Xiaomi Mi Mix was the phone that debuted the trendy full screen bezel-less display technology. It had no bezels on three out of four sides of the display. In fact, they didn’t even have a place to host the earpiece so they used a vibrating top part of the screen to produce sounds during phone calls, a technology called piezoelectric acoustic body; the selfie camera was put on the bottom bezel where you normally have capacitive keys on other phones. That was one year ago, today, the successor to this engineering marvel has been launched, meet the Mi Mix 2.
Yes, just a day away from the next iPhone launch, Xiaomi decided to unveil their bezel-less phone sequel, perhaps to steal some thunder from the Apple announcement. The Mi Mix 2 is has made some changes from the initial implementation. The phone is now rounder around the edges; it retains the full screen display with no bezels apart from the bottom one. Also, the screen has been shrunk from 6.44 inches to a more manageable 5.99 inch with a resolution of 2160×1080. The aspect ratio has gone to 18.9 from the 17.9 of the previous iteration. Still on the front panel, the piezoelectric technology has been abandoned and instead a tiny speaker slit has been made on top on the front panel to act as the earpiece. This is actually a good thing since reviewers didn’t like the fancy piezoelectric implementation saying that it was sometime inaudible.
The phone retains the ceramic body with aluminum frame but Xiaomi has a Special Edition which comes with the first ever full ceramic unibody and 8GB RAM. Under the hood we have the mighty snapdragon 835 that has become the 2017 standard for high end devices. It will be assisted by 6GB RAM and storage options which include 64GB, 128GB and 256GB. The special edition will have 128GB internal space. The MIUI 9 running the system has been based on Android 7 Nougat.
The amazing 12MP from the Xiaomi MI 6 has been ported on this new phone, but it does not come in its dual camera implementation. Fortunately, this shooter has a 4-axis optical image stabilization (OIS) which means it can swing on all 4 sides to counter your movements and produce stable photos and videos. The selfie is capped at 5MP camera and has been placed below the screen since it is the only place with a bezel.
Now that the screen is smaller and the processor is more energy efficient, the company reduced the battery size from 4400mAh to 3400mAh but the longevity should not change much. Charging will be done under a USB-C. Unfortunately, the head phone jack is missing this time round, it seems users will have to depend on the Bluetooth 5.0 for audio, or they could go the USB way.
For now, the device will only go on sale in China officially, but online retailers like Avechi Kenya usually have it in stock. In terms of pricing, the phone has been categorized as follows; 6GB+64GB will run you RMB 3,299 ($500), which is incredibly half of what the similarly powered Samsung Galaxy Note 8 goes for. Amazing. The 6GB+128GB costs RMB 3,599 ($550), the 6GB+256GB is RMB 3,999 ($600). The 8GB+128GB ceramic unibody special edition is $800. The device will be available in black or white color for the special edition, and only black for the regular version. For those that would like to import it, they will be pleased to hear that it supports a whopping 43 LTE bands meaning that it would be compatible with most networks around the world.
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