MIUI V5 Beta out for Xiaomi Mi 2 Devices to try Out, Live Icons and more Goodness

The MIUI team released a beta of MIUI V5 about a week ago for current owners of the Xiaomi Mi 2. The  Mi 2 is primarily a device that is found in China, but for the specs and the physical price tag to get one into the states, we are sure some of you might have snagged one. MIUI is no stranger to the Android community. The custom Chinese ROM is supported on 36 different Android devices in cooperation with MIUI and MIUI.US. 15 million users of a custom ROM is a pretty good chunk of users.

The latest build is a beta release for MIUI V5. We know the devs out there who love the MIUI ROM’s will get to work on porting it themselves to their favorite devices. It has been a while since I have explored MIUI. I used to run it exclusively on my Samsung Vibrant, the original Galaxy S. It was the fastest ROM around and added in a ton of customization. Looking at the press document that they sent over to us, I see some pretty great stuff that definitely wasn’t around back in those days. The MIUI team is saying it is the fastest and smoothest MIUI ROM ever. Speed is always key to a great ROM, but so are its features. The new MIUI V5 Beta has some pretty stellar features packed inside.

Live Icons: Your Email, Weather, Data Usage and Calendar icons are now live icons. Meaning that they display relevant information on the icon without the need to open the app. Your calendar icon changes the date, the data usage app shows your current data usage percentage and the weather icon gives you a temperature as well as changes how it looks based on the current condition. While the number of emails waiting in your inbox is nothing new, it is nice. The rest is pretty friggin awesome really.

MiSpace added features: MiSpace was launched 6 months ago. We showed you guys a video of it back then, it is a visual desk that is your home screen. It is fully customizable and is completely different from any home replacement look you have ever seen. MIUI has added in some few features to the MiSpace like allocating icons where you want them and assign and place additional icons were needed. You can even add in 3rd party widgets finally.

There are new messaging functions like timed messages and pin message conversations so they remain at the top of your inbox. New tabs and formats have been added to you Contacts app to help you get to the people you need to talk to quicker. The camera app now has a simple or professional mode. Heck, even the weather app has been enhanced to show high and low trends for the next 5 days.

All in all it looks like a pretty impressive beta release. If it makes it to the Galaxy S III, I might just have to root and flash it to check it out myself. Heck, there might already be one out there. If you are interested in picking up the ROM file, you can head over to the official MIUI page to get it. Don’t go flashing on any device though. It is built for the Mi 2 only. However, if you are gonna translate it and build it for another device, that would be awesome. It shouldn’t be too long from now before it starts getting put out for more supported devices. A current MIUI V5 beta tester has a pretty good look at it all with plenty of screenshots over at en.miui.com, check it out.