Xiaomi Mi Mix Alpha Impressions - The Wraparound Display!

What's up guys ?

I'm K B H D here .

So this is a fun one .

A couple of days ago , Xiaomi gave me a first look at a prototype smartphone that they've been working on .

So similar to some things we saw at CE S .

This isn't a real phone with a price tag that has a shipping date or anything like that .

This is just a functional prototype to show a cool idea they had .

And that idea is what would happen if you took those curved edge displays and just curved them right over the back all the way around to the back of the phone .

So you're just looking at full 110% screen and that is how we arrived at this , the Xiaomi Mimi Alpha prototype .

Also before we get into it , shameless plug , the merch is now permanently back .

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All right , let's get into the phone .

So this is that Xiaomi Mimi Alpha and it doesn't look like any other phone I've ever seen before and I've seen a lot of phones .

So you might remember their Mimi Line for a while has been that line of phones where they really pushed the design to the limits .

The first remix was one of my favorite phones for that reason .

So that's why this one got the Mimi name and it's definitely no exception , the materials , the specs and of course , the display are pretty next level .

So there's the frame of the phone , which is this Titanium alloy , which is harder than stainless steel and the camera covers are all made from sapphire and the camera strip on the back here is ceramic .

I don't have a mose pick handy or anything , but I tend to believe that because this phone is heavy , like it's clearly dense and has a lot of extra material , extra glass for the screen , etcetera .

And this not that they matter , but they are pretty high end which shows that they didn't have to sacrifice too much to make this form factor happen .

So Snap Dragon , a 55 plus 512 gigs of U F s3 5120.0 storage , 12 gigs of ram and a 4050 million bar battery .

That's pretty good .

If anything , you'd maybe want to see the battery even bigger .

But a lot of that space as you can tell is going to be taken up by the screen wrapping around inside the phone uh and it does have 40 watt fast charging , which I will definitely get back to you in a second .

So clearly the focal point of the phone here is this screen , I mean , just imagine seeing someone in person using this display where you can see it from the front , from the sides and from the back .

Uh This is a 2088 by 22 50 led display with a very thin top and bottom bezels that wrap around to meet the camera strip at the back , which is what I'll call it .

This houses a couple of things including the 108 megapixel primary camera , the 20 megapixel ultra wide with macro capabilities and the 12 megapixel telephoto camera and dual led flash .

And this one also even has an in display fingerprint reader impressively and it's five G enabled and there's a whole bunch of optimizations in Xiaomi's me U Y alpha software like the battery and status bar icons and notification counter are on the side of the phone here instead of at the top .

So it kind of cleans up the top to just be a notification pull down and not have to display all that stuff all the time , which is kind of neat and it's also just like crazy , no matter what angle you look at it , it just doesn't look right like it doesn't look like a real phone , it looks futuristic before you even think about any of the sort of practicality tradeoffs .

Also , I told you I would mention the charging again .

I think probably the coolest part of having a wrap around screen like this is the charging animation .

So go ahead and plug this phone in with the screen off and the whole thing lights up and animates the battery starting to fill up the whole thing like liquid like liquid power flowing into the phone .

I love this and it doesn't stay on the whole time you're charging .

That'd be kind of annoying at night , but it is pretty damn cool .

You got to admit and notifications will also do the same thing .

They'll sort of glow all the way around the screen , which is super cool .

So seeing this phone on video is pretty sweet and that's one thing , but actually holding it in person and considering using it is a total different thing and it , it brings up a lot of questions .

So now that I've actually held it and sort of used it , I'm here to answer those questions .

So first off , number one , just what does it feel like to hold and use ?

And so to that , I'll say like I mentioned earlier , it's heavy .

But what's funny is it isn't as slippery as some of those other glass phones .

Like it seems like my finger is grippy with the display glass better than it is with some other materials .

And just overall it feels like , well you're holding all screen .

So the immersion factor is very real .

And then you might be wondering , hey , wait a second .

Where are the speaker and the selfie camera up at the front ?

Great question , two different answers .

So there's a regular speaker at the bottom of the device still .

Uh But for your phone calls , that earpiece is replaced by an electromagnetic speaker .

Basically that's vibrating through the glass to create sound .

We've seen this in previous me mix phones and there is no selfie camera at the top .

Instead , when you hit the selfie button , you then flip around the screen to take a selfie with the main 108 megapixel camera .

Now , weirdly , the , the selfie mode doesn't let you switch to ultra wide or do nearly as many things as the main camera modes , which is a bummer .

But in theory , this whole flip action takes your selfies to the next level because they're coming from the high end main camera .

