Earlier today, Xiaomi unveiled the third iteration of its flagship smartphone series at Forbidden City, Beijing. The Mi Mix 3 continues the bezel-less design popularised by the series and takes the game further by incorporating a pop-out mechanism similar to the ones found in the Oppo Find X and Vivo Nex. The Phone starts at 3,299 yuan (INR 34,800 approx.) for the 6GB RAM + 128GB storage base variant and goes all the way up to 4,999 yuan (INR 52,750 approx.) for the Palace Museum Edition sporting 10GB RAM and 512GB storage capacity.
Here are the top five features that make it worthy of its flagship classification.
Table of Contents
True Bezel-less Design
Although almost every other phone is touted as bezel-less at the moment, the original Xiaomi Mi Mix was the first smartphone to set the ongoing smartphone trend of minimal bezels rolling, long after Sharp pioneered it with the striking Aquos Crystal. However, the unsightly notch continues to be a necessarily evil to house all the cameras and sensors that are usually at the top of the phone.
The Vivo Nex and Oppo Find X remedied this with motorised pop-out camera solutions earlier this year, and the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 also goes the same route, except for relying on a magnetic pop-out mechanism that hides the front camera and a host of sensors inside the sliding mechanism. That makes the Mi Mix 3 one of the few truly bezel-less smartphones. What’s more, the screen-to-body ratio is an impressive 93.4 percent thanks to a reduced chin that slices a good 4.3mm off the bottom bezel, compared to the Mi Mix 2S.
Image Credits: MIUI Forums
OLED Display
One of the major sore points preventing the previous Mi Mix phones from attaining true flagship status was the lack of an OLED display, as is the case with all flagship smartphones. The Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 remedies this shortcoming by incorporating a sizeable 6.4-inch OLED panel, sporting a resolution of 2340×1080. This gives the panel a pixel density in excess of 400ppi and an ultra-wide aspect ratio of 19.5:9. The specifications reveal that the OLED display is HDR capable, but it isn’t clear whether it has support for HDR10 or Dolby Vision, or both.
More Storage Than Most Computers
As is the case with all flagship smartphones, the Mi Mix 3 also sports a flagship SoC in the form of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845, which backed by the powerful Adreno 630 GPU. However, what sets the Mi Mix 3 apart is the fact that it packs in more RAM that most computers. With a whopping 10GB of RAM and 512GB of storage available on the top-end ‘Forbidden City’ special edition variant, one wonders if there’s any app on the mobile space that warrants this much memory.
Front Camera Finally in the Right Position
While this isn’t exactly a feature, the awkward camera position on the Mi Mix phones has been a sore point for selfie addicts. The bottom-oriented front camera was a necessary compromise to achieve minimal bezels, but it forced users to either hold the phone upside down or force everyone on their Instagram to peer up their noses. The magnetic slide out display mechanism of the Mi Mix 3 fixes this problem by hiding the front camera right behind the display and in the right position on the phone.
5G Version Headed Next Year
As the 5G spectrum looms on the horizon, it makes buying a premium smartphone today a dilemma knowing well that your expensive phone will become quite obsolete possibly in a few short months. Xiaomi has the Mi Mix 3 covered in that regards by promising to launch the 5G version of the phone in Europe within the first quarter of the next year. Presumably, Europe will be the first to get the 5G treatment, but it would be fair to assume that 5G versions of the phone for other regions could also be in the works. However, that would also entail waiting more for the 5G versions to arrive. But like they say, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Xiaomi will be launching the Mi Mix 3 in China on November 1. However, there’s no word on when it will arrive on the Indian shores. As is the case with the Mi Mix 2 and 2S, the Mi Mix 3 is also expected to be sold in India shortly. As for the rest of the world, the company has already announced that it will be launching a 5G capable version in Europe in the first quarter of 2019, as mentioned earlier.
