Xiaomi Announced Three New Phones, The Mi8, Mi8 Explorer Edition & Mi8 SE

We all knew Xiaomi was coming with their next bomb and we now have an official announcement of the Mi 8 along with its two new siblings. Aside from the usual Mi 8 launch, Xiaomi showcased two new devices carrying the Mi 8 name.

Dubbed as the Mi 8 Explorer Edition and Mi 8 SE, Xiaomi has brought some cheesy devices to the table. All three of these devices are unique in their own aspect and are simply showcasing what Xiaomi had planned for all this time. Since the Mi 8 is the core device after Xiaomi slaughtered the Mi 7, let’s see what Xiaomi has in store for the Mi 8, shall we?

Mi 8 and Mi 8 Explorer Edition

Now, the Xiaomi Mi 8, as we could expect is nothing short of a beast. You have the Qualcomm Snapragon 845 SoC paired with 6GB of RAM along with three internal storage sizes, 64GB or 128GB or 256GB. Alongside that, we’re looking at some of the finest blatant rip-offs of the iPhone X. With the Mi 8, you have your handy dandy, “much-improved” 3D face unlock technology, dual-frequency GPS, a sophisticated notch housing some complex sensors and a mingling promise of AI. Just in line as leaks stated them to be.

Now since Xiaomi was among the first to bring back the bezel-less concepts to life with the Mi MiX, its fair to say that Xiaomi has made some fair improvements catering to the whole trend. The Xiaomi Mi 8 packs a 6.21″-inch display from Samsung that spans across the whole front of the device. Alongside that, there’s quite a large notch on top to make sure that what Xiaomi is offering is as close to Apple’s offering. To take advantage of these bezel-less displays nowadays, Xiaomi’s integrating some Apple-like gestures as well through their latest iteration of MIUI as well. This means that Xiaomi could be focusing on adapting to the whole bezel-less display experience since hardware keys are a thing of the past now. Kind of stabs a gut knife into me with my Xiaomi Mi 5 to be honest.

Anyways, coming back to these devices, the Xiaomi Mi 8 would be among the first batch of devices running Xiaomi MIUI 10 out of the box.

At the rear of the device, Xiaomi has included a fingerprint sensor despite Apple’s exclusion of Touch ID. On top of that, we have a 12MP+12MP AI-assisted rear camera setup to enhance the images coming off of the Mi 8’s sensor. These enhancements include tweaking with the image as well based on the scene as well as tweak images to enhance portrait shots to lead the pack.

Even so, Xiaomi wasn’t done yet. Xiaomi’s excellent AI capabilities allowed it to dethrone the iPhone X’s Antutu score with a score of over 301,000. While we do not take such numbers really seriously, Xiaomi did say that they were able to achieve this through AI beating out Apple’s offering as well as many other competitors devices running the same SoC.

Next, Xiaomi announced a much tech-savvy variant of the Mi 8 as well, dubbed as the Mi 8 Explorer Edition. Much like what Xiaomi did with the Mi MiX by bring concepts to life, Xiaomi brought Vivo’s concept to a device in mass production. The Mi 8 Explorer Edition adds an under display fingerprint sensor, a partly transparent body that reveals the inners of the device as well as the same set of internals we saw from the Mi 8.

The last smartphone Xiaomi unveiled was the Xiaomi Mi 8 SE. A device that’s much smaller in size compared to the Mi 8 and Mi 8 Explorer Edition. The Xiaomi Mi 8 SE packs a 600-nit FHD+ 5.88″-inch display, a Snapdragon 710 SoC, a 12+5MP rear camera setup, a 20MP selfie camera and two RAM options, that’s a 4+64GB and a 6+64GB option.

Availability of these devices aren’t going to be announced anytime soon for users around the world. However, in China,the Mi 8 starts at RMB 2,699 for the base device, RMB 2,999 for the 128GB variant and RMB 3,299 for the 256GB variant. While the Mi 8 Explorer Edition would retail for about RMB 3,699.

Table via BGR