Xiaomi’s latest flagship, the Mi4, is a gorgeous phone with a metallic frame, 5-inch 1080p display and plenty of other fantastic hardware features. People love customizing their phones, and given just how powerful Android is and how easy it is to make the phone your own, it makes sense that Xiaomi is offering as many ways to customize your phone as possible. The custom version of Android that Xiaomi makes, called MIUI, features a powerful theme engine that lets you replace every visual aspect of the phone via a marketplace that features millions of different combinations and themes, and since it’s community driven it’s constantly updated with new stuff. But what about the hardware of the phone?
Xiaomi has made the back of the phone completely removable, and they will soon be selling over a dozen different back plates that feature all sorts of materials from leather to denim and everything in-between. These replaceable covers are simply to take out, and because of the way they are designed the back is seamless with the edges of the phone, leaving no obvious way to remove the cover. We’ve got the solution for you, and it involves a simple suction cup that you’ve likely already got lying around somewhere. Applying the suction cup to the middle of the back of the phone and pulling lightly will pull the back off, revealing multiple pressure clips on either side that can be simply snapped back into place when you’re ready to put the back plate back on the device.
This is an excellent solution for removable back plates, and is definitely a better execution than some other manufacturers have come up with recently. The clips are very similar to what Samsung has done with their phones, and the plates with different materials on them are very similar to the ones on the Note 3, Galaxy S5 and likely the Note 4, as the inside is still plastic with plastic clips but feature a premium material on the outer surface. If you want to see this in action check out the video below where we show you quickly and easily how to take off the back and reapply it in less than a minute! If you don’t have your own Xiaomi Mi4 you can buy the 16GB version here, and the 64GB version here!