Each year we all wait for one of the most powerful budget flagships and it is finally here. Meet the Xiaomi Mi 6, the phone that has killer specs, awesome looks, and a compelling dual-camera setup. Stay tuned to find out if the best of Xiaomi is worth your attention in the full Xiaomi Mi 6 review.

Thanks to Giztop for providing the Xiaomi Mi 6 review unit.

VIDEO REVIEW

UNBOXING

The Xiaomi Mi 6 ships with all the usual stuff and some extras include a soft TPU case to protect your phone.

Also, you get a USB-C to the headset jack adapter since the phone lacks the 3.5mm port. Finally, the Mi 6 ships with the fast charger.

DESIGN and DISPLAY

Once you first pick the Xiaomi Mi 6 up, the first impressions are that the phone looks just gorgeous. Also, it has excellent build quality and it is fairly compact since it sports a 5.15” IPS LCD display, which is sharp, vibrant and definitely one of the best 1080p panels you can find.

We have an 8MP shooter and LED notification light, which, however, is not customizable like on previous Xiaomi phones.

At least we have nicely backlit capacitive keys and the fingerprint sensor that is one of the fastest and most accurate scanners that you can find on any smartphone. It unlocks the phone 10/10 times, straight from the standby mode.

I love that the phone sits nicely in the hand. The stainless-steel frame is almost seamless with a curved glass back panel, which actually does a decent job with all the fingerprints and smudges. In comparison, the phone does not attract fingerprints so quickly like the Galaxy S8. Also, the buttons are easy to reach and they have a great tactile feedback.

It’s worth mentioning that the Xiaomi Mi 6 is now splash-proof even though the official certification number is not yet confirmed. Keep in mind that splash-proof phones are not the same as water resistant smartphones. In other words, you cannot submerge the Xiaomi Mi 6 under water, don’t mess your new phone up.

One of the key selling points of the Mi 6 is the dual camera setup that consists of a 12MP shooter with a wide-angle lens and another 12MP sensor with the telephoto lens that gives 2 times zoom and the ability to take beautiful portrait photos with bokeh effect. The main camera has a bright f/1.8 aperture lens, 4-axis OIS, and dual tone dual-LED flash.

It is great that we have the IR blaster that allows you to control devices like TVs.

I love the loudspeaker quality. The sound is balanced and rich, and there is even a decent amount of bass.

What I don’t like is that there is no headset jack on this phone. I know that Xiaomi wants to follow a trend but if you look at the latest flagships from Samsung or LG, Xiaomi should be more careful with this decision and I think they should have kept the headset jack. Anyway, the sound quality via the USB-C port using a supplied adapter is great. No distortions, great volume output, and rich sound.

Xiaomi Mi 6 in pictures:

[envira-gallery id=”130728″]

HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

As far as hardware goes, the Xiaomi Mi 6 is one of the most powerful smartphones the money can buy.

It ships with the latest and greatest Snapdragon 835 chip, 6GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of internal storage, which is, however, not expandable.

The gaming performance is almost perfect. All the 3D games run fine on the very highest graphics settings and the phone does not have any overheating issues. However, I noticed that there were a few skipped frames on the Asphalt 8. I believe that this is due to an early software build and you don’t really need to worry about that since Xiaomi releases software updates very often.

BENCHMARKS

USER INTERFACE

The Mi 6 ships with the MIUI 8, which is built on top of Android 7.1. My device has the MIUI Global ROM 8.2 that has Google Services pre-installed and all the Chinese bloatware removed.

I love how fast the phone is on the daily basis even after installing quite a few apps. So far, the phone has been working fine and I didn’t have any lag.

As usual, there are plenty of customization options Xiaomi phones have been famous for. Just to name a few, you can adjust display settings, choose from a variety of themes or wallpapers, customize the capacitive buttons, use some gesture controls and so on. If you want to customize the phone even further, there are a lot more other features to play with.

CAMERAS

Check out our camera review video:

We have a familiar Xiaomi camera app that allows you to take pictures very fast. You can also play with some basic shooting modes and settings. E.g. you can adjust some image properties using the manual mode or shoot slow-motion videos at 720p.

There is also 2x lossless zoom mode that allows you to utilize that secondary camera sensor and this feature comes really handy. The results are pretty good, definitely a lot better than using digital zoom.

