Two years ago, Xiaomi delivered a sweet shocker to the world—the Mi MIX, a one-of-its-kind concept phone, designed by the renowned Philippe Starck. It was all-display, near bezel-less, exquisitely built and packed beefy flagship internals.
Sure, it wasn’t perfect but if anything, it did prove one thing: Xiaomi isn’t all about cheap smartphones. The young tech company showed the world that it could deliver top-level design and build, and it had the capability to innovate.
In fact, we have Xiaomi to thank for the crop of full-screen, bezel-less smartphones flooding the market right now.
Last year, Xiaomi upped the game further with the successor—the Mi MIX 2. Once again the company demonstrated its prowess in design and craftsmanship, mating with cutting-edge internals and slapping on an attractive price tag.
An evolution
Today in Shanghai, Xiaomi took the wraps off the Mi MIX 2S, an enhanced update of 2017’s Mi MIX 2.
From the get go, the Mi MIX 2S will look mighty familiar, which isn’t a bad thing. It retains a full-screen 5.99-inch 18:9 display with slimmer bezels all round.
Thankfully, there is no notch, keeping the top bezel minimal. The downside is that the dreaded selfie is still at the bottom. Starck still hasn’t quite figured that one out. Yet. Perhaps in the Mi MIX 3?
The body is still a beautiful combination of metal and ceramic with smooth rounded edges on all sides.
Under the hood, the Mi MIX 2S, expectedly, rocks beefy top-of-the-line internals including the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 845c chipset, making it the first phone in China to feature Qualcomm’s most powerful.
And it’s a powerful one too, with Xiaomi reporting a blistering score of 277,178 on AnTuTu benchmark tests.
That aside, it’s bundled with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage.
DxOMark on Mi MIX 2S: “A Chinese gem”
In terms of optics, the Mi MIX 2S finally gets a dual-camera setup, vertically-stacked ala iPhone X, consisting of a 12MP (wide) + 12MP (telephoto) system. It’s a Sony IMX363 sensor with large 1.4-micron pixels for great low light performance. It also has 4-axis OIS and dual-tone dual-LED flash.
It’s even got Dual Pixel autofocus for superfast focusing as well as hardware-level multi-frame noise reduction.
On paper, the camera looks good. In fact, it gets the stamp of approval from DxOMark, scoring as high as 101 points in photos, with an overall score of 97. Impressive, considering it ties with the iPhone X.
The selfie camera, as mentioned is still in the wrong place, and remains a 5MP f/2.0 unit.
Just as every other phone maker out there today, Xiaomi has injected AI capabilities into its latest device, including its own AI voice assistant.
It can help translate languages on the fly, as well as convert foreign currency.
AI is also integrated into the Mi MIX 2S’ cameras, assisting with object and scene recognition for better photos. AI also helps in taking Portrait shots and Portrait selfies.
For the first time in any Xiaomi device, the Mi MIX 2S supports fast Qi-certified 7.5W wireless charging out-of-the-box.
Xiaomi also announced its Mi Wireless Charger that costs just CNY99/MYR61, which will be bundled with each Mi MIX 2S (high spec) unit.
Also, for the first time, is the support for Google’s ARCore technology.
Pricing and availability
There will be three variants of the Xiaomi Mi MIX 2S available:
- Mi MIX 2S: SD 845 / 6GB RAM / 64GB storage – CNY3,299/MYR2,038
- Mi MIX 2S: SD 845 / 6GB RAM / 128GB storage – CNY3,599/MYR2,223
- Mi MIX 2S: SD 845 / 8GB RAM / 256GB storage – CNY3,999/MYR2,470
To compare, the Mi MIX 2 Special Edition with 8GB RAM and 128GB of storage sells for MYR2,699, while the standard Mi MIX 2 retails for MYR2,199. This gives you indicative Malaysian pricing when it hits local shores soon.
So, what do you think of the Mi MIX 2S?
