[Poll results out] Xiaomi MIUI 12.5: How do you go back to your home screen?

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…

Original story (published on April 12, 2021) follows:

MIUI 12.5 stable is just around the corner for a bunch of eligible devices. The update began rolling out a bit sooner than expected with the Mi 10 Ultra back in late March itself.

Since then, several other flagship-level phones like the Mi 11, Mi 9 SE, and the Mi 10/10 Pro have been treated to MIUI 12.5 as well.

And while the wait continues for stable MIUI 12.5, Xiaomi recently released a second MIUI 12.5 update timeline that gives out some more precise dates for a bunch of eligible devices.

Anyway, things haven’t exactly been smooth for the latest versions of Xiaomi’s custom Android skin MIUI. The OEM went as far as apologizing for the severe performance issues Xiaomi users have been facing ever since the advent of MIUI 12.

But perhaps the greatest problem involves gestures. Users have reported lags with almost every use case of the navigation mode be it heading to the recents page, swiping between apps, or returning to the home screen on MIUI 12/12.5.

Now while the MIUI system is pretty jittery as a whole, especially when having set the newly introduced Super Wallpapers, returning to the good old navigation bar does ease some of the woes.

Consequently, many people have preferred sticking to the 3-button navbar, at least until Xiaomi optimizes their software a bit.

Additionally, the Android 11-based MIUI 12 update introduced a critical bug that completely broke gesture navigation when using third-party launchers like Nova Launcher or Lawnchair.

Several people have thus been forced to stick to using the default MIUI System Launcher. Still, several hardcore custom launcher fans have sacrificed gestures in favor of navigation bar just to be able to continue using their favorite launcher.

Nonetheless, while the advantages of gestures navigation over the traditional 3-button navbar and vice-versa may be debatable, Xiaomi offers a third mode – quick ball.

This unique navigation method involves a floating overlay containing several ‘pills’ that can be assigned to an array of shortcuts and apps. One can also of course bind them to navigation buttons namely back, recents, and home.

That said, we would love to know your preferred method of returning to the home screen on MIUI 12/12.5. Do you prefer the comfort of gestures or the reliability of navigation buttons? Or do you like to stand out from the crowd and use the quick ball?

You can either drop a comment in the section at the end of this article, cast your vote on the Twitter poll below, or do both, as per your convenience.

As always, the poll results will be out by next week.

03:51 pm (IST): Poll results are finally out! As it stands, most people (75%) voted for the new gestures as their preferred mode of navigation while less than a quarter (21.5%) preferred the traditional navigation buttons. A mere 3.6% voted for quick ball so that’s clearly barely anyone’s favorite.

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