While everyone was expecting Samsung to launch the first ever smartphone powered by the newly launched Snapdragon 845 SoC, the Galaxy S9 Duo, here comes a report which suggests that Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi could beat the Korean maker in doing so.
Xiaomi is expected to unveil a couple of smartphones at the MWC 2018 event where Samsung is also slated to break covers off the Galaxy S9-duo, however, according to a new report by a Chinese blog mobile.it168.com, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S could be unveiled even before the event starts, as the Chinese smartphone maker doesn’t want the launch of its next flagship, Mi 7’s launch to clash with that of the Galaxy S9 at the Mobile World Congress 2018.
Therefore, Xiaomi is going to launch the Mi Mix 2S first with the Snapdragon 845 SoC under the hood. The Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S will the successor to Mi Mix 2 which was launched last year. It is also expected to sport minimum bezels while the rear and sides of the device are expected to be similar. Moreover, rendered images of Mi Mix 2S hints towards a small notch on the top right corner, which will reportedly house the front-facing camera.
While every other specification is expected to be similar to that of its predecessor, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S is also touted to come with the new Sony IMX363 camera sensor which will be equipped with dual-pixel autofocus technology in order to deliver enhanced night image results.
Apart from that, a slight bump in RAM and Android Oreo are also expected to feature in the Mi Mix 2S, while other internals are said to be the same as the non-S version.
For reference, let’s take a look at what Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 has to offer.
- 5.99-inch Full HD+ (2160 × 1080) display with 18:9 aspect ratio, DCI-P3 color gamut, 1500:1 contrast ratio, 403 PPI, and Corning Gorilla Glass 4 Protection.
- 64-bit Octa-Core Snapdragon 835 chipset clocked at 2.45GHz paired with Adreno 540 GPU
- 6GB RAM with 128GB of inbuilt memory (non-expandable)
- MIUI 9 based Android 7.1 (Nougat), upgradable to Android Oreo
- 12MP rear camera with dual-tone LED flash, Sony IMX386 sensor, f/2.0 aperture, 1.25μm pixel size, PDAF, 4K video recording, and 4-axis OIS.
- 5MP front sensor with fixed focus, facial recognition, f/2.0 aperture and 1080p video recording.
- Dual SIM support (nano + nano) and Fingerprint sensor at the rear.
- 50 mW high power speaker coupled with a sound guiding tube to provide better audio experience.
- 3400mAh battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 support
- Measurement: 151.8x 75.5 ×7.7 mm and Weight: 185g
- 4G VoLTE, GPS/GLONASS/Beidou, WiFi 802.11ac dual-band (2×2 MU-MIMO), Bluetooth 5.0, Support for 6 modes and 43 bands, USB Type-C support, and NFC.
In terms of pricing, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S is rumored to be launched in China in March and will be priced at CNY 4,000 (Rs 40,200 approx).
Everything said and done, last year, when Samsung was about to launch the Galaxy S8-duo, similar reports surfaced suggesting that Xiaomi Mi 6 could become the first smartphone ever to come with the then-flagship, Snapdragon 835 processor. However, nothing like that happened and we are not expecting much from the Chinese smartphone maker this year, as well.