Tech review: Xiaomi Mi 6 wins on power and price, but falls down on looks - with big bezels giving phone a dated feel

The Mi 6 combines two of the best features from current premium iPhone and Samsung smartphones at half the price, and has a decent camera and long battery life, but ignoring the bezel-less trend is surely a mistake

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The Xiaomi Mi 6 rivals premium iPhone and Samsung models in some aspects, and is less than half the price of either, but in other aspects it falls short. Photo: Ben Sin

Published: 7:45am, 11 May 2017Updated: 6:05pm, 12 May 2017

Xiaomi phones have always offered great value, but this year’s flagship Mi 6 seems to take that approach to another level. The Mi 6 is just the second phone after the Samsung Galaxy S8 to run on Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 835 chip, and it has the same dual-camera technology used in the iPhone 7 Plus. Xiaomi has effectively combined two of the top features of Samsung and Apple’s best phones into a device that retails in China for 2,499 yuan (HK$2,800).

The Xiaomi Mi 6 replicates the dual-lens camera of the iPhone 7 Plus. Photo: Ben Sin

Design and hardware

The Mi 6 keeps the general design language of the Mi 5 – the same display size and curved glass back – but there are three changes that give the device an iPhone 7 vibe.

First, the physical home button of the Mi 5 has been replaced with a touch-sensitive digital slot that simulates the feeling of a button when pressed. Second, the Mi 6 does not have a headphone jack (Xiaomi boss Lei Jun said at the launch event the decision was to make the Mi 6 “more compact”, but that sounds like marketing speak because the Mi 6 isn’t any thinner than the Mi 5).

And finally, there’s the dual-camera set-up that works just like Apple’s implementation. That means one standard lens and one telephoto lens that can offer 2x lossless zoom.