Lesson 19 - How To Spot A Fake Xiaomi Phone!
Fame has only the span of the day; they say. But to live in the hearts of people, that is worth something.
The awesome quote above by Ouida, sums it pretty well what is happening nowadays with Xiaomi. Whenever your fame increases, people start copying you. Jumping a bit into history, Xiaomi Inc. is a privately owned Chinese company, with it's headquaters at Beijing. It designs, develops, and sells smartphones, mobile apps, and related tech. It primarily started as a custom rom OEM, by making MIUI. It had a plenty of new custom features at that time. It is now the 5th largest global smartphone manufacturer. It makes budget phones, which is one of the main reason for it's fame. But there is a downside of it. People make fake Xiaomi phones and sell them. There are ways to catch the fake ones. In previous lesson we learnt about 'Kernel', today we shall learn about 'how to spot a fake Xiaomi phone'. Hey guys, this is Soumya, from the MIUI Device Team. Let's get started.
Here, for your convenience, we will be comparing two Mi Notes; an original and a fake; at certain stages.
- Mi Verification App - Mi Verification App is developed by Xiaomi, in order to spot fake 'Mi' phones. Remember this app cannot verify redmi phones, Mi Pad, Mi TV, and other accessories. It tests the Hardware, Performance, and your device history. A fake Mi phone will fail in any of the three tests. I managed to test @satyajit_ghana's Mi4c. I will guide you in testing your device. First of all, download the Mi Verification App from here. Install the apk file.
Open the app, you will be greeted by this screen.Click on 'Turn on Performance mode',and activate Performance mode.
Click on 'Scan And Verify'
Visit jd.mi.com , and scan the QR code.
Your device will start upon getting verified.
You will get a similar screen if your device is authentic.
2. Authentication Label - Authentication label is just like a scratch card, which you will get when you buy a Xiaomi device from the official Mi Store. The official 3rd party sellers won't include this. if you import one Xiaomi device from a 3rd party seller, you will most probably find this label, because most of them are first bought from the Mi Store and then shipped to you. There are chances that you won't get this label, because your device might have been first purchased from one of official 3rd sellers, and then shipped to you.
This is @LuckyMeAgain's Mi Pad, which was imported from AliExpress, a third party seller. You can see there is an Authentication Label, which you need to scratch in order to get the code. A fake phone won't include this. Even if it is there, the hologram won't exactly be the same, and the code won't match. You can verify your device from here. You need to enter the 20 digits security code in the box. If the device is authentic, you will receive a similar message.
This is @mitch002 Redmi Note 2 bought straight from Mi.com in China, you can see the authentication label as well but take note that the new packaging of Xiaomi seen in the Mi5 box no longer has the authenticator label, this was also bought from Mi.com in China.
3. MIUI Version - Most of the 3rd party sellers ship the device with custom roms, and not with MIUI. Don't get it wrong, there are chances for your device to be authentic even if it has a custom ROM. So it is better to cross check by some other method. You can check whether the rom on your device is custom or not, by 'googling' the MIUI version. You will probably find a changelog for it on the forum, if it is the official MIUI ROM.
This is a fake Mi Note. It has a MIUI version of 6.3.6.0, which is not an official MIUI ROM. This fake Mi Note has 9GB of RAM, which i would love in reality. 
This is the real Mi note, having the ROM 7.1.3.0 installed, which is authentic. And yes, it has only a 3GB RAM. 
4. Android Version - Some of the fake phone manufacturers are so smart, that they tweak the android version too.  But we MIUIers are smart enough to address it, isn't it? But again not all of them do this. So being double sure is always good. The manufacturer of this fake Mi Note was smart enough NOT to tweak the android version!!
5. Installation of the Official MIUI ROM - OEMs won't manufacture fake Mi devices. Flashing the official MIUI ROM will brick the fake Mi phones. Wondering why? There are certain parameters for the installation of a ROM, like device codename, hardware cooridnation, and so on. Lets take an example of Redmi Note 4G. Suppose you have a fake Redmi Note 4G, but you don't know it. If you flash the MIUI ROM, it will brick because simply the ROM isn't designed for your device. It won't support your fake Redmi Note 4G. So that is the reason it will get bricked. Whereas if your device is authentic, the rom will get installed with ease. This one of the easiest method to test your device, but do it on your risk, as your device might brick!
6. Physical Comparisions - A fake Mi phone will be different from the original one physically too. There might be some difference in the dimensions, Mi logo, build quality, camera design and so on. I will be comparing the two Mi Notes again. The golden one (Mi Note Pro) is authentic, whereas the silver isn't. Look at the differences! Especially on the MI logo which is enlarged version than the original one.
 
7. Benchmarking - Benchmark scores can help you to test your Mi Phone pretty easily. There are several benchmarking apps, the best among them for me is AnTuTu. Different benchmarking apps have different scoring systems. You can compare your score with those of your friend, or you can search on Google to verify your device. Remember, if there are slight differences in the scores of the verified device and your device, then you can consider your device to be legit. If there is a considerable/huge difference, then your device can be termed as fake. Again we will be comparing the two Mi Notes.
8. Bloatwares - Bloatwares are unnecassary, useless, pre-installed software on your phone. They can do a lot of harm, from slowing down the device to stealing your personal informations. Some bloatwares cannot be removed by simple uninstall method. Fake Mi phones have custom ROMS, and so there is a lot of possibility of bloatwares present in it. Most bloatware have Chinese characters that are pretty nonsense.
9. In-box Accessories - Fake Mi Phones can ship in with duplicate in-box accessories. Original Xioami Phones don't ship with earphones, this can make it easy to spot a fake one. The charger may not have the Xiaomi branding, which can make it fake. The user guide is present in legit Xiaomi Phone box. The fake one might not have it.
10. Price - The price can be a deciding factor too. Usually the fake ones are sold at an aggressively low price, which tempt the users to buy it. It is highly recommended to check your device if the price difference between the original one, and the device bought by you is high. Third party sellers usually sell them at a low price, to attract the users.
Lets take for example this fake Mi Note, it was bought from Taobao.com at the same SRP during the launch of Mi Note. Which was quite risky because there was no mark up in any sense from this seller, therefore the buyer received a fake Mi Note.
11. AnTuTu Officer App - This is a pretty new app in verifying the authenticity, we have tried to use this app and tried to verify the Mi5 of mitch002 and this is how it goes: download the app from Google Play Store, run the app and it will prompt you to go to your pc and type into your browser y.antutu.com and scan the QR code in your computer monitor. Next it will connect to its server and verify your phone, the next thing you will know is if you have an authentic or fake one. It matches the hardware to the original registered specs in their servers.
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