Redmi Note 11 5G €162 Alliexpress.

I wasn’t aware they had changed things. I bought a few things in the past and the more expensive items usually were hit with a customs charge.

This is a message to global consumers. EU is exempt as for us the purchase is taxed at source by ali. Change the delivery to a non EU destination to see the price without EU taxes.

Just noticed in the small print: If China version phone install global version firmware, the model name may changed.Unlocked bootloader for global ROM installation, Netflix, some banking apps may not be supported.

What does this mean?

Don't worry about it.

If you intend to just buy a phone, pop in your SIM card and use it like the average person, then those things won't affect you at all.

You would have to learn a lot of stuff about hacking the firmware of the phone and installing ROMs to do any of the things that might prevent banking apps working. This is just a security measure required by things such as Google pay. Phones with unlocked bootloaders and modified or customised firmware are considered more vulnerable to hacking and thus excluded by banking apps etc.

Some gadget enthusiast type of people install firmware from other countries, such as China, in order to get newer updates sooner on Xiaomi phones. This usually requires unlocking the bootloader and downloading a ROM from your PC to the phone. Acquiring root access to the Android operating system itself is often another objective of such people, as it allows one to radically alter it, which could also cause bricking of the phone if one doesn't know what they are doing.

TLDR; It's not really something the average phone user bothers doing, just as the average car owner doesn't bother installing modified engine parts.

I'd definitely consider it an upgrade. All depends if you like using Android or prefer IOS

Pre-tax value is under €150, so no duty is due.