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 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.
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).
Hardware
We've missed sliders - smoothly sliding them open to answer a call and then sliding them shut with a satisfying click to hang up. The Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 brings back that tactile joy along with other neat tricks.
This is great, the slider isn't just a way to move the selfie camera off the front bezel and avoid the scar of a notch. The added functionality will see a lot more use than "squeezable" phones like HTC and Google make (have you ever used Edge Sense).
The way that Xiaomi pulled it off is pretty innovative. It uses neodymium magnets to lock the phone in the open and closed positions and also to provide the "springy" feel in between. This is a more durable solution than actual springs, Xiaomi says the Mix has been tested through 300,000 open/close cycles and you can use it as a fidget toy.
Still, pressing down on the top edge of the phone, we can feel the top half of the slider bend a bit. Drop tests with the Mix 3 will be interesting.Open or closed, the 6.39" screen is always visible. It's a Samsung-made AMOLED with 19.5:9 aspect ratio - and unlike most 19.5:9 phones, you get to use all of the screen, no awkward notches here.It has 1,080 x 2,340px resolution, same as Xiaomi's other flagship models. It tops out at 600 nits maximum brightness with an additional sunlight mode. 430 nits is the typical brightness. Anyway, the display supports HDR and 103.4% coverage of the NTSC color gamut.
Always On Display mode is available as well (we'll see how it affects battery life when we do the full review).
The frame of the phone is made out of 7000-series aluminum, which has a higher tensile strength than 6000-series. The back is made of ceramic, which explains the shine (and slippery-ness) that Xiaomi was able to achieve. The glass front offers slightly more grip. The sturdy build and all that ceramic do add to the weight, however, and we didn't like how slippery the phone is - this is a phone you'd better put in a case.
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