review xiaom mi i mix

Xiaomi Mi Mix is, I think, what most phones will look like a few years from now. And believe me, it's awesome. The 6.4-inch screen covers almost the entire face of the phone, and the buttons you'd usually find on the front are now onscreen.

The premium ceramic back gives the phone a luxurious high-end feel with a very good grip, quite unlike glass. But while the material is pretty hard and scratch resistant, you definitely don't want to drop it.

There are some weird omissions and weaknesses. There's only one speaker in the traditional sense, which plays music and video. For calls, the phone uses a "cantilever ceramic piezoelectric actuator", which just means that the phone's body vibrates to deliver sound. The camera isn't great, either.

The Mi Mix is only on sale in China, and even there in limited quantities. While you can get it from third-party online resellers, good luck getting it fixed if you break it, as the parts used in the phone are rare as hens' teeth. Plus its 4G LTE bands are limited, so it may not work properly outside China.

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Xiaomi's Mi Mix is one amazing almost bezel-less phone

It's also the most expensive Xiaomi phone so far. Our review model costs 3,499 yuan, which converts to around $510, AU$680 or £420. In China, that's about half the price of phones like the Google Pixel. There's also a premium model with 18-carat gold embossing, 6GB 0f RAM (up from 4GB) and 256GB of onboard storage (up from the base model's 128GB) for 3,999 yuan, which is roughly $590, AU$770 or £480.

If you're thinking of getting one, bear in mind that Chinese phones don't come with Google services installed (like Google Maps and even Google Play), and you'll have work to do to get those integrated properly. Big screen phones like the Google ​Pi​xel XL or the iPhone 7 Plus($998.11 at Amazon.com) are much more easily procured -- you'll just have to accept a smaller screen than the Mi Mix's mammoth 6.4-inch display.

Crazy-beautiful edgeless display is incredible

I kid you not. While our photos and video might be enough to convince you, it's when you pick up the phone, hold it in your hand and watch the 6.4-inch screen come to life that the whole idea of a magical bezel-less phone sinks in. I've been using the phone for around a week now, and I still can't help but feel amazed every time I turn it on.

Now, I'm really not a fan of big-screen phones. I personally feel anything above 6 inches is unusable, and I didn't really like the Xiaomi Mi Max (the company's other super large 6.4-inch phone). Strangely, I found myself learning to like and use the Mix a lot more. The screen is still pretty big, but it doesn't feel it compared to the Max, which is bigger in size thanks to its bezels. The palm rejection system on the Mix is a lot better too, which means you don't tap as many things by accident.

Look ma, (almost) no bezels!

An edge-to-edge screen means my palms were almost always touching the display, but despite that I didn't accidentally press buttons I shouldn't have or move the home screen while holding the phone in my hand. This is great, particularly compared with my experiences with phones that don't properly implement this feature.

Big screen phones tend to feel unwieldy, but not so with the Mix. While it's a little on the heavy side at 209 grams (7.37 ounces), it's perfectly balanced in your hand. I've been able to use it one handed at times, though it's obviously a lot easier with both hands depending on what you want to do with it, like typing long messages.