Xiaomi on Wednesday unveiled its Mi 6 flagship smartphone for the Chinese market. At the event in Beijing, the company highlighted a few new features of the Mi 6 such as its premium 3D glass design, powerful Snapdragon 835 SoC, 6GB of RAM, and dual rear cameras, among other things. Priced at CNY 2,499 (roughly Rs. 23,500) for the 64GB storage and 6GB RAM variant, the smartphone looks to improve on its predecessor, and we take a look at six key Xiaomi Mi 6 features that stand out for the new flagship.
Xiaomi in recent years has managed to package its smartphones with attractive design elements that please the eyes. With the Xiaomi Mi 6 standing as the flagship smartphone for 2017, the company has gone all out to make a good-looking handset. One of the main highlights of the Mi 6 is its four-sided 3D curved glass with an ultra reflective mirror finish being offered in Blue, Black and White options. Xiaomi has also paid a lot of attention to symmetry. The card slot and volume keys on either sides are perfectly aligned, while the antenna lines are aligned to the display. The bottom sees speaker grilles on either side of the USB Type-C port and no 3.5mm headphone jack. Xiaomi has also kept the back as clean as possible for a mirror-like effect with only a dual camera setup on the top left and the 'Mi' logo on the bottom. The sides of the phone are made from stainless steel for a high-gloss outline. There is also a Ceramic variant.
As one would expect from a flagship smartphone, the Xiaomi Mi 6 is powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC based on the 10nm manufacturing process. The smartphone is also offered with 6GB of RAM which is large enough to handle multitasking, gaming and pretty much anything you want to throw at it. The latest SoC consumes 25 percent less power as compared to the Snapdragon 820, which translates to a longer battery life for the Mi 6. The SoC also provides Gigabit LTE speeds.
The Mi 6 is touted as the first 5.15-inch smartphone to sport a dual camera setup on the back. The rear sees a pair of 12-megapixel lenses, one wide angle and one telephoto that allows you to have 2x optical lossless zoom. This essentially means that you will be able to capture clear, detailed images even with 10x digital zoom. The rear also features a 4-axis OIS stabilisation system so you won't have to worry about shaky hands getting in the way of that perfect capture. Notably, the dual camera also promises to deliver great depth-of-field captures and uses binocular imaging system and deep learning algorithm to clearly define what needs to be focused and what should be blurred out.
Xiaomi has once again managed to push the fingerprint sensor under the glass of the fingerprint sensor front, which is something it had done for the Xiaomi Mi 5s, using ultrasonic technology. According to the company, this implementation will help ensure the fingerprint scanner will not get damaged with use and wear and tear.
Bluetooth 5.0 is the next generation in Bluetooth technology. Xiaomi's Mi 6 joins Samsung's Galaxy S8 as being the only two smartphones currently to support Bluetooth 5.0. Xiaomi may not have stressed on this particular feature much but the technology is pretty impressive when compared to the fourth generation Bluetooth technology. Bluetooth 5.0 gives 4x the range, 2x the speed and 8x broadcasting capacity compared to the previous generation. Notably, the new technology is also strong enough to connect the phone to two speakers simultaneously.
Lastly, Xiaomi took some time to highlight the Mi 6's dual speakers on the top and bottom that the company promises will help deliver immersive stereo effect. The dual speakers aims to deliver a surround sound experience while playing music, video or games.
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