The competition between the two popular smartphone companies, Xiaomi and OnePlus just got fiercer with their respective fitness bands – Mi Band 5 and One Plus Band. Both offer similar features and have almost the same price points.
Here is the detailed comparison between both brands
Design, Look and Feel – Mi Smart Band 5 vs OnePlus Band
Both weigh round 20 grams, while the Mi Smart Band 5 has a curvy design, the OnePlus band has a box-type design. The Mi Smart Band has a little touch button below the display, which is not present on the OnePlus.
The OnePlus has its branding on the screen, some may like it, some may not be happy. But Mi Band 5 has a clean screen.
Both have a 1.1-inch AMOLED display in front, with sensors on the back that goes into the band. Both bands are comfortable, though the OnePlus feels a little better Both bands are water resistant, and also offer a 5 ATM rating, which means you can wear it when you go for a swim too.
The two fitness bands have a tilt to wake up feature, but the Mi 5 is a tad faster. Secondly, the Mi5 Smart Band has a wake-up touch button at the bottom of the display, so you can actually wake it up, if it goes off. The OnePlus doesn’t have this feature. But you can tap anywhere on the OnePlus band to wake it, but it can be a hit or miss.
Functionalities and Performance – Mi Smart Band 5 vs OnePlus Band
The features offered are identical – both Mi Smart Band 5 and OnePlus Band have sensors to monitor sleep, sense heart rate and count steps. However, Mi Fit health app is available both on Android and iOS device, but OnePlus Health app is currently only on Android.
The MI Smart Band tracks conventional exercises, but the OnePlus tracks cricket and badminton as well. But then the Mi Smart Band also comes with a menstrual tracker and a system to measure stress. What we like is the PIA or Personality Activity Intelligence, which measures overall physical activity and wellness to calculate your fitness. The PIA should ideally be above 50 to assess you as a fit individual. The OnePlus band lacks this feature though we hope it can be resolved with an update. However, OnePlus comes with an SPO2 tracking which measures oxygen levels in the blood, something that helps in the COVID scenario.
When it comes to actual monitoring of how these devices perform, both OnePlus Band and Mi Smart 5 gave accurate readings for heart rate and step counts. The Sp02 readings on OnePlus were not that accurate as one could get from a pulsi-oximeter but not too far off too. Sleep tracking is not accurate with OnePlus band wherein it said quite a few times that I slept much lesser than what I think I did.
OnePlus vs Mi Smart Band 5 Battery Life
Both bands claim to offer battery life for 14 days, but that also depends on how you use them. Other things unchanged, the Mi Smart 5 has a better battery life, running close to what it claims but the OnePlus loses juice in a week. That is also because Mi Smart Band 5 has a bigger battery, 125mAh as compared to 100mAh on the OnePlus.
The charging style is different with Mi Smart Band 5 having a magnetic charging, which means you can charge with the strap attached. In case of OnePlus band, it comes with a separate box charger, wherein you have to remove the tracker from the band, for charging.
The MiFit app has a lot more features since it is evolved over the past few years. The OnePlus app is clutter-free and has a simplistic design, it has a long way to go.
Phone-based notifications
If you are a fan of notifications, then you would like the OnePlus band, because they are faster than Mi Smart Band 5. But both offer notifications from the phone, like your messages, alerts, social media updates, picture taking, seeing incoming calls and taking pictures. The music controls however are better on Mi Smart Band 5
Conclusion
At this point, the Mi Smart Band 5 is better value for money than OnePlus, better sensors, better UI, more phone faces, better battery life, stress and menstrual cycle tracking. 3rd party app customization is also very good on the Mi Smart Band 5. OnePlus has managed to nail the hardware, but it needs to game up its software. By the way, The Mi Band is also more fluid to touch.
But if you are looking for blood oxygen monitoring as a feature, then go for OnePlus band. If you’d rather go for an oximeter, and want a fitness tracker for doing what it does best, then, by all means, go for Mi Smart Band 5
Buy Mi Smart Band 5 here – https://amzn.to/3992ZAZ
Buy OnePlus Band here – https://amzn.to/3pdwQ0X
