Do All Xiaomi Smartphones Work In The United States?

If you’re looking to buy a Xiaomi phone, and you live in the US, what’re your best options when it comes to carriers? In this guide, we’ll detail the best carriers for Xiaomi phones.

Xiaomi phones are great. They’re packed full of specs and amazing hardware and they retail for a lot less than phones from Samsung and Apple. Even Xiaomi’s ultra-flagship phones like the Xiaomi Mi 11 that comes with similar specs to the Galaxy S21 Ultra are priced aggressively. However, we guess most of you will prefer the Galaxy S21 because Xiaomi phones are not designed with the US market in mind. Moreover, you cannot just buy one and run it on your favorite carrier’s network. You need to think about what bands your carrier uses and what bands your Xiaomi phone supports. And this makes the Xiaomi phones less attractive for the US customers.

All to often, people are blinded by the value presented by Xiaomi phones. They see the price and impulse buy the phone only to later realize that the phone doesn’t supported their usual carrier’s bands. So before buying a Xiaomi phone, you should know which Xiaomi phones work in the USA.

Which Xiaomi Phones Work In The US?

In fact, not all US carriers support Xiaomi. If you want a quick answer about whether your Xiaomi phone will work in the USA, use this tool. The latter will tell you exactly which carrier works with your specific Xiaomi phone model.

The tool itself is not much accurate but it works. However, you can ALWAYS go with either Mint Mobile or T-Mobile for Xiaomi phones in the US. They both support four out of the six bands used by Xiaomi phones. But it depends on the model you’re buying. Therefore, you need to check the phone’s bands. And then check whether T-Mobile or Mint support these bands. Most new Xiaomi phones – those from the last couple of years – should run fine on Mint Mobile and T-Mobile. And the reason is because Mint and T-Mobile support the bands that modern Xiaomi phones use for 3G and 4G LTE.

What You Should Know

The first thing you need to consider is whether the Xiaomi model you want to buy is going to work on your carrier’s LTE frequencies. Not all Xiaomi phones have the right 4G bands to work with American carriers. So make sure you do that little bit of homework before you acquire one. A good site for checking if the phone you’ve got your eye on will work with your carrier is this one.

Also note that the Google Play Store does not come pre-installed on some Xiaomi devices sold in China. Of course, Xiaomi devices sold in some markets do have the Play Store installed and there are ways to install manually. Just keep that in mind when picking a website through which to buy a Xiaomi device. It is always worth looking for the Global Version of any Xiaomi device you plan on importing to the US.

Where to buy Xiaomi phones in the US

The first place to take a look is mi.com where you can choose your delivery country from a drop-down list and see what devices and accessories are available in your region. The website also has a really good overview of the phones. So you can conduct research to find out which one you want to buy. Xiaomi has also launched in the UK. So you can check prices on the British website.

Once you know you want to buy a Xiaomi phone in the US, the next step is to find an online retailer that sells it. You can always check Amazon.com or eBay.com to see if any of these sites have offers available. But your best bet is to look up one of the larger retailers that will ship a Xiaomi device to the US. Please note that some retailers charge extra for delivery to the US.

Newegg.com is one of the most popular online retailers through which to buy Xiaomi devices. Stocking a ton of Xiaomi devices, Newegg is a great online retailer with some massive discounts available.

Banggood has a nicely set up site in English and also ships to the US. Banggood is also famous for offering heavily discounted phones, including those from Xiaomi.

Geekbuying.com is the last on our list of reliable places to buy Xiaomi phones but it certainly shouldn’t be considered the worst choice. Geekbuying has a great reputation and also offers Xiaomi phones at heavy discounts.

Which US Carrier Is The Best For Xiaomi Phones?

Verizon’s network runs predominantly on Band 13 and Xiaomi phones don’t support this band. So if you want to run a Xiaomi phone on Verizon Wireless you’re out of luck – it simply will not work.

And this means Xiaomi phones will not run on Xfinity Mobile either, as it is powered by Verizon’s network. AT&T is slightly better; it supports two bands that Xiaomi phones use, though this isn’t ideal – more bands is always better.

For the best overall band-support, T-Mobile is your best for running Xiaomi phones in the USA. T-Mobile will deliver solid data support across bands 2, 4, and 12 and this should be more than enough to run your phone properly without any hitches.

Wrapping Up

So do you live in the US? Have you ever used a Xiaomi phone? How did you buy it? Let us known!

It’s also useful to check some tips and tricks about How to Make Xiaomi Smartphones Faster , some Android Games To Play On Xiaomi Phones and some wallpapers for your Redmi Note 10. If you need any help, please, don’t hesitate and drop your issue in the comment section, we will be happy to help you. Let us know!

Image and some ideas credit | nextpit