[deanhills]

Say does anyone had any experiences with a Xiaomi phone?  I saw Redmi Note 5 for $162USD off AliExpress and converted back to my local currency would make ~$216CAD which is quite cheap for a phone.  It looks decent and I'm in need of something cheap so I thought about getting it.  The phone supports all 2G & 3G bands here (but our carriers here don't really use 2G anymore anyway, we're always in at least 3G coverage), and B7 for 4G LTE for all carriers.  I think a few also support B41 which is the stuff they use in China and I assume it's just in Canada for them to roam here so I doubt coverage on B41 would be good anyway but B7 should be enough.  Has anyone had any experiences with the phone itself?  Want some feedback from owners before purchasing it.

I've heard only rave reviews of Xiaomi, only thing is you must check whether there is a reliable service Center for Xiaomi available close to you just in case something happens.  I haven't ever heard feedback where someone needed to service it, but I know in the UAE there are certain big stores like Carrefour who support Xiaomi in a big way.  If I should buy a Xiaomi phone from them and experience a problem, all I need to do is take it to the Carrefour store where I purchased it from, and they will make arrangements for servicing the phone.  It's good however to verify the availability of support in advance of the purchase of a Xiaomi and if I should buy a Xiaomi one day - which there is a good chance off because it has the specs and price I like - I'll verify this with the store from where I buy it from first. 

I traveled to Canada during May and must say it felt as though Canada compared with the US and the rest of the world is operating in the dark ages, and trying to fight its way out of a very protective locked in system. You can't get a good SIM card upon arrival at the airport.  There is something at the 7 and 11 at Vancouver Airport that when I googled it came up a cropper - so I waited until the next day to check things out and lucked out with a Roberts chatr SIM. I'd particularly check up on real support of the Xiaomi there before I buy a phone as most of the really good phone brands like the iPhones are all locked into popular packages (the big providers seem to have all of the good phone brands locked in - however there seems to be a movement happening to get out of it).  Canadians for the bigger part seem to be supporting locked phones in preference to phones like Xiaomi (being non the wiser for now).  Guess one could get a prepaid Chatr with Xiaomi but I'd make sure there is a service center that will service Xiaomi and how the service warranty works for it before I buy a Xiaomi.