Gadgets & Gizmos: Future Ready

It does stupendous business selling millions of budget and mid-range phones online, but it was Xiaomi’s 2016 concept-come-alive Mi Mix that truly kicked off the all-screen craze we’re seeing today. Fast forward to the present and everyone, from Samsung and LG to Apple, are furiously shaving inches off screen bezels, and it is in this landscape that Xiaomi’s launched the follow-up to the Mix — their 2017 premium flagship — the Mi Mix 2.

Much like the original Philippe Starck creation, the Mix 2 is defined by its rather distinctive design. Only this time around, Xiaomi has changed tack and given the Mix 2 a far more manageable form factor, about the same size as a typical 5.5-inch phone. In here, Xiaomi packs in an expansive 5.99-inch display with the narrowest of bezels below the display to accommodate the selfie camera and notification LED. And boy, is it a looker! With its ceramic back panel and aluminum alloy frame, the Mix 2 is exceptionally well-crafted and looks downright gorgeous in daily use, if you can resist the temptation of slapping a case on it. Downside? The shiny and polished ceramic shows up smudges and fingerprints rather easily.

But clearly, the Mix 2 is all about that all-screen front, and while it lacks the punchiness of the AMOLED panels on the S8s, the tall 18:9 aspect ratio LCD manages to hold its own among other LCD-sporting phones, both in terms of brightness levels and colour reproduction. The only misstep, if at all, is its 2160x1080-pixel resolution — while it helps keep the battery going longer, it’s possibly the only element which feels a little under-specced in the company of its flagship peers. Bit of a pity really, since the Mix 2 packs in top notch hardware — a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chip with 6GB of memory, 128GB of fast storage and downright the most global radio bands (43) in any phone. Performance is smooth, even with several apps running in the background, and the extra memory helps things keep chugging along nicely. You can even manage a day-and-a-half of battery life with moderate to heavy use, two if its light, which isn’t half bad for a phone with a six-inch display.

The 12-megapixel rear shooter sounds great on paper — 4-axis optical image stabilisation, large 1.25-micron pixels — but the results are a tad inconsistent. Daytime photos are rich in detail, but things go south with noise and detail levels when light levels dip or you’re indoors under artificial lighting. Possibly something that can be fixed in software, but only time (and software updates) will tell. Oh, and the odd positioning of the selfie camera makes it awkward to use, and takes some getting used to.

As Xiaomi’s sole premium flagship for India in 2017, the Mix 2 is competitively priced, but when you’re paying this much for a phone, you’ll want to consider how much the stuff it lacks matters to you — dual cameras, dust/water resistance and maybe even wireless charging. Without a doubt though, the Mix 2 offers buyers today a peep into the smartphone of tomorrow.