Owners of the China-made Xiaomi Mi2 phones are getting updates to the latest version of the highly customizable Android skin on their phones. It brings some neat features not found on stock Android and lots of spit’n’polish on the surface.

The new MIUI V5 beta might only bring a slight bump up to Android 4.1.1, but it brings lots of extra goodness to the Xiaomi Mi2 as a whole. Perhaps the best of these is that some of the icons are now ‘live’ and change according to the weather or the date, making them more like widgets (shown above). Elsewhere in V5, the messages app now supports timed SMS, the contacts app now has tabs (pictured below), and lots of utility apps (like the clock, calendar, data gauge, compass) have been given a nice visual refresh.

Chinese owners of the Xiaomi Mi2 phone can update within their phones. The cutesy MIUI skin is not going to be updated for those on the less powerful Xiaomi M1 and M1S phones – at least not yet.

Xiaomi sold over seven million phones, mostly in China, in 2012 – and that’s despite it being the startup manufacturer’s first full year in the gadget-making business. Its MIUI skin is a big part of that success, as is the TouchWiz UI for Samsung. Xiaomi is due to launch official sales channels for its two smartphone models in Hong Kong and Taiwan next month, making the company’s first foray outside of mainland China.

Android tweakers on a range of other devices can try out MIUI V5 so long as they’re comfortable with ‘flashing’ their phones. See the full changelog and get the ROM download here.

Those who’d rather bring the MIUI flavor to their Android phones with the aid of a simple launcher app, the MiHome Launcher has just been updated to reflect the aesthetic changes in MIUI v5. Of course, the MiHome will only change your homescreens and not give you all the other apps, but it looks to be worth trying out. Grab MiHome here in Google Play.