Xiaomi Mi MIX 2 - best frameless Chinese flagship

Mi Mix of the first generation was impressive, and with its successor Xiaomi hopes to maintain this "wow" factor, making the device accessible to a wider audience.

Xiaomi took over the rest of the smartphone industry. A full-screen display of the phone with a screening factor of 91.3% and a ceramic design made of Xiaomi. on the Mi Mix.

Fortunately, this changes with the help of Mi Mix 2. The phone will be able to use it on most operators around the world. Xiaomi also made a few design tricks to make the phone more accessible, including cropping the screen size and switching to a speaker that really works.

The price is what makes Mi Mix 2 much more attractive: the base version with 6 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage is sold for the equivalent of $ 500 in China, and Xiaomi will strive to present it. Let's find out if Mi Mix 2 can distinguish itself from other phones in this segment.

I (Harish Jonnalagadda) write this review after using Mi Mix 2 for two weeks, with the spread in Beijing and Hyderabad. I used the phone primarily on the 4G Airtel network and was roaming with China Mobile. The device launches the first global beta version of MIUI (build 7.8.24) and is picked up by a single update with stability fixes, increasing the build number to 7.9.21. The device was provided by Android Central for a review of Xiaomi.

Mi Mix 2 is very similar to its predecessor, and it's good. The first generation Mi Mix was stunning thanks to the widescreen display, and we treat it the same way. Mix 2 has knitted panels with three sides, which provides an exciting display that is ideal for multimedia consumption.


There is a 5-inch front camera and LED indicator, and Xiaomi notes that the bottom frame is now 12% thinner than the Mi Mix. Last year Xiaomi used a piezoelectric acoustic driver, but this time it switched to a standard speaker, which is just above the display. The speaker itself is decent enough, and you should not have problems with voice calls.

Mi Mix had a crazy 91.3% screen-to-case ratio, but a large 6.44-inch display made it difficult to use the phone alone. With Mi Mix 2, Xiaomi, the screen size to a more manageable 5.99 inches, making the phone more convenient to use alone. The fact that this is an 18: 9 display means that you are not high enough and you can not reach all the corners of the display.

While the Mi Mix was blocky at the back, its successor has smooth edges and rounded corners, which leads to a much better feel in the hand. The design on the back is relatively unchanged from Mi Mix: there is a gold accent on 18 carats around the camera, and the slogan "Mix, designed by Xiaomi" is still laser-printed on the back. Xiaomi again uses a ceramic back, but the middle of the frame is made of aluminum. At the bottom of the phone there is one speaker and a USB-C charging port next to it. The phone does not have an IR sensor, and you also will not find a 3.5mm jack.

Silent phones with main phone and iPhone. Xiaomi, meanwhile, decided to move the camera to the lower right corner of the phone, while the Mi Mix 2 is seamless and not overshadowed by any cutouts.


Mi Mix of the first generation is also an image sensor, and the area around the lens is obscured. However, the same problems that followed the Mi Mix 2 of the first generation: the position of the front camera makes it incredibly inconvenient to use, and more often than not you will get a strange chin - the first angle when taking over, the Camera tells you to take yourself that is not perfect . Although it works for the default application for the camera, there is no way to change the orientation in applications such as Duo.

The defining function on the phone is the screen on the whole screen, and although the Xiaomi will have the best quality with the QHD panel, the FHD + display with a resolution of 2160 x 1080 is really good. It is not as saturated as AMOLED panels on Samsung phones, but these are the best LCD displays that you will find on the market today.

Colors reproduction is accurate, and if you're looking for punchier colors, there's an option to adjust the color temperature in the settings. The phone gets sufficiently bright for outdoor usage, and you can reduce the brightness all the way down to 1nit for viewing the screen at night. There's also a dedicated reading mode that acts as a blue light filter.


The Mi Mix 2 is compatible with most carriers around the world.
The Mi Mix 2 is powered by the 10nm Snapdragon 835, and the base variant of the phone comes with 6GB of RAM. Xiaomi is making three storage configurations available: 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB (the model I'm reviewing). The 64GB model is available for what amounts to $500 in China, but you'll have to shell out close to $570 to get your hands on a unit from reseller sites.