The portrait mode takes good-looking pictures with bokeh effect but sometimes you may get a picture with a bit unnatural looking blurred background.

When it comes to the image quality using auto-mode, the Mi 6 can take great pictures in good lighting. There is plenty of detail, the colors look nice and noise reduction is pretty good. However, I found that the dynamic range adjustment is a bit worse than on the top tier phones like the Samsung Galaxy S8.

The indoor and macro shots are great too. Again, there is lots of detail and you get that nice bokeh effect thanks to the bright lens.

The low-light camera performance is decent but it is far from the top-shelf flagship-grade quality. If we compare the pictures with the Samsung Galaxy S8, you will see that there are much less detail and much more noise.

The 4k video quality is great. The footage is detailed and the continuous auto-focus feature works well. The colours look nice too but they seem to be slightly oversaturated. Also, there are some video artifacts going but in general, this is probably the best video quality from any Xiaomi phone.

The 1080p video looks good too. Obviously, there is less detail but the OIS seems to do a better job than in 4k video mode.

The selfies look great as there is a lot of detail and the colors are accurate. However, the quality decreases quite dramatically in lower-lit situations.

The 1080p selfie video looks quite good. There is a good amount of detail but the footage is not as good as the one shot with the Galaxy S8. Finally, the sound recording quality is decent but still, not quite the mainstream flagship quality.

Download full-resolution camera samples

CONNECTIVITY

When it comes to connectivity, the Xiaomi Mi 6 is flawless. The call quality and signal reception have been excellent, the Wifi range and speed are good, the Bluetooth works fine and finally, the GPS is very accurate, thanks to a reliable Snapdragon processor.

BATTERY LIFE

The Xiaomi Mi 6 ships with a 3350 mAh battery that performs great. I used my phone very intensively for taking a lot of pictures and shooting 4k video, running benchmarks, installing a lot of apps and so on and I still managed to get over 5 hours of screen-on time. If you use the device just for the basic stuff, you should be able to get 6 or even 7 hours of SOT.

Finally, the Mi 6 ships with the fast charger. It takes about 1:30 h to fully charge the phone, thanks to the Quick Charge 3.0.

CONCLUSIONS

So, there you have it, the Xiaomi Mi 6, the latest and greatest from the Chinese tech giant.

I have to say that this is one solid smartphone and it brings a lot of flagship-grade qualities for a much lower price than the mainstream flagships.

Xiaomi nailed the design and build quality, the display is nice and sharp, and the overall performance is great. You also get a great battery life with the fast charger and all connectivity options work flawlessly.

The dual-cameras can take some very nice pictures but the quality is still not on par with the top tier phones like the Galaxy S8, especially if you compare the low-light photos.

You should also know that the Mi 6 lacks the headset jack and there is no microSD card slot.

At the end of the day, the Xiaomi Mi 6 is the best Xiaomi’s phone yet. Even though it has a few cons to consider, you can definitely call it a flagship phone even if it does not carry a mainstream flagship price tag.

The post Xiaomi Mi 6 Review – The Best Xiaomi’s Phone Yet appeared first on Gizmochina.

The Xiaomi Mi 6 was officially launched last Wednesday and pre-orders have already begun. Jingdong Mall, one of the official retailers has recorded over 600,000 pre-orders ahead of the first flash sale on Friday, 28th of April. Xiaomi too is hard at work in its factories, trying to ensure that there are enough units available for purchase.

Chinese blogger @Luo Yiwen yesterday shared an image of factory workers in front of the first batch of Mi 6 ready for shipment. The picture was taken at 20:13hrs, on April 21 2017. We don’t know how many units have been produced so far but Xiaomi has just five days left before the phone goes on sale. Will it be able to meet up with demand? We hope so.

Part of Xiaomi’s focus for this year is to meet up with the high demand for its phones. Last year, it recorded less sales due to supply issues and its over reliance on using online sales only. Xiaomi didn’t mention if the Mi 6 will be available in physical stores come Friday but it will be unwise if they are repeating the same mistakes from last year.

READ MORE: Xiaomi Mi MIX 2 Appears on Gearbest with Full Specification Details

The Xiaomi Mi 6 will start at ¥2499 ($363) for the 64GB model and  ¥2899 ($421) for the 128GB version. The special edition with a ceramic body and 128GB of storage will be sold for ¥2299 ($435). All versions come with 6GB of RAM, a Snapdragon 835 SoC and dual rear cameras.

