After rumors began flowing about Xiaomi's 8th
anniversary flagship phone, the company itself took to Twitter to confirm that
the Xiaomi Mi 8 is coming Thursday, May 31st. And yes, if you're keeping count,
the company has decided to skip the seven and jump to eight, because it is its
eighth anniversary.
A teaser image accompanied the announcement,
depicting a number eight with conductive tracks running over it, which didn't
seem all that revelatory yesterday, but it does now. Xiaomi Mi 8 showcases with a translucent back — or
'clear' as it was popular in the 90s — similar to the HTC U12+. It's an
interesting approach this, mixing old and new design trends, and Xiaomi may
have been alluding to it in yesterday's teaser image. It also gives merit to
the newly leaked video.
Another interesting thing, aside from the clear
back, is the notch up front. Yes, the Xiaomi Mi 8 will allegedly have an iPhone
X-style notch — that is, a wider one than most other Android phones that have
adopted the notch — that may actually house the cameras and sensors needed for
true 3D face recognition. This has been one of the rumors floating around about
the Mi 8 for some time, so a notch may really be needed in this case.
The lighting is less-than-ideal and
the resolution is too low to be able to make out anything at the bottom of the
screen. Even after doing some adjustments to the image, we were not able to
reveal anything resembling a bezel at the bottom. Still, there could be a
thicker edge there, as completely eliminating the bottom bezel can be a
difficult and expensive process.
