Review: Xiaomi Mi Mix – some day all phones will look this way
The Mi Mix has a great interface, efficient battery use, a sharp camera and an almost bezel-free ceramic body that has got the tech world buzzing. This is the future of smartphones
Xiaomi’s had a rough 2016. Once the top-selling phone maker in China and the go-to reference whenever media in the West wrote about Chinese tech, the Beijing-based company suffered a 38 per cent sales drop in the second quarter of this year, and by the third quarter, had fallen behind Huawei, Oppo and Vivo to become (just) number four in China. But as we approach 2017, Xiaomi looks like it’s already in the midst of a comeback with the Mi Mix.
Design and hardware
Introduced last month in a surprise announcement, the Mi Mix drew immediate excitement from the tech community for its near bezel-less design. Much like the way gadgets are depicted in futuristic sci-fi films, the Mi Mix’s front is almost all screen (it’s got a 91 per cent screen-to-body ratio. The iPhone 7, by comparison, has a paltry 65 per cent).
Now why does this matter? Well, tech geeks have always craved the thinnest bezels possible, for reasons both pragmatic and superficial. The lack of bezels around the display means the Mi Mix can cram a 6.4-inch display into a body that’s only a little larger than the iPhone 7 Plus (whose display is almost an inch smaller). But let’s be honest here, geeks also want a bezel-less design because it just looks cool. Viewing photos or videos on the Mi Mix, particularly ones with black backgrounds that match the phone’s frame, is quite stunning, since the visuals seem to reach all the way to the edges of the phone.
Much was made by Xiaomi at the press event of the phone’s ceramic body, designed by Philippe Starck. But I found the phone too slippery and shiny, collecting fingerprints and dust almost immediately out of the box. Xiaomi probably knows this, as it includes a premium-feel leather case with every phone.