Xiaomi has officially launched its new smartphone, the Mi Max, and it’s as big as we were expecting.
The Mi Max made an early appearance at China’s TENAA certification body just a few days ago, and we knew it was set for an official unveiling in its home country today.
Still, nothing can quite prepare you for the Xiaomi Mi Max’s huge dimensions.
If anything, Android phone sizes have scaled back a little in the past 18 months or so. The 6-inch excesses of the Nexus 6 have been the exception that proves the rule, as most manufacturers settle for a more manageable 5.X display.
Not the Xiaomi Mi Max, which comes with a 6.44-inch screen. That’s almost as big as the compact Android tablets that used to be ten-a-penny up until a few years ago.
Such a huge display necessitates a similarly vast 4,850mAh battery, but the Mi Max’s metal body is surprisingly svelte at 7.5mm thick.
It’s powered by either a Snapdragon 650 or a Snapdragon 652, both of which are decidedly mid-range components, and either 4GB or 3GB of RAM. Chinese buyers get a choice of 32GB or 128GB of internal storage.
A 16-megapixel rear camera, 5-megapixel front camera, and a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor round out the hardware package.
Related: Best Android Smartphones 2016
Xiaomi phones are famous (in some circles) for their slick custom UI, and the Mi Max sees the debut of the latest version in MIUI 8. One of its niftiest tricks is the ability to clone an app, which lets you log in to two accounts where multi-account logins aren’t supported.
The cost for this giant of a mid-range phone: between 1,499 yuan and 1,999 yuan, depending on the specification. That works out to between £159 and £212, which is pretty darned cheap. It goes on sale in China next week.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
