Xiaomi has officially announced the Mi Mix 3 flagship smartphone in China today. As teased, the Mix 3 has a slider design like the Oppo Find X and the upcoming Honor Magic 2 smartphones. The mechanical slider houses dual front-facing cameras. With the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3, the Chinese company is taking on Huawei's P20 Pro, especially with the low-light imaging. The Mi Mix 3 achieved an overall score of 103 in DxOMark (108 for photos and 93 for videos). Before the launch, Xiaomi teased the Mix 3 will have 5G support, but that's not the case as the company today announced that a 5G variant of the Mix 3 would launch sometime in Q1 2019, most likely at the MWC 2019.
Xiaomi Mi Mix 3: Specifications and Features
Mix series from Xiaomi has set a high standard in the industry. The original Mi Mix launched back in 2016 started the trend of bezel-less smartphones, but this year's Mi Mix 3 isn't that exciting as Xiaomi is trying a tested formula. The Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 sports a 6.39-inch Super AMOLED display on the front with a resolution of 1080x2340 pixels and 19.5:9 aspect ratio. Xiaomi removed the notch because it has added a mechanical slider which houses the selfie cameras of 24MP and 2MP. The slider pops up whenever you fire up the selfie camera option inside the camera app. The Mix 3 has a physical fingerprint scanner placed on the rear side- no in-display scanner here.
Xiaomi is touting the imaging capabilities on the Mix 3. Of course, it has got a decent rating from DxOMark which every flagship smartphone is getting these days, but again, Xiaomi did not innovate anything. The phone rocks two cameras on the rear and two on the front. A 24MP primary shooter is present on the front which works in tandem with a 2MP depth sensor which helps in adding shallow depth of field to the images. On the rear side, the Mix 3 has two cameras of 12MP+12MP with the second one having a telephoto lens for 2X lossless zoom images. The primary sensor has an aperture of f/1.8 while the telephoto lens has a smaller f/2.4 aperture.
Rest of the specifications of Mi Mix 3 are pretty standard for a flagship smartphone. It has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset underneath, up to 10GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage, dual frequency GPS like the Xiaomi Mi 8 and wireless charging because it has become a norm in flagship smartphones these days.
Design wise, the Mix 3 has a Ceramic back- a signature feature which Xiaomi reserves for Mix series. As for the connectivity options, the Mix 3 has Dual 4G, 43 Global LTE bands, NFC, Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 5.0 and a USB Type-C port. The Chinese company also confirmed that a 5G variant of the Mix 3 would launch in some European markets in Q1 2019. There's no word on battery capacity at the moment, but rumours pointed out at a large 4000mAh unit to take on the Huawei P20 Pro.
Xiaomi Mi Mix 3: Pricing and Availability
Same as the case with other Xiaomi flagship smartphones, the Mi Mix 3 is also exclusive to China at the moment, but it will be launched in other markets very soon. It's predecessor the Mi Mix 2 was launched in India for Rs 35,999, but there's no word from Xiaomi on the Indian launch of Mix 3. In China, the phone will be available in three colour options- Onyx Black, Jade Green, and Sapphire Blue.
The phone comes in multiple variants- 6GB+128GB priced at 3299 Yuan (approx. Rs 35,100), 8GB+128GB variant which retails at 3599 Yuan (approx. Rs 39,200), 8GB+256GB option which can be purchased for 3999 Yuan (approx. Rs 42,500). There's a premium 10GB RAM model of which the price will be revealed very soon. Xiaomi will ship a 10W wireless charging pad with these models.
Xiaomi Mi Mix 3: Competitors
The primary competitor to the Mi Mix 3 is the Oppo Find X which is also said to be available in a 10GB RAM option very soon. The Find X also features similar design language as the Mix 3 but it lacks fingerprint scanner, Ceramic body, wireless charging, and more importantly, it's priced way higher than the Mix 3.
