Xiaomi announced the much-awaited Mi 8 flagship at its annual product launch event in Shenzhen, China. Besides, the Chinese manufacturer also launched the Mi 8 Explorer Edition that comes with premium features such as a translucent glass back, an in-display fingerprint scanner, and more. Xiaomi also unveiled the Mi 8SE, Mi Band 3 and the latest MIUI 10 at the same event.
The Xiaomi Mi 8 comes with an iPhone X-like notch that houses the handset’s facial recognition system, like Apple’s Face ID technology. The edge-to-edge screen still has room for improvement as there are some noticeable bezels, but overall, the Mi 8 certainly reminds you of the iPhone X, especially from the front.
The device features a 6.21-inch Full HD AMOLED display with an aspect ratio of 18:7:9. Under the hood, the handset gets powered by the latest Snapdragon 845 processor bundled with either 6GB RAM/64GB storage or 8GB RAM/128GB storage. However, the 8GB variant is exclusive to the Explorer edition.The smartphone is juiced by a 3400mAh battery with support for Quick Charge 4.0+.
On the back, the device comes with vertically-placed dual cameras, a design approach which seems heavily inspired by Apple. The handset features a dual rear camera setup that consists of a 12MP camera sensor with 1.4-micron pixels, OIS, dual-pixel autofocus, AI portraits, as well as AI scene detection. For selfies, the Mi 8 sports a 20MP front-facing shooter with f/2.0 aperture, AI portrait selfies, and beautify. The phone also comes equipped with a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor.
The Xiaomi Mi 8 Explorer Edition, however, features an in-display fingerprint scanner, and it can be used for tasks such as unlocking the phone or authorizing payments.
Both Xiaomi Mi 8 and Mi Explorer edition will run Xiaomi’s own MIUI 10 based on Android 8, with added features like gestures along with an improved personal assistant called Xiaomi Xiao Ai.
The standard Mi 8 and will go on sale in China early next month starting at CNY 2,699 (Rs 28,600 approx.). The release date for the top-of-the-line Mi 8 Explorer Edition hasn’t been confirmed yet, but it is said to cost around CNY 3,699 (Rs. 39,000 approx.)
