Xiaomi is clearly no stranger to the "spray and
pray" approach to mobile phone lineups, growing increasingly popular in
recent years. The Mi 8 family is now sprawling, with models including the Mi 8
Explorer, Mi 8 Pro, regular Mi 8, Mi 8 SE and the proverbial runt of the
family, so to say - the Mi 8 Lite.
According to a recent TENAA filing, the latter might
be getting a new coat of paint, along with a memory upgrade up to 8GB of RAM.
We won't really get into the merits of the latter on a mid-range device, but we
will note that the "M1808D2TT" looks quite impressive in what we can
only describe as a dual-color look, complete with accents.
This is clearly a new dye, since it has the back and
front of the unit both finished in black and a reddish, pink or perhaps orange
middle frame and camera rim accents. It's definitely a different look. But,
before you get too excited, it should be noted that one of the original TENAA
reports featured a white Mi 8 Lite unit - a color option that hasn't made it to
shelves thus far.
Exterior and the memory bump aside, the rest of the
Mi 8 Lite remains unchanged. Some of the basic specs include a 6.26-inch, 1080
x 2280 pixel IPS display, Snapdragon 660 chipset, 64GB or 128GB of storage
(although there are mentions of 32GB and 256GB tiers scattered around TENAA as
well), a 12MP, plus 5MP main camera setup and a 3,350 mAh battery.