By the way, now that the Xiaomi Mi 6 is out, can we get a price slash on the Mi 5s?

The post Leaked Image Shows First batch of Xiaomi Mi 6 Ready for Shipment appeared first on Gizmochina.

After a few months of waiting, the Xiaomi Mi 6 is finally official. The phone comes with all the bells and whistles that we expect from a 2017 flagship, including the super fast Snapdragon 835 processor.

Xiaomi Mi 6 Design

The Xiaomi Mi 6 comes with a four curved design. The back is made out of glass and Xiaomi claims that this curved design gives the phone a natural grip in hand. The process of making the body is not an easy one, as the company adds that it takes about 12 days and 40 processes for each of the body pieces to be finished. The stainless steel frame ensures that the phone is sturdy despite the glass body. This is really important because glass phones usually don’t take falls very well. In case you are wondering, the dual cameras are not protruding and blend well with the overall design.

According to Xiaomi, the Mi 6 is all about the best visual experience. The back of the phone is curved and elegant. The front also looks good, despite the large bezels on the top and the bottom of the display. And yes, as expected, the company has decided to ditch the 3.5mm headphone jack on the Mi 6. So, it’s time to say goodbye to your regular headphones and embrace the Bluetooth and USB Type-C earbuds. On the top of the phone, there’s an IR sensor while at the bottom, you’ll find a USB Type-C port and dual speakers on either side. Everything is well covered, which means the phone can take a few splashes of water. Yes, the company is not marketing it as true waterproof or IP67 certified phone (we don’t know the certification yet). So, for now, all we know is that the phone is splash resistant.

And yes, the phone has an underglass fingerprint sensor that also acts as the home button.

There are a lot of color options for the phone and each comes with its own unique presence. First, there’s the interesting blue version, that we have already seen in the renders yesterday. What’s even more interesting is the Xiaomi Mi 6 Silver Edition that the company claims comes with a totally different feel than the Blue version. It looks like the back is made out of metal with a special ultra-reflective mirror finish. Now before you start drooling over this ultimate Mi 6 Silver edition, note that the mass production of the phone has not yet started. The company reveals that even one speck of dust during the electroplating process renders the batch useless. So, my guess is that this silver edition will be a special limited edition model, that you probably won’t be able to get your hands on.

Xiaomi Mi 6 Specs

The Xiaomi Mi 6 comes with a Snapdragon 835 chipset under the hood clocked at 2.45GHz with Adreno 540 GPU on board. Note that this is a 10nm chip and comes in an octa-core architecture, which means the phone will be quite efficient as well as powerful. There will be 6GB of RAM on board. The display is of 5.15-inches with 1080p resolution. It’s a Negative LCD display and comes with 600-nit max brightness and 1-nit super low ultra-dark brightness, ideal for night time reading. There’s a special eye protection optimization for the display that ensures that your eyes are not adversely affected by the screen, especially at night. The reading mode on the device reduces the harmful blue light from the screen, and at the same time, maintains the colors displayed.

Now, you will also be interested in the AnTuTu score of the device. While we have already seen the Xiaomi Mi 6 on AnTuTu, the official score is a bit higher (not surprising) and the phone reportedly scores 184,292 on the benchmarking website. That’s one of the highest scores we have seen for an Android smartphone. But understand that real life scores are probably going to be near 170K+, similar to what we have seen in the listing before. On the GFX Manhattan off-screen test for GPU, the phone scored an impressive 63fps. The Mi 6 also comes with Vulkan 3D rendering API, which will ensure realistic graphics and efficient GPU performance.

The phone comes with 2 x 2 Dual Wi-Fi support for better speed and larger range. Mi 6 supports 4G+ which promises 600Mbps max download and 100Mbps upload speeds. Other features of the flagship include stereo speakers and NFC with Mi Pay support (in China).

As for the battery, the Xiaomi Mi 6 comes with a 3350mAh battery inside. Now, this may not be large, at least according to Xiaomi’s standards, but the company made sure to add that the phone has one of the larger batteries as compared to competition with similar screen sizes. You should get about a day’s usage with this battery onboard.