As you'd imagine from a phone that has the latest hardware available today, the Mi Mix 2 absolutely blazes through anything you throw at it. I haven't noticed any slowdowns yet, and with MIUI 9 providing much-needed optimization for the UI elements, you won't feel like the interface is bloated (which was definitely the case with MIUI 8).

Xiaomi rolled out its first global phone last year in the Mi Note 2, with the phone featuring support for 37 LTE bands in total. The company is doing the same once again with the Mi Mix 2, offering 42 bands in total. That means that you'll be able to use the Mi Mix 2 on most carriers around the world, making it a much more enticing option for those looking to import the device.

Aside from the annoyances with the front camera, the Mi Mix 2 is a well-thought-out phone that certainly looks much better when compared to the likes of the OnePlus 5. Xiaomi is also offering a limited edition model crafted out of unibody ceramic that comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB storage. The phone will be available in black and white color options, and it looks absolutely stunning. You can clearly make out the difference between the ceramic and the aluminum mid-frame on the regular version, but the ceramic unibody edition has a seamless design that's evocative, particularly in the white color option.

If you're looking for a phone that stands out, then the unibody ceramic edition is the one to get. The phone will be incredibly hard to get a hold of, however, and at $720 it costs considerably more than the regular version.

Xiaomi phones are known for their battery longevity, and the Mi Mix 2 is no different. I easily got a day's worth of usage out of the 3400mAh battery consistently, even on days when I was using cellular data throughout. I routinely averaged screen-on-time in excess of five hours. And when you do need to top up, the phone has Quick Charge 3.0.

The Mi Mix 2 runs the latest version of MIUI 9, which is based on Android 7.1.2 Nougat. MIUI 9 has a lot of new additions, but the user-facing ones are (for now) limited to the Chinese ROM. If you're buying the phone from a reseller like GearBest, you'll get the global ROM pre-installed, which comes with the Play Store and Google's suite of apps out of the box.


Xiaomi was one of the first brands to fully embrace a theming engine, and in MIUI 9 the engine is much better. You'll be able to change every facet of the user interface with themes, and there are hundreds of different theming options available from the Mi Store. Then there are the MIUI mainstays: an easy-to-use one-handed mode, Quick Ball shortcuts on the screen, Second Space, Dual Apps for running two instances of an app simultaneously. Xiaomi also introduced a split-screen mode, and it works just as you'd imagine — select Split Screen from the multitasking pane, and drag apps into the top and bottom halves of the screen.


There's a lot to like in MIUI 9, but it is very buggy in its current iteration.
One of the main highlights in MIUI 9 is system-wide optimization, which makes the UI feel much more responsive. If you're used a Xiaomi device running MIUI 8, you'll immediately notice the difference. That said, MIUI 9 does not bring any visual changes, and the notification shade in particular needs to be overhauled. Although the new panel with the integrated toggles made its debut in MIUI 8 (Xiaomi had a ghastly two-pane layout in MIUI 7), it looks dated. And although the phone is running Nougat, you lose out on features like inline replies and actionable notifications.

Then there's the issue of receiving notifications. For some reason, the Mi Mix 2 would not show incoming Slack notifications, and there's no way to expand notifications in the lock screen. The global ROM is still in beta, and there's a long way to go before we get to a finished build. However, with a global launch slated for next month, these issues should be resolved in forthcoming updates.

Xiaomi continues to deliver weekly updates with bug fixes and stability tweaks, and hopefully notification-related problems will be ironed out before the phone makes its way outside of China. I'll update the review once a stable version of MIUI 9 is available for the Mi Mix 2.


This year was defined by dual cameras making their way into phones across price points, and while Xiaomi rolled out dual rear cameras in the Mi 6, the company is sticking to a single shooter with the

The primary 12MP imaging sensor itself is the same as what we've seen on the Mi 6, and it similarly offers 4-axis OIS and the ability to record 4K video at 30fps. And like the Mi 6, the camera on the Mi Mix 2 does a great job in daylight conditions, but it loses out on detail in low-light scenarios.

