Review: Xiaomi Mi Mix 3

Xiaomi has come a long way and has hung tough in the upper tier of smartphone vendors, thanks to some good devices that are easy on the pocket and - with the Mi Mix 3 - a pretty wild idea.
One lift and you'll know that the Mi Mix 3 is a heavy device. But if it's any consolation, that's because it has a really solid build. To the right, there are volume rocker and power buttons, below is the USB-C port, and on the left are the card tray and Google Assistant button; press it and have fun chatting. Xiaomi has also killed off the 3.5mm audio jack, while right behind is the fingerprint sensor, which is sometimes quick and sometimes not.

Up front is a 6.39-inch display that you can marvel at - which is, by the way, a Samsung Amoled screen. Being so, you'd expect it to be bright: it is, but putting the Mi Mix 3 side-by-side with one of the latest Samsung Galaxy S devices, I noticed that the colours on the latter burst out more, although that's really something you won't take issue with.

By now, you're probably scanning the display for the front camera. Well, don't bother making your eyes water looking for it on the display - because it isn't there. Go ahead and firmly press your thumb on the screen, push it down and watch it pop up on the top. That's right - much like the Oppo Find X - the Mi Mix 3's front snapper (a dual one at that) - slides up. The only difference is that you'll have to pop it up manually, compared to Oppo's, which is mechanically-enabled. Either way, I've said the same thing about these pop-up cameras before: it's more of an aesthetic thing than an actual, usable feature.

Now, how does this contraption work? Firstly, putting the front cameras behind the screen makes the Mi Mix 3 a truly edge-to-edge, full-display device, sans a notch or punch-hole. My only beef is that - obviously - you'll need to make that extra effort to push the screen down to reveal the snappers. I'd rather just press the camera app, switch it to selfie mode and start snapping away. To be fair, the camera app does automatically switch to selfie mode if you slide the front cameras up, and it gives out really good shots, without really smudging your looks that much.

One more head-scratcher: face unlock. Naturally, I put UAE as my region when I set up the Mi Mix 3, and I was surprised that it didn't ask me to register. Thinking it's impossible that a phone of this magnitude could go without such a feature, I rummaged around and found the answer: face unlock is region-dependent. Ergo, you need to be in a country that supports it - but, don't worry, you can change the region in settings. Aside from Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and the UK also work. The fingerprint scanner is convenient enough to unlock the phone - arguably rendering face unlock an optional feature.

The dual-lens main camera also belts out some pretty decent shots. There's portrait mode that does a nice job of blurring stuff (not perfect, though), which you can adjust in the gallery. Beware of night and low-light shots; you'll need a steady hand and some patience before the snap is taken. Not having either will result in some blurry abstracts.

Our standard one-hour YouTube-at-full-brightness test, on the other hand, produced a 14 per cent result, which is good enough for a device at this range, rivalling even some certain flagships. The device was also good enough to last me almost a day-and-a-half before it became thirsty for a jolt.
AND SO.
Aside from the really polarising pop-up camera (and face unlock), the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 is definitely a solid smartphone, both literally and figuratively. Interface-wise, it's simple enough to get a grasp of - Android 9.0 Pie, by the way - and everything else is pretty much straightforward. The extra action of popping out the front camera reminded me that we've lived through teeny-weeny screens and heavy bezels. I dug up my old Nokia E66 from back in 2008, and it hit me that, once upon a time, I loved to have a sliding phone. How things can change.
alvin@khaleejtimes.com

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