Xiaomi Mi Mix 3

Xiaomi revolutionizes the Mi series design with their new Mi Mix 3. Coming at a price of  Rs. 34,890, Mi Mix 3 is the answer to the dominance of all the top-end flagship rulers in the market.

Mi Mix 3 is a premium all-rounder which does not fall short in any significant aspect. Great design, heavyweight processor and capable battery, Mi Mix 3 is suitable for any premium user.

Mi Mix 3 arrives with a ceramic back and rounded edges, a design that can turn heads as the Mi Mix 2 had done. At 8mm thickness, the device settles in the palms comfortably. However, it is quite heavy at 218 grams.  The 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass on the front settles into the metal frame seamlessly. One of the differences from its predecessors is that the Mi Mix 3 has a slider mechanism which houses that front cameras and sensors. Due to this design choice, the Mi Mix 3 offers a screen-to-body ratio of 85%. Oppo Find X has a similar setup and gets an 87% screen-to-body ratio. It has a fingerprint scanner which works fast and accurately. A major drawback is the absence of any IP certification against dust and water. It does not arrive with standardised water-resistance.

Mi Mix 3 has a 6.39-inch OLED display with a resolution of 2340×1080 pixels, and a pixel density of 400ppi. It is at par with the other flagships which has FullHD resolution. The display is very sharp and has good sunlight legibility. The colours present are quite accurate, and the colour reproduction is satisfying. The large screen size offers an immersive experience when you are watching movies or playing games. The OLED display deepens the black delivering better contrast. However, high-end phones like Samsung Galaxy S9 and HTC U12 Plus, offering 1440p have sharper quality, even when it comes to text.

Mi Mix 3 has a Snapdragon 845 chipset which is one of the best in the market. It is an octa-core processor with four ARM Cortex A75 performance clocked at 2.8 GHz and four ARM Cortex A55 running at 1.8 GHz. Plus, it comes with an Adreno 630 GPU which acts as a stalwart companion. Partnered with the sizable 8GB RAM, the processor can load apps quickly and keep the animations smooth and running. PUBG runs fine at the highest settings. Benchmark scores put it at a multi-core score of 8,634 points beating flagship rival Oppo Find X’s 7,983 points easily.

Mi Mix 3 has a 12MP wide-angle rear camera with an aperture of f/1.8 with a resolution of 4032×3024 pixels and an optical image stabiliser as well as a 12-MP telephoto lens with f/2.4. The rear camera is not spectacular and is unchanged from the Mi 8 cameras. It has excellent colour reproduction, but it becomes weak when it comes to black colours. The white balance is also too warm and shows an unwanted deviation from the perfect contrast. However, the phone can capture enough details and has a good level of sharpness which helps to produce high-quality photos. In low-light situations, however, the phone begins to falter. It fails to manage enough details, and the focus is slow and incapable of detecting subjects. The colours appear washed out and weak. It is in low-light photography that many elite flagships go past the quality of Mi Mix 3. The whopping 24MP selfie camera, accompanied with a 2MP sensor does better than the rear camera. It offers portrait mode with reasonable bokeh that can be adjusted according to your liking. There is AI scene detection too which is fairly accurate while detecting scene. One useful feature is the Studio lighting that can make your selfies more interesting also. On the whole, the combination of features and performance makes the selfie camera is quite good.

Mi Mix 3 has a Snapdragon 845 chipset which is one of the best in the market. It is an octa-core processor with four ARM Cortex A75 performance clocked at 2.8 GHz and four ARM Cortex A55 running at 1.8 GHz. Plus, it comes with an Adreno 630 GPU which acts as a stalwart companion. Partnered with the sizable 8GB RAM, the processor can load apps quickly and keep the animations smooth and running. PUBG runs fine at the highest settings. Benchmark scores put it at a multi-core score of 8,634 points beating flagship rival Oppo Find X’s 7,983 points easily.

Mi Mix 3 is a fantastic phone that gives a beautiful bezel-free screen-to-body ratio. The display is bright and provides a great user experience. The performance is top-end, and while the battery seems small, it performs well. However, Mi Mix 3 has weak cameras and fails to produce quality images. Plus, the body does not have IP certification for waterproofing, making it quite dated. On the whole, however, the Mi Mix 3 looks premium and acts like one too. For cameras and similar performance, a worthy phone to consider is the Pocophone F1.