The Mi Mix 2 has the same fundamentals as its predecessor: an all-screen front with virtually no bezels on three sides, and a ceramic body. By shrinking the screen size down to 5.99 inches, Xiaomi has created a device that's easier to use on a day-to-day basis.

For now, the Mi Mix 2 is limited to the Chinese market, but Xiaomi will be rolling it out in other Asian countries shortly. The company has announced that it will launch the phone in India sometime next month, and with Indonesia also becoming a key market for the brand, an eventual launch in that country is also likely in the coming months.

The fact that the Mi Mix 2 has global LTE bands makes it an easy recommendation if you're looking for a sub-$600 phone that manages to stand out. The same caveats as before apply though: you're not going to see any after-sales support in markets where Xiaomi doesn't sell phones, and if this is your first Xiaomi purchase, it'll take you awhile to get used to MIUI. If you're willing to put up with that, the Mi Mix 2 is a fantastic phone for the price.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 amazing phone!

What is the Samsung Galaxy Note 8?
Some thought the Note 8 might never happen. After the successful launch and subsequent disastrous recall and discontinuation of the Note 7, which still gets namechecked on some airlines as a banned object, you’d have forgiven Samsung for dropping the Note name and starting again.

The Note 8, then, is supposed to be Samsung’s humble return to the phablet market – plus a big rival to the iPhone 8 – and in many ways this phone is a huge success. With a gorgeous design, incredible 6.3-inch screen, great software and excellent stylus, there’s very little not to like here. In fact, the only big concern I have is that this phone’s battery life might not be long enough for heavy users.

NOTE: Many UK journalists were only given four days in which to review the Samsung Galaxy Note 8. While I’ve used the phone nearly non-stop since I received it, I’m not yet comfortable giving it a rating or an award, as I don’t feel I’ve lived with it long enough to have the right to do so.

In particular question is the battery life, which takes at least a week of use to get a proper gauge on. I will add a score once I have had more time with the phone.


Samsung Galaxy Note 8 – Design
The Note 8 is a stunning piece of design. While the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ have a friendly, more curvaceous design aesthetic, Samsung continues to nod at its business customers with slightly sharper edges and a squarer camera module. You still get the iconic InfinityEdge design where the left and right sides of the screen slope off to the side, and you get the ultra-thin top and bottom bezel to boot. I actually prefer it to the regular S phones, although others might disagree.

The whole lot is coated in Corning Gorilla Glass 5.0, and my unit lives up to its colour description of Midnight Black. It looks great out of the box, but after a little while of using it, greasy marks do begin to build up on the back. That’s not unique to this phone, and it looks far cleaner than many smartphones do after they’ve been subjected to my clammy palms.

Related: Best phablets



It’s hard for me to comment on the longevity of the glass coating on this device because I haven’t dropped it properly. However, experience from elsewhere tells me that even the latest glass phones won’t survive clumsiness: our mobiles editor, Max Parker, dropped the Galaxy S8 earlier this year and cracked it, while my wife dropped her (Gorilla Glass 4) Galaxy A5 2017 from table height and smashed the back panel to smithereens. It is at least IP68-certified, meaning it’s waterproof even when subjected to a half-hour submersion.

I did drop the phone a couple of inches onto my kitchen counter at one point, and later laid it on a slightly rough stone table, and it came away without blemishes, as you’d well expect. The camera module has a very, very slight extruding border that protects the lenses from such behaviour. I did pick up one tiny mark on one of the exposed antennae on the top of the phone, which seems to have happened when it was in my pocket.

As for features, let’s start with the front. There’s a front-facing camera and iris scanner inside the top bezel along with the earpiece and an LED notification light. On the bottom there’s nothing visible, although the lower portion of the screen is actually a pressure-sensitive home button that can be used to wake the phone. On the left edge you get the volume rocker and the Bixby personal assistant button, while on the right is the power button. The lower edge is home to the USB-C connector, 3.5mm headphone socket and pop-out S Pen stylus, as well as the loudspeaker. Finally, on the top, you get a SIM card/microSD card slot.

