The looks

The Mi Band 5 features a barely noticeable upgraded design. For a device that's supposed to be worn on our wrists for the most part of the day, it could use with a little better look. It's, however, slightly larger than the Mi Band 4 with a 20% larger AMOLED display, which is certainly an upgrade. The display has no ambient light sensor so you have to manually adjust the brightness every time, but it can be pretty bright even in direct sunlight, so that's good.

The Mi Band 5 is also very lightweight with a thin wrist band, which makes it a comfortable wear and the display is responsive enough to not get frustrated.

Features

As expected, Xiaomi has packed in a load of features in this budget fitness tracker. It features integrated PAI metrics that track your overall fitness and gives you a fitness score. Every activity throughout the day adds to the PAI score and the goal is to keep the score above 100 to motivate you to maintain a fit, activity-full lifestyle.

The fitness band can track 11 sport modes including outdoor and indoor running, cycling, pool swimming (it as a 5ATM waterproof rating, meaning you can jump in the pool or the shower with it), yoga, jump rope and so on.

The Mi Band 5 features a continuous heart rate monitoring feature, meaning it can record your heart rate 24 hours a day – an extremely helpful feature, especially during Covid times

The tracker also sports a menstrual cycle tracking feature and a sleep tracking feature which we have found to be quite accurate and helpful.

Other impressive features include, GPS, lift to wake, smart features like app and phone call notifications, event reminders, accurate weather display and a wide range of watch faces featuring over 100 new watch faces for freestyle customisation.

The battery

The Mi Band 5 introduces a new hassle-free magnetic charging feature which is can refill the battery to 100% in about two hours. Xiaomi claimed that the battery can last up to 14 days with single charging. With the average day to day use and basic fitness tracking, it lived up to the promise; we used it straight for 13 days once fully charged. So charge it once a week or every ten days and you're good to go.

The verdict

The Xiaomi Mi Band 5 is a winner in every segment, except that it could have looked better and the Mi Fit app could use with a better interface. Apart from that, the Mi Band 5 should be the go-to choice for anyone who wants to try out fitness trackers for the first time but is hesitant to spend a fortune on them.

Photos: Zarif Faiaz