The Xiaomi Mi Mix Alpha is more screen than phone, and it’s totally absurd

Xiaomi is well-known for pushing the boat out when it comes to smartphone innovation. This year’s effort is a jaw-dropping number with a Snapdragon 855+, 512GB storage and 5G connectivity as standard – oh, and a display that wraps its way around almost the entire device.

The smartphone – called the Xiaomi Mi Mix Alpha – is very much a concept device, although it will be receiving an official launch in December this year. The display wraps around both sides of the handset and is punctuated only by a single strip that houses the 108-megapixel rear camera.

That camera, incidentally, has been co-designed by Samsung, and if the rumours are true, could well be a key feature of the upcoming Galaxy S11 – or Galaxy One – series. It’s capable of taking photos with a resolution of up to 12,032 x 9,024 which is arguably more pixels than any smartphone could ever need.

Xiaomi boasts that the Mi Mix Alpha has a body-to-screen ratio of 180%. That’s almost twice as much as the nearest competition, the Huawei Mate 30, which has a body-to-screen ratio of roughly 94%.

Xiaomi demonstrated a few of the handset’s more intriguing features during a recent press conference dedicated to the Xiaomi Mi Pro 9 and Mi Mix 5G (video above). Notifications will appear on the edges of the phone, for example, which seems like more of a wrist-straining endeavour than anything else. A couple of short videos show the ways in which that loopy display will react to certain events, such as being plugged in to charge or receiving a message. Frankly, it’s a stunning sight.

The excessive amount of display does of course raise a few totally legitimate concerns. In order to avoid accidentally opening several apps at once, we assume that you will need to hold the Mi Mix Alpha between a thumb and forefinger, as though it were a particularly smelly sock. Dropping the Mi Mix Alpha, moreover, is almost guaranteed to result in a broken display, and we shudder to imagine the torture involved in neatly applying a screen protector.

The Mi Mix Alpha will go on sale in December in limited quantities. You can purchase one for the princely sum of 19,999 yuan, which equates to around £2,500 – roughly £1,000 more than the Samsung Galaxy Fold.

Written by

Will Georgiadis Author

Since 2018, Will has been the engine of the Expert Reviews production team as sub-editor, senior sub-editor, and now production editor. Will is responsible for making sure that the content Expert Reviews publishes is of the highest quality; he also keeps the team’s vast workflow running smoothly and maintains the ancient and revered Expert Reviews style guide. With five years of experience behind him and thousands of articles edited, sub-edited and triple-checked, Will is confident that you won’t find a single mistake on the site – and if you think you have, you’re wrong.

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