No doubt, Chinese manufacturing giant, Xiaomi, is one of the top companies that never forget about its devices. In fact, it is safe to call it the best company with regards to updates. While most manufacturers consider a two-year-old device as obsolete, Xiaomi still releases updates to a 5-year old phone. Some Xiaomi smartphones that were launched 5 years ago with Android 4.1 are now running on MIUI 8 and will soon be getting the MIUI 9 update which is based on Android 7.0 Nougat. A range of smartphones launched between 2012 and 2015 including Xiaomi Mi 2, Mi 2S, Redmi Note 4G, Mi 4i, Redmi 2, Redmi 2 Prime, and the Mi Note will be getting the MIUI 9 update between December 2017 and January 2018 which is a great news but the company has also announced that this is the final major update for these devices.
The company said on its MIUI forum
“…After November 17th, 2017, update for the following 6 devices, namely, Mi 2/2S, Mi 4i, Redmi Note 4G, Redmi 2, Redmi 2 Prime, and Mi Note will be suspended, both closed beta and public beta. MIUI Global Beta ROM 7.11.16 is the last beta update for the above devices. MIUI 9 Global Stable ROM for the above 6 devices and Redmi 1S will be released gradually from December 2017 to January 2018. For users of the above devices who have flashed to MIUI 9 Global Beta ROM, we will provide methods to flash to MIUI 9 Global Stable ROM, please stay tuned to the forum.”
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When this update becomes available, Xiaomi said that it would provide users who flashed the MIUI 9 Global Beta with directions on how to flash to the final MIUI 9 version via its official forum. MIUI 9 comes with a lot of new features which include an optimized performance which makes app loads faster, new app shortcuts, split screen, redesigned notification panel which includes bundled notifications and quick replies and many more.
Although terminating these devices from further major updates is disappointing, we still give kudos to Xiaomi because for many manufacturers, this would have happened about 2 years ago. Thus users should be rather grateful than disappointed. These smartphones are currently on MIUI 8 thus users have to be patient for a couple of months to get the final major update before the device is “forgotten”.