Xiaomi announced the Mi 8 series in three flavors -
a regular version, a cheaper Mi 8 SE and a premium variant with see-through
back and in-house Face ID solution, called Xiaomi Mi 8 Explorer. The phone is
finally arriving at the Mi Store, as announced by the company, for CNY 3,699
which is nearly US$ 530.
The phone has a Snapdragon 845 chipset, coupled with
8 GB RAM. Storage is 128 GB, although this is all you get - no microSD slot on
board. The screen is 6.21” Super AMOLED panel with a cutout on top for the
selfie camera, speaker, and advanced facial recognition software, simply called
Face ID. The screen enables the implementation of an under-display fingerprint
scanner, making it the first Xiaomi phone with such feature.
The back is also pretty impressive. There is no
sensor whatsoever, and the panel is transparent, revealing all the internals,
including the mainboard along with the Snapdragon 845 chipset and the 3,000 mAh
battery. The runs MIUI 9.5 out of the box, based on Android Oreo, but will soon
switch to MIUI 10.
