Here’s some great news for our Chinese readers, as there are plenty of goodies headed to select Xiaomi smartphones such as the Xiaomi Mi 8, Mi Mix 2S and the super-sized Mi Max 3. For starters, the 2018 Xiaomi flagship Mi 8 and the relatively older Mi Mix 2S are set to receive some software-based camera upgrades.
The company’s phablet smartphone, Mi Max 3, on the other hand is slated to receive something rather substantial in the form of an upgrade to the Android 9 Pie, which will be in the beta stage initially, but an upgrade nevertheless.
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Xiaomi Mi 8 and Mi 2S Slow Motion Mode Leverages AI
The news of the camera upgrade for the Xiaomi Mi 8 and Mi Mix 2S was first brought out right from the horse’s mouth earlier today when Qi Zhiyuan, the Product Marketing Director for the mobile division of Xiaomi, revealed that both the phones are set to receive slow motion capability through an impending update. This is no ordinary slow motion enhancement, but a substantially complex 960 frame per second implementation that substantially slows down video.
In fact, this is the same sort of slow motion that was first introduced with the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3, which launched quite recently. The feature employs the advanced AI sub-system of the phone to analyse and identify video content and then match it against a library of 15 different scenes to intelligently match background sound in the target slow motion video. Since this sort of implementation of the slow motion mode is software specific, it is great that Xiaomi has chosen to bring it to relatively older phones, such as the Xiaomi Mi 8 and Mi Mix 2S.
The slow motion camera update also helped by the fact that both Xiaomi Mi 8 and Mi Mix 2S use identical camera sensors as well. The sophisticated dual-camera module is comprised of a pair of wide and telephoto lenses, both of which are mated to a 12-megapixel Sony IMX363 sensor each. The phase detection autofocus equipped camera modules also feature four-axis optical image stabilisation as well. The new 960 FPS slow motion video capability should make for a welcome upgrade to these smartphones, and a great bonus since this news comes as a pleasant surprise.
Meanwhile, Xiaomi Mi Max 3 Will Get Android 9 Pie Beta
More great news for Xiaomi Mi Max 3 users in China as the company has begun pushing the version 8.11.15 of the MIUI 10 to those who have subscribed to the beta developer version updates for their phones. Apart from bug fixes to the UI, the beta Android 8.0 Oreo update also revealed that the company will also be pushing the next version, that is the Android 9.0 Pie, of the beta update soon. When we say soon, we mean that the company plans to start rolling out the Android Pie update through an open beta channel sometime in November.
Positioned as a smartphone dedicated for media consumption thanks to its large phablet sized form factor, the Xiaomi Mi Max 3 does well for itself with a large IPS LCD panel, massive 5500mAh battery, and a competent Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 chipset. The phone had originally shipped with MIUI 9.5 running Android 8.1 Oreo underneath, so the impending upgrade to the new Android 9.0 Pie version of Android comes as a welcome surprise since the phone is barely four months old.
Although, the update scheduled sometime in November will be initially in the open beta form, it is nevertheless quite quick considering to Xiaomi’s track record of delivering system updates.
