Xiaomi was the first to explore bezel-less phones with the original Mi Mix. Vivo and Oppo upped the ante with their iterations of truly edge-to-edge designs, and it looks like Xiaomi does not want to be left behind. Just a few days ago, a hands-on image had surfaced revealing a completely bezel-less Xiaomi handset which is being claimed to be of the Mi Mix 3. It was curious as to how Xiaomi was going to approach the problem of housing the front camera with such a display. Well, a new rendering of the Mi Mix 3 has allegedly emerged which illustrates Xiaomi taking a page out of Vivo’s book.
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Mi Mix 3 With A Pop-up Selfie Camera
If the newly leaked render is to be believed, Xiaomi is on a path similar to the one Vivo took with the Nex A and Nex S. The Mi Mix 3 will apparently sport a mechanical stub which will pop-out when the front camera needs to be used. This unit itself looks slightly smaller than the one found on Nex devices. Furthermore, the renders showcase a tiny strip just above the front camera lens which looks like a front-facing LED flash. It is yet to be seen whether or not having mechanical parts inside modern smartphones is a good idea; and unless manufacturers figure out another alternative, this is the world we live in for now.
Mi Mix 3 With An In-Display Fingerprint Scanner?
The pop-up selfie camera is not the only aspect revealed by the leaked renders. The phone is also represented to have an in-display fingerprint scanner – a trend made popular ever since we first saw it on the Vivo X21. If this turns out to be true, the Mi Mix 3 will have to sport an AMOLED panel. The renders also give a partial look at the sides and a clear look at the back of the device. No headphone jacks can be seen, which isn’t surprising as the previous Mi Mix 2S did not have one either. Then we have the back of the phone with a vertically stacked dual camera setup with an LED flash placed in the middle. We cannot yet say for certain what the size of these sensors will be, but we do expect it to come with all the same features as its predecessor such as 4-axis OIS and 2x optical zoom.
Mi Mix 3: Other Expected Specifications, Features
It is highly likely that Xiaomi will release the phone with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC powering the device. This would possibly be backed by 8GB of RAM along with 256GB of storage. There will probably be other storage variants as well, but we cannot be sure if those will be larger or smaller. For the software, while it is more likely for Android 8.1 Oreo to come installed by default, we hope the move to Android P isn’t too far behind.
As mentioned earlier, it isn’t certain what the resolution of the camera units will be on the phone. The previous Mi Mix 2S came with a 12MP + 12MP configuration at the back. The Mi Mix 3 could come with a similar setup. Conversely, the front camera on the older phone was just 5MP. If Xiaomi is putting the effort of cramming an LED flash into the pop-up unit, the size of the sensor should also be receiving a significant increase.
Mi MIX 3: Expected Launch Date, Price
The Mi Mix 3 is expected to be announced at an event in China sometime in September of this year. This is based on the September 2017 announcement of the Mi Mix 2. While the Mi Mix 2 did launch in India shortly after, the Mi Mix 2S never officially made its way here. Hopefully, the response of the Mi 8 in this country will be enough for Xiaomi to release the Mi Mix 3 before the end of this year. As for pricing, we expect the new phone to be priced closer to the Rs. 40,000 mark as it a notable upgrade over the Mi Mix 2 which cost around Rs. 35,999 at launch
