Smart speakers are highly popular right now. They’ve evolved into modern-day necessities and a possible barometer for better life choices. You have the option of choosing the corner you want to be in. Configure your smart home experience around the Google Assistant using the Google Home and Google Nest smart speakers, or the recently released Mi Smart Speaker. It’s similar to the long-running Android vs. iOS discussions, though possibly not to the same degree.
So, if you’re split between buying the well-known Google Nest Mini ($34.99) or the recently introduced Mi Smart Speaker (~ $47.99), keep reading because, in this post, we’ll compare the two smart speakers and determine which is the best overall.
Mi Smart Speaker vs Google Nest Mini – Design
Google Nest Mini
Despite the Nest Mini’s low price, there’s nothing in its design that suggests it’s a budget speaker: The design is contemporary, sleek, and unobtrusive, especially if you choose a mild hue like Chalk (off-white) or Charcoal (grey-black). You may definitely spice things up with the two more colorful options – Coral (pink-red) or Sky (light blue), but those may not be suitable for everyone’s living space.
The Nest Mini includes a cloth mesh on top that hides three touch-capacitive controls for raising and lowering the volume, as well as play/pause, regardless of which color you choose. A rubberized base complements the fabric mesh on the bottom and covers a mic mute button on the back near the power port. Last but not least, there’s a spot on the bottom for a universal mount for convenient wall mounting – a first for Google’s speakers.
Mi Smart Speaker
The Mi Smart Speaker, on the other hand, features a semi-cylindrical shape that is surrounded by a 0.7mm thick metal mesh. Volume, play/pause, and mic muting are all controlled via the touch screen on the top.
Because this isn’t a true “portable” speaker, you’ll have to leave it plugged in at all times. However, because the gadget isn’t very heavy, you may easily move it from place to place if you only want one speaker for your household.
Mi Smart Speaker vs Google Nest Mini – Features
Google Nest Mini
While the inclusion of Bluetooth is wonderful, the Google Nest Mini’s main mode of interaction is, of course, Google Assistant.
If you’ve used other virtual assistants such as Siri, Alexa, or Bixby before, or if you’ve used Google Assistant on some other Android device, you’ll know what’s coming: a decent assistant that can turn into your schedule to make appointments, write notes, set timers, control music from renowned streaming services, connect to some smart TVs, and respond to many – but not all – of the queries you can think of.
If you have more than one Google Assistant speaker, you may set up multi-room groups in the Google Home app to listen to the same song on other speakers and manage any smart devices you have if you’re too far away from the Nest Mini.
Mi Smart Speaker
The Mi Smart speaker’s ‘smartness’ comes from Google Assistant, so you can rely on it to answer your questions or schedule your appointments and alarms as efficiently and effectively as any of Google’s other products.
You may also use the built-in Chromecast to stream audio directly to the speaker. With this, you will be able to pair the Mi Smart Speaker with your Smart TV and use it to amplify the volume. You can also use two of these as stereo speakers if you have multiple Mi speakers.
Then there’s the standard smart home fare. You may use the speaker to manage your lights, security cameras, smart plugs, and devices.
Mi Smart Speaker vs Google Nest Mini – Audio Performance
Google Nest Mini
The speaker’s music is acceptable; it has good clarity in the mid-range, which is ideal for speech replication, but it’s not particularly musical, particularly in the high and bass areas. It will astound you with how loud it can go, but the exhausting treble and weak bass don’t provide for the finest listening experience when listening to music.
You won’t receive any stereo separation while listening to the speaker due to the way it’s made; however, you will receive a 360-degree sound that allows you to place the device anywhere in the house, particularly in small places like a home office. If you like music, it’s not the absolute best, but it’s one Google had to make for a speaker of this size and function.
If you’re coming from the first Google Home Mini, the great thing is that you’ll be blown away by the upgrades Google made with this speaker. The Nest Mini, for example, features three speakers, one more than the original Home Mini, and double the bass response. You won’t hear stereo-channel separation, but it’s still a significant improvement.
Mi Smart Speaker
A front-firing driver is used in the Mi Smart Speaker. So don’t anticipate it to provide you with a 360-degree sound experience that the Google Nest provides.
The driver is a 63.5 mm 12W unit. The gadget also contains a Texas Instruments Hi-Fi audio processing processor, according to Xiaomi.
It contains two far-field microphones on each end of the touch panel for listening to requests. When it’s listening to your commands, a blue “aurora” light ring encircles the top surface and illuminates.
Basslines, kick drums, and other percussion instruments may all be clearly heard thanks to the sound calibration. Higher-register voices and sounds are reduced to a simple sidekick, as you’ll notice if you take a step back from the speaker.
Final THoughts – Who Wins?
It is very tough to decide the winner as both of these smart speakers come at very affordable prices and have almost similar features. However, the Google Nest Mini is better as compared to the Mi Smart Speaker in terms of price, design, and features. The Nest Mini is cheaper, has a robust and sleek design with more color options, and offers a 360-degree sound experience, making it better than the Mi Smart speaker.