Something to look forward to: With the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 less than a week away from launch, pretty much every detail has been leaked. It's got a lot of cool features, but the best of them all appears to be that bezel-less, notch-less screen enabled by a sliding camera mechanism.
Xiaomi seems more interested in building up hype than being secretive, as you can tell by their official promo video above. Judging by the video, it isn't the dual selfie cameras (plus the selfie flash module) that slide up, but the screen that slides down. While the lack of a motor is good for durability, this solution does bring the risk of the screen connector breaking and resulting in a dead panel.
The phone will also be the first to feature 10GB of RAM, which is nearly as awesome as it is excessive. Based on several leaks, however, that will only be coming in a special edition of some sort. There will allegedly be four regular models: a 6GB/64GB model for $510, a 6GB/128GB model for $555, an 8GB/128GB model for $600 and an 8GB/256GB model for $645. They'll all have a Snapdragon 845, of course.
Those prospective prices are simply converted to American dollars; only Chinese availability has been announced. Several other countries that received the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S, such as Australia, may get the Mi Mix 3 later.
Xiaomi says the Mi Mix 3 will be one of the world's first 5G phones, although rumor has it that only the 10GB special edition will have the functionality. If Xiaomi were to launch the 5G model within the next couple months it would be the first 5G phone, so that suggests that it'll be released sometime after the others.
A Xiaomi official revealed that the phone would have a 1080 x 2340 resolution, and it's rumored that it's a 6.4" Samsung AMOLED panel. Other leaked features include a rear fingerprint scanner, a glass back that may (but probably not given the cheap prices) allow for wireless charging and reasonably fast facial recognition. It doesn't have a headphone jack.
The dual rear cameras are a 16MP main lens and a 13MP telephoto lens, and they're going to be capable of 960fps slow-motion, according to XDA developers who found the details in the code for the camera app. Unfortunately, however, the 960fps will be achieved by interpolating 240fps footage, resulting in a sub-par experience compared to phones that can do it natively such as the Sony XZ3 or Samsung Galaxy S9.
In line with Xiaomi's focus on the artistic in the Mi Mix 3's promotional material, they say that they designed the "ceramic white color" hand in hand with the British Museum. While I'm sure the color is lovely, they've once again copied the iPhone X's camera module exactly, and the whole 'fake iPhone look' isn't exactly classy.
The phone will be launched on Thursday in China, but it might be worth waiting a few days to see if the OnePlus 6T's superior camera and under-screen fingerprint scanner make it a better option.