Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 hands-on review

Introduction

Until web content can be beamed directly into our brains, we'll need screens - the bigger, the better. The 6.39" screen of the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 is certainly pretty big, almost as big as the original. But size isn't the only thing that makes it "good".

Bezels are just dead space, so efficient design demands that they be covered with screen. The original Mix got 3/4 of the way there, now the fourth model in the series slimmed down the one remaining bezel - the bottom one. The engineers managed to shave 4.46mm off the recent Mi Mix 2S model.

Xiaomi Mi Mix 3

Xiaomi is forging its own path with this one, not following Apple's lead towards notched designs nor adopting Oppo/vivos pop-up mechanisms. This is a manual slider and, besides solving the question of where to put the selfie camera, it enables a tactile interaction with the phone that just feels so satisfying.

The end result is 93.4% screen to body ratio (that's the official number), a hard won improvement over the 91.3% of the original (we had issues with that number, but the new phone seems to be right on the money).

Beside excelling in the screen department, the Mi Mix 3 has a flagship camera as well. It has dual cameras on its front and back and Xiaomi claims its one of the best mobile cameras on the market (with numbers to back it up).

Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 specs

• Body: Slider, 7000-series aluminum, ceramic back
• Screen: 6.39" Super AMOLED, 1,080 x 2,340px (403ppi), 19.5:9 aspect ratio, HDR
• Chipset: Snapdragon 845: octa-core Kryo 385 CPU (4x2.8GHz + 4x1.7GHz); Adreno 630 GPU
• Memory: 6/8GB of RAM (LPDDR4X), 128/256GB storage (UFS 2.1); 10/256GB special edition
• OS: Android 9.0 Pie; MIUI 10
• Camera: 12MP f/1.8 (1.4µm) + 12MP f/2.4 (1.0µm); 4K video capture at 60fps; 1080p at 240fps and 960fps
• Camera features: 2x telephoto, Dual Pixel AF, 4-axis OIS
• Selfie cam: 24MP (0.9µm) + 2MP depth sensor
• Battery: 3,200mAh; 18W QuickCharge 4.0+ supported; 10W wireless charging (charger included in box)
• Security: fingerprint reader on the back; face recognition
• Connectivity: Dual SIM, dual VoLTE; 2x2 MIMO Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 5.0 with aptX HD, dual band GPS/Galileo, also single-band GLONASS/Beidou; 5G model coming next year

Xiaomi has established itself as a leader in the value market, but it can also build some of the best flagships - the Mi Mix 3 has no peers.

By the way, you may have seen Xiaomi's teasers for 10GB RAM and 5G networking. Those will be available next year and only on the Palace Museum Edition. The focus today is on the regular Mix, which has plenty going for it as well.

Note: we're holding a pre-release unit, so some things don't quite work yet (in particular, we'll be skipping over the benchmarks for now).