Xiaomi promised to announce a flagship: so cool that it had to jump over the ordinal number 7. Mi8 will truly be the best smartphone of 2018. And that's why
Main flagship of the year
Instead of one smartphone, Xiaomi released three at once:
- Flagship super smartphone Mi 8 Explorer Edition: Under-screen scanner, 3D camera for facial recognition, incredible DxO score of 105 for photos, and transparent body;
- Basic version Mi 8;
- younger Xiaomi Mi 8 SE with a smaller diagonal, simplified cameras (apparently, the dual main one was borrowed from the budget Xiaomi S2 for $150 in retail) and processor Snapdragon 710.
Today we have a preliminary review of the basic version, Xiaomi Mi8.
First Xiaomi with AMOLED
To be honest, the G8 turned out to be very ordinary for 2018: an eyebrow, rounded edges of the body and screen, AMOLED.
When you pick up a smartphone, you realize that it is an almost perfect gadget—no other device fits so well. By God! The glass is warm and comfortable. You don’t want to let go of your smartphone even for a minute.
The thickness is comfortable, and the rounded corners seriously add convenience. It seems that this is the only smartphone this year that does not try to get caught on anything. It’s a pity there was no place for wireless charging - but with it the gadget would have cost even more. To hell with it - but this is a cool screen!
An AMOLED matrix with a diagonal of 6.21 inches with a Full HD+ resolution of 2248x1080 pixels is very cool. And this is an unusual matrix - it supports the DCI-P3 color space. The display brightness is 600 nits and the contrast ratio is 60,000:1. Incredibly cool!
The eyebrow spoils the screen a little, but the impression is short-lived - the fact is that MIUI 9.5 is optimized for Xiaomi Mi8 and can hide protrusion: the system notification area is level with it, and since an AMOLED matrix is used, its black color does not have backlight. You simply won’t be able to see the unibrow—black on black doesn’t stand out.
Anniversary Dragon: the most powerful Xiaomi
So. Under the hood is the Quallcomm Snapdragon 845, the traditional flagship of 2018. It comes with 6GB of RAM, which has also become the norm. But there is also an 8 GB option. The storage capacity is either 64, 128, or 256 GB, which is very important in the absence of a slot for memory cards.
On the other hand, the new product supports LTE cat10, so cloud services will work faster than a flash drive. It's almost 5G! In addition, the Snapdragon 845 comes with a number of new network-related features. Together with a fresh operating system with built-in artificial intelligence to create photos, animoji and voice assistant - an incredible combine, comparable in capabilities to the iPhone X.
Thus, the smartphone is equipped with Bluetooth 5.0 and the latest new generation GPS with an accuracy of up to 30 centimeters. See how accurately he lays out the track:
Xiaomi's smart voice assistant is ready to compete with Alice. True, it only works in the Chinese version of MIUI, and only in two languages - English and Chinese. Since it is tied to Xiaomi branded services, there is not much point. But still…
Animoji are the same as those on the iPhone. Believe it or not. You take pictures of your emotions, and at the end you get a cool animated copy of yourself in the form of a cute little animal.
Cameras: the best of the best
Mi8 has a complex front-facing camera: an infrared camera and illumination are added to the regular camera, with which the smartphone will photograph the user’s face in the dark for accurate recognition. In addition, the system uses artificial intelligence XiaAI, with which Face ID works.
The main camera of the Mi8 received as many as 105 points for photos from the main testers of portable photographic equipment DxO. Of course, we use 2 top modules from Sony and Samsung, equipped with sensors with huge pixels to eliminate noise in the photo in the dark.
A dual camera is used to simulate the bokeh effect, improve color and accurately convey the image. Zooming in also works—twofold.
The camera also received 4-axis optical stabilization and RAW support.
Only Xiaomi is better than Xiaomi
Mi8 was a new breakthrough in the development of Xiaomi smartphones: a change in screen technology, a cool camera, and balanced top-end hardware. There is everything - and there is a normal price.
Today it is the only competitor to the iPhone X. We must take it!