The camera module comprises of two sensors behind two lenses (more on these in the Camera section), an optical heart-rate monitor, LED flash, and a fingerprint scanner. I’ll save the fingerprint scanner for later, but I’ll say right here that on a phone this size, this is most certainly the wrong place for it and is almost impossible to reach when pulling the phone out of your pocket.

Its 6.3-inch screen might sound like a nightmare for the small-handed. In reality, thanks to the sloped edges, tiny top and bottom of the bezel, and slightly stretched 18.5:9 aspect ratio, it’s nowhere near as big as the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus and other similarly chunky phones.


Credit: Max Parker / Trusted Reviews

It’s comfortable to hold in one hand, but less so to operate it effectively. If you’re just idly scrolling through Facebook then it’s fine, but as soon as you want to tap a button in the top half of the screen you’ll need your other hand, or to activate one-handed mode. One-handed mode is off by default but will be essential for many buyers and, once enabled, can be activated either by triple-tapping the home button or swiping diagonally up from the bottom corners.

Related: Best Android phones

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 – Screen
At 2960 x 1440 pixels (‘WQHD+’, 522ppi), the 6.3-inch panel certainly isn’t left wanting when it comes to resolution. Trouble is, you’ll rarely see that many pixels being put to good use. In its default ‘optimised’ power state, the Galaxy Note 8 only renders apps and photos at 2220 x 1080 pixels (‘FHD+’, 392ppi), and 1480 x 720 pixels (‘HD+’, 261ppi) when in power-saving mode. It’s only when you switch on Performance mode, to the detriment of battery life, that the Note 8 actually fires on all cylinders and pixels.


To many users, this will be confusing. Why have so many pixels when you’re not going to be using them to their full effect? When in FHD+ mode, 2.3 million dots are being dealt with by 4.2 million physical pixels, which seems like a waste. Indeed, only serving up FHD+ saves processing power, but doesn’t save any power from the screen itself.

Complexity aside, even when in its standard mode, the screen is stonkingly good. When it needs to, it can rise to an eye-searingly bright 1200 nits. For for the uninitiated, a good laptop screen will get to about 300 nits and a top-end HDR TV will generally get to around 1000 nits. That’s unbelievably bright, although it’s hard to verify because even with automatic brightness switched off the screen refuses to go beyond 340 nits under normal conditions. I suspect you’ll only ever get to 1200 nits when watching HDR content, which is not something I’ve been able to do yet.

The AMOLED display manages clean whites, rich colours and only a hint of motion blur when scrolling through text. There’s a slight blue tinge if you view the phone off-centre, and the two sloping edges lose some brightness and clarity, which is a bit disappointing, if not surprising.

With the screen turned up to its full WQHD+ resolution, text is super sharp and crisp, as are high-resolution photos. But, I’ll be honest, you’d be hard-pressed to spot the difference in everyday use. I suppose this conclusion sort of justifies Samsung’s decision to disable the full resolution by default, but that doesn’t change the fact that this super-expensive screen is being wasted most of the time.

Because of the odd aspect ratio, you have to explicitly set each app you open to be stretched to the full length of the screen. So far I’ve had no problems with this. The only other downside is that most online videos are in a 16:9 aspect ratio, which means your video will have black bars either side of it, or you can stretch and crop the video so it fills the screen. Some widescreen movies actually benefit from the latter, but you’ll need to decide on a video-by-video basis.

One final function of note is the always-on screen. Because AMOLED pixels are self-lighting (they only consume power when they’re not black, unlike conventional LCDs that are always on), you have the option of keeping the display on with a black and white clock, battery information and media buttons.

full specs http://list-phones.com/catalogue/Samsung-Galaxy-Note-8

This is great, until you check out Samsung’s power options and realise that having it on can decrease battery life by over an hour a day. What’s more, it doesn’t seem to turn off even when the phone is in your pocket, wasting even more precious energy. It’s a great feature on Samsung’s other phones, but when battery capacity is so tight, it’s the first thing you should turn off.