Xiaomi Mi 6 Camera

Xiaomi has once again joined the elite club of manufacturers in 2017 to focus on dual camera setup for better flagship camera performance. The Xiaomi Mi 6 features two cameras at the back, along with a dual tone LED flash on the left. The camera setup is as follows: 12MP wide-angle lens + 12MP telephoto lens. Now, this is a bit different than traditional Android dual camera setup which utilizes one Black and White and one Color sensor. Xiaomi explains that the Mi 6’s camera uses a similar dual camera setup as the iPhone 7 Plus to produce an amazing depth of field effect.

Further, the phone comes with 2x optical lossless zoom ensuring clear shots, even at a distance. You also get 10x digital zoom. The Mi 5’s 4-axis OIS will be carried forward on the Xiaomi Mi 6 as well.

Xiaomi Mi 6 Price

The Xiaomi Mi 6 6GB + 64GB model costs 2499 Yuan ($363) and the 6GB + 128GB edition costs 2899 Yuan ($421).

The special 6GB + 128GB ceramic edition in black is priced at 2999 yuan ($435).

Xiaomi Mi 6 Release

The Xiaomi Mi 6 will be up for sale in China at 10 AM on April 28.

So, what do you think about the Mi 6?

The post Xiaomi Mi 6 Launched With 12MP Dual Cameras, SD835 & No Headphone Jack appeared first on Gizmochina.

Xiaomi Mi 6 is already late and fans just can’t wait to see the phone being launched officially. As we near the release date of the device, which should be somewhere around mid-April, more and more leaks and rumors about the Xiaomi Mi 6 have started to come in. We have already seen the Mi 6 renders that show off the dual cameras, as well as a blurred image of the flagship with the same setup. Now, we finally have a good look at the Xiaomi Mi 6’s back in good clarity. In case you are wondering, it’s the same image as yesterday, but this one is much clearer than before.

Yes, this is the first time we are seeing the Mi 6 in such clarity and the phone definitely has taken a familiar design language as other Xiaomi Mi branded phones. There’s the curved back as well as dual cameras on top. From the back, the phone reminds me of the Xiaomi Mi Note which was announced a couple of years back. We have one more image of the phone, which is once again clear, but a bit confusing. The phone below shows the dual tone flash on the right, while the one above has the flash to the left. Now, if you remember, the first image that we saw related to the phone was the leaked Xiaomi Mi 6 case and it had an opening for the flash before the dual cameras. So, the picture above could be the real deal.

Now apart from these two conflicting images of the Mi 6, we have also got what looks like the front panel of the device.

Now, there’s something interesting about this Xiaomi Mi 6 front panel. The one who leaked this image also revealed that the phone comes with a special cut out on the top, for what looks like an iris sensor. Now remember, it’s not easy to get quick results with iris recognition, which is why Samsung Galaxy S8 is said to add a facial recognition feature. So, it remains to be seen whether Xiaomi decides to add an iris sensor on its important Xiaomi Mi 6 flagship. Well, if you are curious, below is an image of what looks like a teaser from Xiaomi about Iris recognition. Remember, this is not an official teaser, just a leak.

RELATED: Full Leaked Specs Sheet Of the Xiaomi Mi 6 and the Mi 6 Plus Here!

Now, finally, we have some images of the ‘about section’ of the phone. The screen seems to confirm it’s the Xiaomi Mi 6 with MIUI 8. What’s interesting about this screenshot is that it’s showing 8GB of RAM on board and 64GB of storage. So, is it time for 8GB RAM to become mainstream on phones, starting with the Mi 6? Can’t say yet. It’s always best if you take these leaks with a pinch of salt.

Another thing you notice is that there is no additional sensor on top of this phone. Unlike what the leaked Mi 6 front panel revealed.

To be honest, at this moment, it’s very hard to confirm what’s true and what’s not. Dual cameras seem to be the only constant among these leaks. So, maybe we can say that the Mi 6 will come with two cameras at the back. But even their placement is disputable at this moment.

Overall, today’s series of Xiaomi Mi 6 leaks were rather confusing.

(Source 1, Source 2)

The post Th Best Clear Image Of the Xiaomi Mi 6 Is Here, Bonus Front Panel & Screenshot Images appeared first on Gizmochina.