We take a quick look and unbox Xiaomi’s Mi Mix 3!

After months of waiting, Xiaomi has finally sent over their Mi Mix 3 over for review. For people who’ve been too focused at the Redmi Note 7, the Mi Mix 3 is the company’s all-screen smartphone that uses a unique sliding mechanism to hide its front camera.

We’ve already taken a quick look at the phone a few months ago, but that was a phone equipped with a China ROM for the Chinese domestic market. This time around we’re unboxing a device with the global version of Xiaomi’s MIUI 10.

Packaging and contents:

The Mi Mix 3 comes in an elegant all-black box with just Xiaomi’s logo on the front. Inside lies the phone, a personal message from Xiaomi’s CEO Lei Jun, a wireless charging plate, USB Type-C cable, charger, USB Type-C to 3.5mm jack, a bunch of documentation and a swanky-looking case.

The phone doesn’t come with a pre-applied screen protector – we did that ourselves as to not damage the display while the phone is with us.

That black color looks great!

It really does. While we usually don’t like plain black, the deep coloration on our Onyx Black review device looked amazing and adds to the premium feel of the phone.

The Mi Mix 3 uses a sliding mechanism to preserve that large, 6.39-inch 19.5:9 display, which ensures a screen to body ratio of 94%.

And while the Mi Mix 3 uses a sliding screen just like the Honor Magic 2, the company uses powerful magnets to ensure that the camera doesn’t retract, with the mechanism rated to 300,000 cycles for maximum durability.

However, we did notice that there’s mechanical play between the two halves of the phone when the camera is hidden and the phone is out of the hardcase. There’s a good 1mm of play that you can definitely feel when you pinch the two halves together and try to move the display from side to side. It’s an annoying little niggle that’s not present on the Honor Magic 2, which uses a butterfly mechanism to slide the cameras in and out. Wheter this play will contribute to durability issues down the line (or if this issue is isolated on our review device), we couldn’t tell you.

Here’s a quick rundown of the phone’s exterior: the power and the volume rocker is on the right side, while a dedicated button on the left brings up Google Assistant. The SIM slot is on the same side as well.

On the bottom is the 3.5mm jack, as well as the two speaker grilles.

The rear holds the dual cameras as well as the fingerprint scanner. The two 12-megapixel cameras are a combination of a wide angle and zoom lens: with the main shooter possessing an IMX363 sensor, f/1.8 aperture lens along with four axis OIS. The secondary zoom sensor has a Samsung S5K3M3+ 2x f/2.4 aperture lens.

The front shooters are dual-cameras as well,  24-megapixel Sony IMX576 with 1.8-micron pixels and f/2.2 aperture lens and a secondary 2-megapixel camera.

The Mix Mix 3 has impressive DXoMark scores, putting it ahead of Huawei’s regular P20 flagship, with a score of 108 points.

Inside is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 flagship processor, with our review unit having 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage inside of it. While we’re expecting to see a glut of Snapdragon 855-equipped flagships in the next few months, Qualcomm’s previous gen processor is still fast and entirely capable of taking on all comers (in this case, Android apps) without any issues.

Probably the only thing that’s working against the Mi Mix 3 is its small-ish battery capacity, coming in at 3200mAh. Thankfully the phone has Qualcomm’s QuickCharge 4 and wireless charging capability out of the box.

The Mi Mix 3 is now available in Xiaomi official resellers for Php 29,990.

Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 Specs

• Snapdragon 845 octa-core processor
• Adreno 630 GPU
• 6GB/8GB/10GB RAM
• 6.39-inch 19.5:9 AMOLED display
• 12-megapixel IMX363 f/1.8, 12MP S5K3M3 f/2.4 AI-powered dual rear cameras
• 24-megapixel Sony IMX576 front camera with 2MP AI-powered dual front cameras
• 128GB/256GB of storage
• Dual SIM
• 4G, LTE
• WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS
• Fingerprint scanner, USB Type-C connector, fast charging, wireless charging
• 3200mAh battery
• Android 9 Pie with MIUI 10