So , all right , then how good are those virtual side buttons on the screen ?

OK .

I'll preface this by saying it's a prototype .

Uh But they're pretty bad .

I mean , the idea is fine in theory .

So there's a power button and a volume button on the right hand side of the screen on the side .

And when you hit that volume button and you get it just right while it's rejecting the palm touch all over the rest of the screen .

But it's realizing that you hit the volume button , it pops up this slider and then you can adjust the volume on the front , no problem by sliding .

But it really only works for me sometimes .

Like maybe there's a trick to holding it just right where you learn over time how to get familiar with the palm rejection , whatever it is .

Uh But I didn't arrive at this .

So this was a bummer .

But then uh there's the power button on the side that literally just puts it to sleep .

That one worked more often for me , which is nice .

And there's also still a physical circular power button at the top of the phone for sleep wake .

Uh That one always works , but it's also more of a reach since it's way up at the top of the phone .

OK .

So how good is the palm rejection or recognition on a crazy screen like this ?

It's hit or miss as you might expect .

So Xiaomi dropped off a little info sheet with this phone and on it , they say they're using a combination of accelerometers , gyroscopes , pressure sensors and software algorithms to be able to tell when you're holding it versus when you're actually using it and to properly do pal rejection .

To me .

This seems like the biggest challenge for a phone with a wrap around screen .

There were definitely times that it impressively worked just fine , but I also in tons of other times using the phone had tons of accidental presses , not including that software volume button .

So it's hit or miss , it's impressive when it works , but it's really annoying when it doesn't .

And then what's the back display even good for ?

What's the point ?

Well , they have so far come up with a couple cool things .

That number one is the charging animation that I told you guys about already .

I think that's pretty sweet .

Maybe the number one cool factor .

And then there's the fact that it takes the stuff from up in the top bar where it typically is and puts it on the sides to keep the front looking even more clean at the top .

That's all right .

The camera viewfinder is also a legitimate benefit .

So we've seen it before that using the main camera as your selfie camera typically gives you better selfies .

So you still get that benefit .

And then there's the special software mode where it detects when you flip over the phone and it activates this panel with some widgets that are a sort of a quick access type of thing .

So there's a timer in there , the weather stuff like that .

That's pretty cool too .

And then just looking cool like that's , that's mainly it , it just , it's pretty sweet to look at .

Oh , also another question , is there a case for it ?

Yes , there is .

I forgot to take video of it , but I can show you this photo .

It literally only has a camera strip to anchor on and then it sort of sort of protects the outside , but not really .

I don't even know why you would put this phone in a case , to be honest , just except that you have a super delicate phone .

And then I want to point out that this display isn't flawless , not to be a downer , but just like when you're working with a prototype , you naturally find a lot of things that could be improved .

And this was the biggest uh illusion breaker of the whole thing was the the edges of the display .

So right at the apex of those sides where it's rounding over the side , there's a gap in the cover glass .

So it's not all one curved piece of glass , there's actually three pieces that sort of connect together .

But when you run your finger over that apex , you can feel it .

So it's not perfectly smooth and then from certain angles , it even catches the light and rainbows a bit and you can really see it .

So that definitely takes away from the wrap around display illusion .

And there's also a fair bit of yellowing at the very edges that you can sometimes notice if you're looking for it .

The camera doesn't pick it up as well as your eyes .

And also this sucker wobbles like crazy on a desk , but that's , I guess unavoidable .

There's no other place for it to lie flat .

The camera bump is literally just a stripe down the middle overall though , I got to say I'm very impressed by this functional prototype .

A lot of the the numbers on paper know if I can really give them full credit .

Like they say it's 100 and 80.6% screen to body ratio , but there's still bezels at the top and the bottom 2.15 millimeters to be exact .

So I don't know if just because you wrap it around the sides , you can say it's over 100% screen to body ratio .

And also what's funny is on paper , the spec sheet again , they mention uh they say it's a 7.9 inch diagonal screen , but it's not that big .

They're measuring it from around the back corner to corner of the display .

Um But really it's more like the size of a pixel four or an iphone 11 pro Max .

Uh But yeah , that's about it in this world where we have crazy concept cars .

I'm glad that we also get to have these wild form over function concept smartphones and maybe that idea turns into something someday .

So let me know what you think of the wrap around display concept in the comment section below .

Would you grab something like this ?

Would you want a phone ?

That's that crazy or is this completely over the moon form over function ?

No reason to exist .

Let me know what you think .

Thanks for watching .

Catch you guys in the next one .

Taste