Xiaomi today unveiled its latest flagship phone for China: the Mi Mix 2s. The original Mi Mix kickstarted the trend of bezel-less smartphones and even in its third iteration, the Mi Mix 2s is a beautiful device despite retaining the same design language.
The Mi Mix 2s will continue to feature a 6-inch FHD+ (2160×1080) LCD display with a screen-to-body ratio that is upwards of 91 percent. While the Mi Mix 2 featured a ceramic back, Xiaomi is giving it a pass with the Mi Mix 2S. There’s still a ceramic casing but the back is made of glass so as to allow for wireless charging. Contrary to rumors though, the Mi Mix 2S continues to feature the selfie camera at its bottom bezel. This is an odd position and if you like taking a lot of selfies, this is going to be a huge inconvenience for you.
Overall, the Mi Mix 2S sports minor design improvements over its predecessor, the Mi Mix 2. Like a true ‘s’ upgrade though, the handset features some major internal improvements. Firstly, it now makes use of Qualcomm’s latest and greatest Snapdragon 845 chipset. The Mi Mix 2S is the second smartphone after the Samsung Galaxy S9 to be unveiled which uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 chip. The base variant of the handset will come with 6GB RAM and 128GB of storage space, while the top-end variant features 8GB RAM and 256GB storage.
Secondly, the Mi Mix 2s will feature a dual-camera setup. The primary 12MP sensor features an f/1.8 aperture, 1.4um micro large pixels, 4-axis OIS along with Dual Pixel autofocus. To keep noise level low and retain details, Xiaomi has also made use of hardware-level multi-frame noise reduction. This will be paired with a secondary 12MP telephoto sensor which will offer 2x optical zoom and portrait mode. All these improvements lead the Mi Mix 2S to score 101 points for photography in DxOMark’s testing.
Apart from the improved hardware, Xiaomi boasts that the camera app on the Mi Mix 2S makes use of AI to take better photos. It achieves this by automatically switching to the relevant scene depending on the condition. In total, the camera app supports over 206 scenes across 25 categories. It also uses AI to take Portrait photos from the front and rear camera.
Other features of the Mi Mix 2s include wireless charging, face unlock, multi-functional NFC, and support for 43 global bands and over 200+ regions worldwide. The Mi Mix 2S is the first handset to launch in China with Google’s ARCore support. This is despite there being no Google Play availability being present in the country. The handset is being only released in China for now, with Xiaomi unlikely to bring it to other parts of the world anytime soon.
The 6GB RAM/64GB storage variant of the handset is priced at RMB 3,299, while the 8GB RAM/128GB storage variant is priced at RMB 3,999 and comes with a free wireless charger.