How to increase the saturation of the Xiaomi screen: setting up color rendering

Modern Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones are all equipped with high-quality displays, but standard factory settings often make the picture pale or too cold, designed to bring the image closer to the sRGB benchmark, but many users are more accustomed to the brighter, juicier colors associated with a quality picture. If you want to increase the saturation of the screen and make the colors more expressive, you do not need superuser rights or complex engineering menus.

In most cases, it is enough to properly configure built-in image profiles or take advantage of special features of the MIUI shell and HyperOS. Android provides flexible tools for calibration, allowing each owner to adapt the device to their preferences. In this article, we will discuss all available methods, from simple menu switches to hidden developer parameters that will help to revive the display of your gadget.

Before you make a change, you need to understand the difference between brightness and saturation. Brightness is the intensity of the pixels, and saturation is the depth and purity of the color. By increasing one parameter, you don't necessarily affect the other. To achieve the best visual effect, you need to find a balance where your eyes don't get tired and the picture stays realistic.

Basic settings through the screen menu

The easiest and safest way to change the color gamut is in the standard settings menu, where the manufacturer has already laid out several presets that radically change the perception of the image. To get there, go to Settings → Screen (or Settings → Wallpaper and Personalization → Screen in new versions).

In the Color Scheme or Read Mode (depending on the firmware version), you'll see options like Standard, Saturated or Classic. The Saturated Mode option automatically expands the color gamut, making red, blue and green tones more aggressive, ideal for watching videos and games.

However, if standard profiles aren't enough, look for a "Color Spectrum" slider or "Temperature" slider, which, by shifting it toward warmer shades, can add yellowness, which is often subjectively perceived as an increase in the saturation of red and orange tones.

It is important to note that the AMOLED-In the case of screens, changing the color scheme also affects power consumption. Brighter and richer colors, especially white backgrounds, can consume battery power faster compared to dark themes and less saturated profiles.

Use of the "Improving Picture" mode (Vivid Mode)

There is a separate feature in the MIUI and HyperOS shells, often called Image Improvement or Vivid Mode, that is specifically designed to enhance contrast and saturation dynamically, depending on the content on the screen, and you can find this option by Settings → Screen → Picture Improvement.

Activating this mode causes the image processor to analyze the scene in real time, if you look at a photo of nature, the green will become brighter and the sky will become deeper, and when you view documents, the system can automatically reduce saturation for eye comfort, but in media content the effect will be noticeable immediately.

• 🎨 Dynamic adaptation: algorithms decide when to add juiciness without requiring manual intervention.
• 📺 Video optimization: When you launch YouTube or Netflix, colors become more “cinematic” and expressive.
• 🔋 Battery impact: Continuous operation of image processing algorithms may slightly increase the load on the processor.

Some users have noticed that when you turn on this feature, people's faces in photos can become unnatural, too blushy, and that's a price for the high saturation of other colors. If you care about color accuracy when editing photos, you better turn it off.

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For maximum color accuracy, always use the Classic or Standard mode when working with graphics, turning off all image improvements.

Calibration through the engineering menu and developer parameters

For advanced users who don't have enough standard settings, there is access to deeper calibration, but caution is needed. In the developer settings (which you need to activate by repeatedly clicking on the build number in About Phone), you can find the color scheme simulation settings.

The Special Features Way → The chromaticity enhancement (or similar depending on the Android version) allows you to force the display modes to change. But the gold mine for enthusiasts is an engineering menu available through a set of code in a call. Codes can vary depending on the processor (Snapdragon or MediaTek), for example, # #6484# or #3646633##.

⚠️ Note: Entering the engineering menu and changing unknown parameters can lead to improper display operation or resetting the calibration to factory values, which are difficult to restore without flashing.

Inside the engineering menu, there is often a Display or Color section where you can manually adjust the color temperature (Red Gain, Green Gain, Blue Gain), and by increasing the values for the red and blue channels, you can achieve the cold and saturated screen effect that is characteristic of many flagships.

Remember, resetting your phone to a factory setting will bring all of these parameters back to their original state, so if you've spent a lot of time manually calibrating, it makes sense to take screenshots of all the values.

Setting up a color profile in gallery and video applications

Often the problem with pale colors is not in the system, but in a specific application. Xiaomi’s standard Gallery has its own image processing engine. Open a photo, click on three dots or the “More” button, and select “Display Modes” or “AI Improvements”.

You can enable automatic photo enhancement that increases saturation and contrast specifically for viewing. Similar to video players, the built-in Mi Video player or third-party solutions like MX Player have their own decoding and color correction settings.

In the video player settings, find the Video Decoder or Renderer section. Switching to hardware acceleration (HW+) often gives a brighter and richer color than the software (SW), since a dedicated video processor of a smartphone is used.

It’s also worth checking the settings of the particular app you’re watching content through, for example, YouTube or Netflix have playback quality settings and sometimes color options that can override system settings.

Third-party applications for color correction

If built-in tools aren't enough, Google Play offers a lot of apps to fine-tune the display, the leader in this niche is the Color Calibration app or Screen Balance, which runs on top of the system by overlaying a color filter.

The way they work is simple: you preset or manually move the RGB sliders, and the application creates a layer that changes the final image, which allows you to achieve an effect that the manufacturer did not put in firmware, but such applications require permanent permissions to "mask on top of other windows."

• 📱 Hexa Color Editor: allows you to create your own profiles and save them for different tasks (games, reading, movies).
• 🎨 Blue Light Filter: While the primary function is eye protection, a smart setup can paradoxically make colors more pleasant by removing excess blueness.
• ⚙️ Resource consumption: such applications are constantly hanging in RAM, which can be critical for low-volume models RAM.

When installing these apps, be sure to check permissions. They need access to screen control, which is technically a high level of access. Only download software from trusted sources to avoid introducing advertising software.

Effect of protective films and hardware limitations

Sometimes the cause of a dim screen is not software, but physical obstruction. Cheap protective glass or low-quality films can have an oleophobic coating that distorts colors and reduces brightness.

You also need to consider the type of matrix. IPS-In the low-end Redmi screens, maximum saturation is physically limited by technology, and spinning sliders to the maximum will only lead to color distortion (posterization), but not to deep black or bright red, as on the screen. AMOLED.

⚠️ Warning: Do not try to compensate for the dimness of the screen by the maximum value of brightness in sunny weather on a constant basis. AMOLED) and fast wear of the lights.

If you've compared your phone to another device of the same class and the color difference is huge, it could be a faulty matrix or calibration failure, and then software won't help, and you'll need to go to a service center to replace the display module.

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Software setting can significantly improve image perception, but cannot change the physical limitations of the matrix type (IPS vs. AMOLED).

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