Meizu PRO 7 Review

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Meizu has released a phone designed to appeal to users who want a device that none of their friends will have.

Hands on with the Meizu Pro 7 plus Dual screen innovation with great functionality ZDNet
(Image: Meizu)
Both the Meizu Pro 7 and Pro 7 Plus feature an AMOLED rear display, the first time that Meizu has released dual screen technology. This enables you to manage various functions whilst the phone is face down on your desk.

The one-time market leaders get a new lease on life with the help of Android, licensees and Chinese manufacturing.

Read More 

Meizu call this the Fenetre display. Tap the back of the phone's 1.9-inch (240x536) screen to manage your notifications or display the music you are listening to.

You can customise the wallpaper for the Fenetre display, check the weather in your location, see how many steps you have taken, or take a selfie with the rear cameras while seeing how you look on the rear display.

Both the Pro 7 and Pro 7 Plus have a Super AMOLED main display. The Pro 7 has a 5.2-inch full HD display, whereas, like the Pro 6 Plus, the Pro 7 Plus has a 5.7-inch Quad HD display.

It feels nice to hold in the hand -- but the width of the device might be a problem is you have small hands.

Dimensions are 147 x 70.7 x 7.3mm for the Pro 7 and the Pro 7 Plus is a little larger at 157.3 x 77.2 x 7.3mm. Weights respectively are 163g for the Pro 7 and 170g for the Pro 7 Plus.

Inside the Meizu Pro 7 range there is a choice of processors. The Pro 7 comes equipped with the Helio P25 processor, the same as the Doogee Mix I looked at last month.



The Pro 7 Plus runs on the 10nm Helio X30 processor MediaTek 10-core tri-cluster chipset. This is the fastest phone I have tried from Meizu. I can open 20 apps without any lag at all

The Pro 7 comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, coupled with LPDDR4X and eMMC5.1 technology. The Pro 7 Plus comes with 6GB of LPDDR4X RAM andstorage options of 64GB or 128GB.

The Pro 7 Plus has a 3,500mAh battery, whereas the Pro 7 has a 3,000mAh battery. The Pro 7 Plus also has fast charging technology from Mezu: mCharge. This charges the phone up to over 50 percent charge in 30 minutes.

Both devices have decent cameras. The dual rear cameras of both devices have 12-megapixel Sony IMX386 sensors. The front camera of both phones has been upgraded to a 16-megapixel sensor.

The four-into-one pixel algorithm of the camera is activated automatically in dark environments, which means that in low-light you can take reasonable images. There is also a monochrome mode -- a nice touch.

For audio, both devices have Cirrus Logic CS43130 Hi-Fi chip. There is also a 3.5mm headphone jack if you do not want to use the USB-C charging port or bluetooth.

Available in a range of colours, the Pro 7 is available in black, gold, and red. The 64GB version of the Pro 7 Plus is available in matte black, space black, amber gold, and crystal silver whilst the 128GB version comes in matte black and space black.


A nice touch from Meizu is the inclusion of a hard plastic case for the device, with a cut-away for the rear screen.

Recent phones I have looked at from China all have a little extra giveaway out of the box -- like the thumb ring on the Doogee Mix, and phone cases are included as standard.

This is great if you want to start using the phone straight away and do not want to wait for the new styles of phone cases to appear on Amazon.

I loved how fast and accurate the fingerprint recognition is on this phone.

In early Meizu models, I had trouble logging on first time using my fingerprint.

Meizu has got this nailed for the Pro 7, and unlocking the screen is practically instantaneous.

One thing I hated about the phone was that it is difficult to use Google Play services on the device. Apps are installed using the Flyme app store.

Trying to install the Play Store takes quite a lot of faffing around. Some lesser known apps are not on the Flyme store. However, there is an option to search other stores to find the app you want.

All in all, I found this found to be a sleek and fast addition to the Meizu portfolio of devices. and with the Fenetre display, I can keep up to date without the distraction of picking up the phone. I like that a lot.