
            yes, MI4 comes with dual boot out of the box

            • December 2, 2015

              Reminds me of my Mi 2s days. There used to be this recovery that was needed to enable ‘true dual boot’. I had both CM and MIUI running on the phone. It was the bomb back then

            • balcobomber25
              December 2, 2015

              Learn something new everyday!

      • justyfier
        March 10, 2016

        that’s why 64gb-128gb should become the norm

  2. Akimitsui
    December 1, 2015

    Ahh finally, I will definitely be trying this out.

    • Akimitsui
      December 1, 2015

      Thankfully, there are MiBand apps for Windows 10. =)

  3. Guaire
    December 1, 2015

    Make a Mi5 Windows model and bring it to my country. I will give it a try.

  4. balcobomber25
    December 1, 2015

    I have been using Windows 10 Mobile for about a month now, overall it is a lot better than Windows 8 but the app gap is still noticeably present. It’s a step in the right direction but until developers take it serious it still just a niche product for hardcore Windows fans.

    • Guaire
      December 1, 2015

      To closing the app gap, they need larger market share IMO and they won’t get that with Lumia phones.

      Next generation flagships will be out in a couple of months, but they just released overpriced 950 and 950 XL with the infamous SD810.

      • balcobomber25
        December 1, 2015

        Will be interesting to see how the 810 does in Windows. Lumia phones are actually selling very well in Asia, but they do need more third party support (besides Blu and HTC).

        • Adam Irvine
          December 2, 2015

          The 810 will do just fine on Windows as Microsoft will just underclock it I guess like One Plus did and Microsoft will easily get away with it because Windows Phone has always been more fluid and responsive than Android even on much lower spec devices. It’s either very well optimized or it doesn’t do half the things Android does in the background (or both) lol

          • balcobomber25
            December 2, 2015

            One of the few good things about Windows mobile is how well it runs on lesser hardware. Windows doesn’t rely on a virtual machine like Android does and it also has virtually no background processes running, when you close an app in Windows it shuts down, most Apps in Android continue running in the background (especially Google services) which kill performance and battery life. A SD810 powered windows phone with 2GB of RAM will probably have comparable performance to a SD820 powered Android phone with 4GB of RAM.

            • VMortens
              December 2, 2015

              That’s all facts, except the battery part. In Android, with couple of tricks you can reduce battery use close to nothing, if needed. Setting stiff mobile band, switching off data, wifi on demand only and auto-brightness and my Elife E7 was able to last ofr 3 days. With Lumia 920 my wife uses, doing same things and switching the Saving Mode, doesn’t change a thing – still lasts for a day only.

            • balcobomber25
              December 2, 2015

              The battery part I mentioned is a fact, keeping those background services always running will kill your battery. My comment wasnt about whether or not you can or can’t reduce battery life, it was about the effect of background services. Using the steps you outlined will save battery life, but that had nothing to do with my comment.

  5. MaxPower
    December 1, 2015

    this is finally happening!

    • balcobomber25
      December 1, 2015

      Will gp great with my new Opple Mocbook!!!

      • MaxPower
        December 1, 2015

        lol

      • Maxiao
        December 2, 2015

        I’ve got a Bolex watch which i will treasure forever 🙂

        • balcobomber25
          December 2, 2015

          I actually did buy a knock off Macbook Air last time I was in China. It was $300 US and it has made an awesome Ubuntu Book. A year later it is still running without issue.

    • December 2, 2015

      Chinese bimbos. Hmmm…..

  6. Angry Mobile Nerd
    December 1, 2015

    I agree this is a good thing. More choice for consumers and the only way Microsoft is going to capture more marketshare is if they get Windows 10 on more non-Microsoft devices.

  7. lolipop
    December 2, 2015

    lets hope that MI5 will get a Windows Rom option, too.