Mi Mix 2 comes head to head against the likes of Honor 8 Pro and OnePlus 5 as well as the upcoming OnePlus 5T. We review.
Edge-to-edge displays might be the talk of the town right now thanks to the iPhone X, but as anyone with even a passing interest in the smartphone industry would know, Apple’s newest flagship is not the first smartphone to embrace this design. That feather belongs in the cap of Xiaomi, which released the Mi Mix last year when the iPhone X when was nothing but a rumour you read about on a site like this one.
Xiaomi released the Mi Mix with an all-ceramic body and striking display as a ‘concept’ smartphone, much like the concept cars that manufacturers showcase in the auto world. While most concept cars never really hit the market, Xiaomi’s design has inspired a whole host of ‘bezel-less’ smartphones since then. These have included the Samsung Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+, Galaxy Note 8, and LG G6, among others, with some more true to their bezel-less nature than the rest. So how does Xiaomi’s second take on the trend it kickstarted perform in the real world? Let’s find out in our review of the Mi Mix 2.
A lot of smartphones claim to be ‘all screen’ but the Mi Mix 2 is arguably the one that has come closest to making this a reality. Just like its predecessor, the Mi Mix 2 has done away with the ‘forehead’ almost entirely, which means the selfie camera had to be moved to below the display. However, unlike the original Mi Mix – which used piezoelectric acoustic ceramic earpiece to deliver sound “straight to the ear” – Xiaomi has managed to find space for a tiny, covential speaker just above the display. The proximity sensor, however, is still ultrasonic, and not infrared, as seen on most smartphones. The chin – the part below the display – on the Mi Mix 2 is noticeably smaller than that of the Mi Mix.
The rear camera is surrounded by a 18-karat gold-plated decorative rim, giving the phone a distinctive look from the back as well. Below that you will find the fingerprint scanner, and the words ‘Mi Mix Designed by Xiaomi’, just in case you had any doubts about the smartphone you were using. A dual-tone flash sits to the right of the camera module.
The Mi Mix 2 does away with the 3.5mm headphone jack, but you get a USB Type-C port at the bottom for charging, data transfers, and audio. A Type-C-to-3.5mm adapter is bundled with the phone. In the retail box, you also get a back cover for the Mi Mix 2, a 9V/2A charger that supports Quick Charge 3.0, a USB Type-C cable, a SIM eject tool, and some documentation. Like other Xiaomi phones, there are no earphones. Interestingly, the Type-C-to-3.5mm adapter bundled with the Mi Mix 2 did not work with other smartphones including the Nexus 6P, Nokia 8, and HTC U11. On either side of the Type-C port you have grilles, with the left one housing the mic while the right one has the speaker.
The Mi Mix 2 has an aerospace-grade aluminium alloy frame and a ceramic backplate that’s curved on all four sides. This gives the smartphone a really nice, premium feel, though the back is a fingerprint magnet, so you’d be well advised to keep something to wipe it with handy. In India, the phone is available only in black.
Instead of the 6.4-inch 17:9 display on the Mi Mix display, Xiaomi has switched to a 5.99-inch 18:9 screen on the Mi Mix 2, which makes the smartphone a lot easier to handle. The 1080×2160-pixel display has a 1500:1 contrast ratio and support for the DCI-P3 colour gamut as well as features like Sunlight Display and Reading Mode seen on other Xiaomi smartphones.
The screen itself offers vibrant colours with good contrast and brightness, even outdoors. Watching videos and reading text-heavy documents or webpages is especially enjoyable on edge-to-edge displays like the one on the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2. By default, the smartphone displays on-screen buttons at the bottom of the display, but you can choose to hide them – and have them show only when you swipe up – for a more immersive experience.
The Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 is powered by the Snapdragon 835 SoC, which has been seen in most Android flagships of 2017, including the OnePlus 5 – which can be considered the Mi Mix 2’s closest competitor, at least until the OnePlus 5T comes out. This phone also packs 6GB of RAM and 128GB of non-expandable internal storage, out of which nearly 118GB is available for end use. The Mi Mix 2 has dual Nano-SIM slots, though 4G can be active on only one SIM at any given time.
The smartphone supports VoLTE, and Xiaomi claims support for six network modes and 43 bands, which, the company says, is the most of any smartphone. You also get support for NFC, dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac including MU-MIMO, and Bluetooth 5.0, which means the Mi Mix 2 ticks all the boxes when it comes to connectivity options.
As you would expect, the Mi Mix 2 proved to be a reliable workhorse for all day-to-day tasks, and we didn’t experience any performance-related issues at any point in time. Games such as Asphalt 8 and Breakneck ran flawlessly, and the phone did not get warm even after extended gaming sessions. The benchmark scores were pretty similar to those of other Snapdragon 835-powered smartphones.
Initially, we thought accidental touch inputs would be a big problem given the edge-to-edge nature of the display, but with everyday use, this fear turned out to be unfounded. The apps we tried scaled correctly to the 18:9 display on the Mi Mix 2 without any issues. While watching 16:9 videos in landscape mode you will notice tiny black bands to the left and right. You can choose to go ‘full screen’ at the cost of cropping a bit of content from the top and bottom, a tradeoff you end up making while watching content in a non-native aspect ratio on any screen.
As we mentioned before, the Mi Mix 2 has its fingerprint sensor at the back, just below the rear camera module. We found it easy to reach every single time, though the experiences of those with smaller hands may vary. The scanner worked reliably every single time we reached to unlock the phone, though its placement means you cannot do so when it’s lying on its back without lifting it, unless you enter the passcode.
Call quality was decent, and the tiny earpiece performed satisfactorily during phone calls, addressing a complaint many had with the original Mi Mix. The mono speaker gets sufficiently loud but cannot, of course, match the audio fidelity of a stereo setup.
The Mi Mix 2 has a 3400mAh battery, which performed great in our HD video loop test, lasting just a shade under 13 hours of continuous playback. Our real-world experience was equally good, with the smartphone easily lasting over 1.5 days of medium to heavy usage. With light use, the Mi Mix 2 could take you from the start of one day to the end of the next. Unfortunately, our review until did not come with a charger, so we couldn’t test the Quick Charge functionality with the bundled power adapter.
The Mi Mix 2 runs MIUI 8.5 out of the box, which is built upon Android 7.1.1. MIUI, of course, is Xiaomi’s own take on Android, one that customises nearly every aspect of the operating system. Most OEMs are moving towards stock Android – or at least reducing bloat in one form or other from their respective skins – but despite its Android One experiment with the Mi A1, Xiaomi is sticking to its guns with the Mi Mix 2 for now. This and other smartphones are also slated to receive an update to MIUI 9, which adds a bunch of new features, sometime later this month.
Software features that the Mi Mix 2 shares with other Xiaomi smartphones include Dual Apps, i.e. the ability to run multiple instances of apps like Facebook and WhatsApp on the same phone; Second Space, which is like having a second user/ profile on your phone with its own set of core apps; and Quick Ball, which lets you place a virtual ball anywhere on the screen and use it to trigger various apps/ actions. You also get a customisable one-handed mode and support for gestures, such as one that lets you swipe down with three fingers to take a screenshot. We encourage you to read our reviews of other Xiaomi phones to find out more about MIUI.
The camera app on the Mi Mix 2 is the same as what you get on other Xiaomi phones running MIUI, with options for Panorama, Manual, Beautify, and Square modes.
